Page 202 of Wild Then Wed
I take a sip of the champagne, just to have something to do with my hands. It’s dry and a little sweet. Fancy. Definitely not boxed.
“So what doyoudo?” I ask, shifting slightly in my seat so I can face her better.
Nova crosses one leg over the other, smooth and confident. “I’m an event planner. Weddings, mostly. Some fundraisers, the occasional bat mitzvah. Basically, if it requires place cards and fairy lights, I’ve probably done it.”
I nod, because of course she is. It fits her—her presence, the way she somehow manages to make every interaction feel important, like she’s already figured out the emotional temperature of the room and adjusted accordingly. She’s one of those people who knows exactly where the dessert table should go to keep a bride’s mother-in-law from spiraling. You can just tell.
“And you seriously just had a baby?” I ask, motioning toward her. “Because you look…incredible.”
She grins. “Pilates. Religiously. All the way through my third trimester. Swear it’s the only reason I don’t walk like I just got off a bucking bronco.”
I chuckle. “Do you have a picture of her?”
She lights up and pulls out her phone without hesitation. “Do I have a picture of her? Wren. My entire camera roll is her sleeping. Or blinking. Or just…existing, really.” She hands me her phone and shows me a photo of a newborn lying on a cream blanket in a ruffled pink onesie, her little fists curled tight near her cheeks, her dark hair thick and shiny. Her eyes are closed and her lips in that soft, instinctive pout babies always seem to have.
“That’s our Charlotte. We call her Lottie,” she says softly, proud in a way that makes me ache.
“She’s beautiful,” I say, handing her phone back.
“She better be. I had to push all eight pounds and eleven ounces of her out of me.”
That makes me laugh again, and she grins like she’s proud of that, too.
Then she tilts her head. “Do you have any kids?”
I shake my head and try to smile like it’s nothing. “No kids.”
“Do you and Sawyer want them? You know. Down the line?”
I hesitate—just for a second—but she catches it.
She holds up a hand. “That’s personal. You don’t have to answer that.”
Her voice softens, but her eyes stay steady. “Some women don’t want kids. And that’s okay. The world makes it feel like we’re supposed to, like we’re failing some unspoken test if we don’t hand over our bodies and our lives just because we can. It’s bullshit.”
She says it so plainly, but hearing it out loud still makes something knot up in my chest.
“You get to choose the life you want,” she adds, taking a sip of champagne. “And it doesn’t have to involve diapers or daycare unless you say so.”
I nod, my fingers curling tighter around the stem of my glass. “We’re just enjoying being aunt and uncle for now.”
The words slip out smoother than they should for something I’ve never actually said out loud. They sound like an excuse I’ve rehearsed in my head enough times to almost believe it myself. Even if it still lands heavy in my chest, even if part of me hates how easily it covers the truth.
But Nova doesn’t press, and I’m grateful. Because the real answer—the one that lives somewhere between grief and acceptance—doesn’t belong here. Not at a table glowing with candlelight and laughter, with champagne flutes catching gold and strangers leaning in like old friends. Some truths are too sharp for soft places.
Nova nods like she understands anyway. “Honestly? Good answer.”
And just like that, the conversation shifts. Something about Lottie smiling for the first time yesterday—probably gas, but Nova’s choosing to believe otherwise. I let her words fill the air between us and lean back in my chair.
Shit.Does Sawyer want kids?
I haven’t asked. We haven’t talked about what comes next. We’ve been too busy navigating the mess we’re already in—figuring out how to share a last name, a bed, a life that wasn’t supposed to be real but is slowly turning real in every sense of the word. We’re still pretending, technically. But every time he touches me, it feels a little less like make-believe and a little more like something I won’t be able to survive losing.
And if this keeps going—if we keep going—what happens when we get to the part where we have to talk about the future? About babies and forever and everything I can’t promise him?
Would he regret it? Would he look at me one day, years from now, and wonder what he gave up by choosing someone who can’t give him everything?
Would he start to feel like he settled for something smaller than what he really wanted? Like I was a placeholder for a life that could’ve been bigger?
