Page 205 of Wild Then Wed
Nova hears it anyway. She narrows her green eyes at him, feigning offense. “Excuse you! If anything, I’m the reason she stayed!”
I smile, and Sawyer turns to me like he’s waiting for confirmation.
“Don’t look so surprised,” I say, nudging his arm. “Nova’s great.”
Nova lifts her glass, smug. “Told you.”
Sawyer chuckles.
The conversation picks back up around us—Joel asking Nova about the flowers on the table, Nova telling Joel to text her mom to check in on Lottie, Joel saying he’s already texted her six times in the two hours—and for a moment, it feels like we’ve always known these people, like we’ve always had this.
Sawyer leans closer, his shoulder brushing mine. “Are you sure the food’s okay? I wasn’t totally sure about the risotto, but—”
I kiss him.
It’s not long or cinematic. Just a press of my lips against his, my hand finding the side of his neck. He stills for half a second, and then I feel him smile into it.
“Thank you,” I whisper, close enough that only he can hear. “For thinking of me.”
His hand slides back to my thigh, his palm grounding me right to the spot. “I’m always thinking of you.”
He says it as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like it’s not this massive, life-altering truth that makes my ribs ache in the gentlest, most impossible way.
And my heart—my always-cautious, always-guarded heart—just…settles. Because that’s what he does. He settles me.
And maybe that’s the difference between this and everything else. With him, I don’t feel anxious. I don’t feel like I’m balancing on a wire, waiting to fall. My heartbeat doesn’t race in warning when I’m around him—it softens. Like it knows it’s safe here, with him—that it’s finally been given permission to slow down.
There’s no falling in love with Sawyer Hart.
Falling sounds terrifying. Falling implies panic. It implies a loss of control. It sounds like something you survive, not something you choose. It sounds like losing your footing, like crashing into something sharp. Andthis…this isn’t that. This is steady. This is warm hands and quick kisses and risotto I can actually eat. This is a man who doesn’t say things for show, whonever makes me feel like too much or too little. This is a hand on your thigh under a linen-draped table while laughter echoes across the room.
This is my pulse softening under the weight of his palm. This is the way he never asks me to be anything I’m not.
This is me, slowly understanding that I’m safe with someone who’s never once made me feel like I wasn’t.
There’s no falling here. No edges to brace for. No bottom rushing up to meet me.
Just this quiet love that opens up like a kaleidoscope—all shifting light and steady color, something beautiful every time I turn toward him. It’s slow and certain and meets me exactly where I am, like it’s been waiting to find me all along.
It’s love, not as a freefall—but as aplace.Lived-in and light-filled. With creaky floors and sun-warmed windows. Where nothing has to be earned to be kept. A place I can walk into without knocking.
A place that opens its door and says,you’re home.
It’s a love that stays.
Quiet and constant and mine.
Chapter 35
WREN
By the time dessert’s cleared, my social battery is clinging to its last spark of life.
I’ve nodded and smiled and made small talk with the two other couples seated at our table who aren’t Joel and Nova—both of whom apparently Sawyer knows well enough to count as extended family. One of the women leaned in to get a better look at my ring, her mouth forming a softwow, and asked how he proposed. I made something up about it being quiet and sweet, and she swooned like it was the best story she’d ever heard.
Sawyer didn’t correct me. He just brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles, like he’d do it again in a heartbeat.
He’s been doing that all night—tracing circles on my lower back, curling his fingers around mine, sliding his hand along my thigh under the table. I’ve never been a PDA person. Not even when I dated Ethan, who used to hover behind me like a security detail and expect a reward for something as simple as putting his hand on my hip.
