Page 98 of Forever Home

The audacity.

Placing the pastries down, Knox turns to me with a raised brow. “Madi, you would never eat pastries from anyone but yourself or your mom, so I don’t know what the fuss is about. Your mom was busy, so you were the next obvious choice," he says, rolling his eyes. “I swear, she will never let me live that down.”

Samantha snorts a laugh and hurriedly gets up from her chair to take the food plate from me, earning herself a glare.

“Callum, will you leave Jaxson alone? He is a world-renowned chef. He doesn’t need you to tell him how to make a potato salad,” Knox calls inside the house after his partner. “Please, just get out here with the rest of the food, you two. We are starving!”

The thought of Callum telling Jaxson how to cook makes me internally laugh. The more and more I’ve hung around Callum, the more I’vegrown to love him. I can never understand why he didn’t really want to hang out with us before. But Knox says it’s because he never wanted to come in the middle of anything.

He quickly learned that this was a silly thought.

He’s part of the family, and that’s all that matters.

Callum and Jaxson join the rest of us outside, carrying the remainder of the dishes they prepared and setting them on the table. A small glance between Jaxson and me brings a smile to my lips that I try to hide.

“Jaxson, this is great!” Kylie says appreciatively at the spread. “This makes me want to learn how to cook.”

“Sure, Kylie, I can—” Jaxson begins, but I quickly cut him off.

As much as I love Kylie… she is not the fine-dining kind of girl when it comes to cooking. And Jaxson showing her anything would only be a waste of time. Hell, I remember when this girl burned water. Like, literally let it boil dry and fucked up the pot kind of incident.

“Kylie, you don’t want to learn fine cooking. I can teach you the basics, that’s what we can start on first,” I say, leaving Samantha’s side to go around to where Kylie is standing next to Jaxson. My arms wrap around Kylie into a hug as I steer her to the other side of the table to take a seat beside Sam.

As the afternoon grows on and the food and laughter continue, we finally get to a point where the nervousness in Asher is clear as day to everyone. All of us are well aware of what he’s planning to do. So when he asks us to follow him to the base of the treehouse, we do.

“Guys, it’s been a hell of a ride getting here,” he says loudly, drawing Samantha close by the hand as he lifts her fingers to his lips. She smiles as he brushes a kiss over them. “But we’re so grateful for our renewed friendship with all of you.”

“We’re excited for this next chapter in our lives, and we couldn’t have asked for better people to share it with than you,” Asher says as Sam raises her glass of lemonade. “Every one of you has been the rocks we could lean on over the last year, and we just want to say thank you, and we love you.”

Sam’s eyes are wet with unshed tears as she says, “You guys have guided and supported us when we needed it the most. I’m so grateful to each and every one of you.”

Asher clears his throat before he hands his bear to Knox and turns back to Samantha.

Here we go.

“Sam, it took us a long time to get to this point. And I refuse to let us wait another decade to make the next move,” he says as he kneels and pulls a ring out of his pocket. The rest of us cheer on the celebration. “Sam, we met, grew up, fell in love, and made so many memories together, all thanks to the treehouse. I think it's only right that this next part happens here, too. Will you marry me, Dragonfly?”

Tears fill my eyes at the happy moment. Everything about the proposal is absolutely perfect and when she says yes we all cheer in celebration at the engagement. It isn’t until I walk back to the house to grab the cake though, that I let all my emotions come to a head. The tears finally stream down my cheeks as I grab the cake from the fridge and begin to unbox it.

As happy as I am for them, part of me yearns to have what they do. To be happy like they are.

But, I’m not.

Sam’s engaged… Kylie gets married next month.

I’m envious of them both, and I feel like I’m missing out on an entire life that I should be having but have refused to have out of my own fear.

“Everything okay?” Knox asks when he steps inside the kitchen. My eyes meet his briefly as I wipe away the tears and let out a small laugh.

“Yeah, totally. I’m just so happy for them.”

“It can be you one day as well,” he replies after a moment. “Maybe with Jaxson?”

I stop what I’m doing. I’d agreed to try to be friends with Jaxson again, but the thought of being more anytime soon doesn’t feel right… at least not right now. Not after everything that’s happened between us.

I don’t say that to Knox, because I know he will protest.

“Maybe,” I reply as I finally finish freeing the cake from its container. “That’s something to worry about another time, though. For now, let’s go show off this badass cake that Callum created and I executed… flawless, if I do say so myself.”

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