Page 288 of The Fall
Blair beams at me.
“When you come back to playing hockey,” Lily asks, “will you and Uncle Blair have your names on each other’s jerseys?”
Hayes chokes on his Dole Whip. “Lily, baby?—”
“You said they were old and married, Daddy!”
Blair laughs. “We might, hon. We might.” His eyes meet mine over Lily’s head. “You’d look good in a Callahan jersey.”
A smudge of cinnamon sugar clings to Lily’s cheek. I wipe it away with my thumb. “You’d look better in a Kendrick jersey,” I tease back.
Hayes clears his throat. “So, Space Mountain again? Pirates? The teacups?” He’s scrolling through the park app, but I catch the grin he’s trying to smother beneath his pink cheeks.
Erin shifts beside me, one hand on her rounded belly. “Baby Rocket and I will sit this one out. We’ll be at the ice cream parlor for our third round.”
“You okay?” I ask.
“He’s practicing his kicks,” she says, patting her stomach. “Future soccer star, this one.”
“Hockey,” Hayes corrects automatically. “He’s practicing his shot.”
Blair stands, stretching, and holds out his hand to me. “Ready for another adventure?”
When night falls, we hunt for a spot for fireworks. Blair’s fingers hook through mine as we weave between families and balloon strings and tired toddlers negotiating for five more minutes. We drift together, our little flotilla cutting through the slow-moving sea. The lagoon to our right mirrors our walk, water black and glassy, and for a heartbeat I see the reflection of us: Blair in pale-blue, my hand tethered to his. Harbor lights and safe passage.
We claim our spot right on time, and Lily curls up in my arms, her breath feathering my collarbone, warm and sweet withchurro sugar. Hayes tips his forehead to Erin’s temple, their silhouettes cut out in gold. And Blair stands behind me, both his arms wrapped around my waist, his chin on my shoulder for the whole world to see.
The first burst blooms across the sky, and colors dance across Blair’s face. He catches me watching him and smiles. “What?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “Just happy.” Tonight feels like summer I want to keep in a jar.
The water ripples when the next burst blooms, colors sliding over Blair’s forearms where they lock around my waist. I think of all the water that’s carried us: dark waters and golden shores and breakers that tore through our lives, and the rain that sometimes wakes us, soft as whispers from another world. I think about time slips and second chances, about love that transcends logic, about brothers who still love each other from the beyond, and about the terrible grace of losing everything and the fierce joy of working to build it back.
Another crack splits the sky, and Lily tucks closer. I sway her without thinking, and Blair sways with us. He threads our fingers together and I smile; I want the whole world to know I belong to him.
“I love you,” Blair says beneath the boom and the sparkle.
“I love you, too.”
The grand finale starts, and for a second, everything is noise and color and heat. I lean back into him and hold on. The sky explodes, reds and blues and golds bursting like stars being born right above us. The reflection on the water doubles the magic, a mirror world where everything is just as beautiful, but softer.
When the final volley lights up the entire sky, the whole park seems to hold its breath before the fireworks fade to smoke and stars, and Lily stirs, mumbling about one more ride.
“Tomorrow, pirate,” I whisper into her hair, sugar and sunscreen clinging in the strands.
The crowd starts to flow, a tide pulling us toward the exit. Blair unwinds his arms from my waist but keeps one hand at the small of my back as the current of people swallows us. At the gates, the noise thins. Night bugs chirr in the landscaping.
By the time we reach the car, Lily is dead weight, mouth open, breathing slow. Erin lowers herself into the passenger seat with a sigh that has a laugh tucked inside it. Blair opens my door and waits until I’m in to lean down, forearm braced on the frame. “Tomorrow we sleep in,” he says. “I’ll feed you pancakes in bed until you explode.”
The park recedes behind us, glitter and music fading to a memory that already feels golden.
We drive home in peace, stinking of glitter and sunscreen and sugar. Blair finds my thigh without looking, his thumb rubbing absent-mindedly into muscle. Lights strobe across our faces on the highway. Palms blur into tall, dark smudges. My body loosens, everything inside me settling like sand after a wave. Every circle Blair traces says I’ve got you in his quiet, steady way. I turn my hand over on my thigh, lacing our fingers together.
“Today was good,” he says simply.
I kiss him, tasting salt and sweetness. “The best.”
Sixty-One
