Page 123 of My Best Friend Is Broken
The afternoon drifts on in a warm haze of good company and Christmas cheer. We eat too much, because Dario’s cheese selection is indeed excessive, but also delicious, and drink just enough to make everything feel soft around the edges without anyone getting properly drunk.
Molly continues his wedding planning with the dedication of a military general planning a campaign, with Liam as his willing co-conspirator and Ginni as a surprisingly invested consultant. Carlo offers periodic reality checks about budget and logistics, which Molly dismisses with airy waves of his hand.
“Money is no object when it comes to love,” he declares dramatically.
“Money is always an object,” Dante counters. “That’s why it’s called money.”
“You have no romance in your soul.”
“I have plenty of romance. I just also have financial sense.”
Dario catches my eye across the room and gives me a small nod, a silent acknowledgment that we’re both in the same boat, watching the people we love be happy, knowing we’d give them anything to keep that happiness going.
As the winter sun starts to set, painting the room in shades of gold and orange, I look around at this collection of people who’ve somehow become family. Not the family I was born into, but a family I chose. One that chose me back.
Carlo, who’s been my friend since I was barely old enough to understand what loyalty meant. Dante, whose dry wit and ominous presence hides a fierce protective streak. Dario, who trusted me with the most important person in his world and then promoted me for helping to keep him safe. Molly, who welcomed Liam with open arms and made him feel like he belonged.
And even Ginni, this strange, intense young man who’s probably going to cause Carlo all sorts of trouble, feels like he fits here.
But most of all, I look at Liam. My fiancé, soon to be my husband, the person who survived hell and came out the other side still capable of love and laughter and hope. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, debating flower arrangements with the kind of serious intensity usually reserved for matters of life and death, and he’s never looked more beautiful.
This is it. This is what I’ve been fighting for, what every difficult choice and moral compromise has been in service of. Not power or money or respect, but this. A warm room full of people who care about each other, planning futures that include joy instead of just survival.
“Nicky,” Liam says, looking up at me with those impossibly blue eyes. “Come sit with us. Molly wants your opinion on whether we should have a string quartet or a DJ.”
“String quartet,” I say immediately, settling down beside him. “More elegant.”
“That’s what I said!” Molly exclaims triumphantly. “See, Liam? Nicolo has taste.”
“I never said he didn’t have taste,” Liam protests. “I just think a DJ would be more fun.”
“We can have both,” I suggest. “String quartet for the ceremony and dinner, DJ for dancing later.”
Molly gasps like I’ve just revealed the secrets of the universe. “Brilliant! Perfect! This is why you’re capo material, Nicolo. You think strategically.”
The conversation dissolves into the logistics of dual musical entertainment, and I let myself sink into it, into the mundane joy of planning something as normal as a wedding. No violence, no danger, just friends gatheredaround a fire on Christmas day, helping us plan the happiest day of our lives.
Later, as we’re leaving, laden with leftover food that Molly insisted we take and a folder full of magazine clippings that he’s marked as ‘essential reference material’, Liam slips his free hand into mine.
“Thank you,” he says quietly as we walk to the car through the cold December night.
“You don’t have to thank me for anything.”
“I want to. I want to thank you. For this. For giving me a life where I get to plan weddings with friends instead of just trying to survive each day. For loving me enough to make me believe I deserve happiness.”
I stop walking, turn to face him properly. The streetlights cast shadows across his face, but I can still see the emotion there, gratitude and love and something that looks like wonder.
“You’ve always deserved happiness,” I tell him. “I’m just glad I get to be part of it.”
He kisses me there on the street, cold and quick but full of promise. “Come on,” he says when we break apart. “Let’s go home.”
Home. Our apartment for now, but soon the house in Hampstead with its four bedrooms and garden and the room that will be his medical practice. The place where we’ll build our life together, where we’ll wake up every morning as husbands instead of just boyfriends.
As we drive through London, Christmas lights twinkling in windows and the city settling into its holiday quiet, I think about how far we’ve come. Engaged, established, surrounded by people who love us and support us.
It wasn’t an easy journey. Trauma and violence shaped both of us in ways we’re still learning to navigate. But we made it. Together, we made it to the other side.
Liam is scrolling through his phone, smiling at what’s probably a text from Molly about some wedding planning emergency. He looks happy. Actually, genuinely happy in a way I once thought might be impossible after everything he’d been through.
