Page 102 of Gravity of Love
Zion, for his part, had gone completely still, glass paused halfway to his lips.
Lauren seemed to sense she’d dropped a mini-bomb in the group.
Perhaps trying to smooth things over, she tacked on a quick, “He’s actually adreamclient. Never haggled once, never played games. Very direct. It was honestly refreshing. I wish every client I work with was like him.” She shrugged, as if that explained why a man with all the emotional range of a robotic tax accountant had demanded a solarium built to the exact specifications Frankie used to sketch on the backs of her math tests and list out on the pages in all her Mead spiral notebooks.
Poppy, who’d been basking in the glow of her celebrity girl-crushes, blinked as her brain caught up to the conversation. “Wait. I’m confused, are you saying my brother literally bought his house for asunroom?”
Lauren nodded as she clarified, “It was his only non-negotiable requirement, and wish list item. He said—and this is a direct quote—‘This is the only thing I want. If it doesn’t have this exact sunroom, then it could never be my home.’”
Her eyes bounced between Frankie, Poppy, and Zion, as if sensing she’d unlocked some subtext she couldn’t quite grasp and lacked the context to figure out.
After taking another sip of her prosecco, the bubbles making her lips glisten, she launched into the story fully, handsanimated. “Honestly, I thought it was a prank at first. That someone had put him up to it. A sunroom that size, with a brick wall, cement floors, and all north-facing windows?” Her eyes widened. “That’s so specific. Who has a room like that in a residential dwelling? It would be like winning the lottery. Or like stumbling upon a unicorn.”
“Well, damn girl,neigh,” Zee reared his head back as he made a horse sound. “You need to change the town slogan to Hope Falls, where magic is real and miracles happen.”
Lauren pointed at Zion. “A miracle, yes! That’s exactly what I told Ben. ‘If I find this, it is divine intervention!” She refocused with a deep inhale, then exhale. “I checked every listing in the valley and even pulled property records for stuff off-market. Nada. There were a few sunrooms, but none that were five hundred square foot, facing north with concrete floors and one brick wall, and I knew not to present him with anything less. From the first time I met him, I could see he was not a man who compromised.” She shrugged. “So I told him I’d keep I’d keep my eyes open and let him know if anything came up. Honestly, I never thought I’d speak to him again.”
Frankie listened, her ears still ringing.
Lauren continued, “Then, about six months ago, the Hollis house came up for sale. Catherine Hollis messaged me and said she was retiring to Arizona and asked if I would be the listing agent. I’d never seen the house, and when I walked in, I nearly had a heart attack.” She shook her head back and forth as a slow smile spread on her lips. “I took a video, showing him the wall of brick,heatedconcrete floors, floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the koi pond with a waterfall, and the whole thing tucked under a cantilevered roof, it was perfect. I texted it to Liam. He replied, asking if it faced north. I said yes. He told me to offer ten thousand over the asking price. I asked him if hewanted to know what the price was, he said no. That was it. We were under contract by close of business the following day.”
Frankie’s mind reeled. Growing up, Liam had been her everything, but she’d never thought she was anything more to him than someone he tolerated. Sure, she knew he found her fearlessness and bravery amusing, but never once did she think their relationship was anything more than her being infatuated with him, him tolerating her waddling around after him like a duckling, and her feelings being unreciprocated.
Lauren went on, warming to her narrative. “Cathy said the sunroom wasn’t original to the house. Her granddad built it himself in the sixties after he retired. He was a carpenter, kind of a local legend—Wayne “The Hammer” Hollis. He built this place, Mountain Ridge, well his company did. He started out using the studio as his home workshop, but then his wife, Nancy, got sick. Cancer. She couldn’t get outside much. So he converted the workshop to a sunroom for her, so that way she could sit there and watch the ducks on the pond.”
The group was quiet for a moment, the kind of silence that ripples out when someone brings up a soft tragedy.
“Sorry…that’s really sweet, but…” Poppy looked back and forth between Frankie and Lauren, confusion written large on her face. “I still don’t get it. My brother does not paint. He doesn’t evendoodle. If you asked him to draw a cat, he’d probably just write the word ‘cat’ on a sticky note. I’m not saying that to be mean. I’m a liability on family game nights, and we commiserate in our lack of artistic ability. Are yousurethat Liam really wanted the sunroom forart?” She was clearly still stuck on that one detail, that her brother purchased his house with a singular confusing criterion.
Lauren nodded.
Karina, who’d been rolling the stem of her glass between her forefinger and thumb, cut in. “Maybe he just wanted it for the vibes.”
Lauren grinned. “Have you met him? He’s never home. The man is at the hospital twelve days a week and runs trail marathons for fun. But he was fixated on this sunroom thing. He waited fourteen months until that house came on the market.”
Fourteen months? Liam asked for that sunroom fourteen months ago? How could Frankie make that puzzle piece fit? Not only is the room her dream…literally, she’d talked about that sunroom for years, mapped out the dimensions, the window placement, the bricks, the cement flooring, even the direction it would face, but that he’d asked for it when she’d still lived in New York and was engaged to his brother and they hadn’t spoken in a decade.
Zion must have sensed she was about to blow a fuse, because he gently nudged Frankie’s elbow as Lauren, Poppy, and Karina continued speculating about why Liam bought the house for the sunroom.
She snapped out of it. “What?”
He leaned close to her ear, voice low, so only she could hear. “You okay?”
Her mouth was dry, but she nodded.
Karina mercifully steered the conversation to safer waters by asking Lauren about her latest season ofHome Sweet Home. Lauren shared a story about a disastrous “tiny house” episode, where the entire crew had to camp out in a 250-square-foot trailer for a week and the producer developed a spontaneous allergy to synthetic plaid. The group laughed, the tension receded, and for a moment, Frankie thought she might be able to let the thing go—tuck the knowledge about the sunroom into a back pocket for the rest of the reception and then speak to Liam after.
But Zion’s hand found her shoulder and squeezed once, briefly, the way he had during every bad breakup or funeral or catastrophic test grade in college, and he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “You need to speak to him.”
She glanced up at him, her smile in place, her lips not moving. “No shit, Sherlock,” she replied sarcastically, doing her best ventriloquist impression.
His smile spread from ear to ear, and there was, well, glee dancing in his eyes, there was no other way to put it as he gave her a slow clap.
“What?” she snapped defensively.
“You’re back. I haven’t seen that fire in your eye since I left and your world imploded. Now Iknowyou’re gonna be just fine no matter what happens. My work here is done.” He kissed her on the top of the head.
Then, as if the universe, or at least the wedding DJ, sensed that she’d needed a karmic reset, the music stopped and the DJ’s voice boomed over the speakers, announcing that it was time for the bouquet toss. A ripple of excitement rolled through the room as he instructed, “Single ladies, assemble on the dance floor!”
