Well Suited (Red Lipstick Coalition #4)(67)

Never in my life had I seen anything so lovely.

I spun her around, reveling in her laughter as I pulled her back into my arms. I held her as close as I could, wishing I could bring her flush to me. I wanted to feel the press of her body against mine, but the baby was in the way.

So I took what I could get, any way I could get it.

Her smile was open, wide and free. Here in my arms was my Kate. My forever.

The transformation in her went far beyond her growing belly. She had become Kate, fully and completely, relaxing into us. Leaning in. Smiles came easier, her laughter won sometimes with little more than a glance. Everything about her had softened with her trust in me and her faith in us.

She’d finally committed to me. And it was time I officially committed to her.

Katherine smiled up at me. “What?”

“What, what?”

A chuckle. “You have a look on your face like you want to say something.”

My heart flipped. “Oh, I have things to say, Kate. So many things.”

But instead of speaking them, I kissed her smiling lips.

She sighed. “Tonight has been absolutely perfect.”

“I was just thinking that.”

“Everything. This venue. The food. The ceremony and the party. This suit on you.”

“This dress on you,” I added, thumbing the creamy chiffon tie of her dress.

“It just feels right,” she said. “Such a strange thing to feel, that there’s a deep and unexplainable rightness to things. I wonder what that is,” she mused. “The shared experience—collective effervescence, it’s called—of so many people in one place? I read a study once that compared the feeling of exaltation when you go to church to the same way you feel at Comic-Con or a concert. It’s the collective experience, but it affects us all differently, personally, so we feel that we’re singularly experiencing the sensation.”

“Or maybe it’s just right.”

She smiled. “Well, that would imply a fatalist quality to things.”

“You don’t think there could be other forces at work? Scientific forces?”

“I’ve never seen math on fate,” she joked.

“What if—follow me here for a minute, Kate—what if the universe is a big machine, one that’s been rolling and turning its cogs for billions of years? And we’re this tiny, little piece of this big machine, and each piece inside has its own trajectory. And what if there was an order to things, and if our little brains could fathom it, if we could actually grasp the math, we could see the path for each piece? What if certain pieces were drawn together using chemical reactions, like the connection of hydrogen and oxygen to make water? Fate doesn’t have to mean there’s a conscious being guiding those pieces. It could just be our best explanation for physics we can’t possibly understand.”

Her pretty face was touched with amusement and connection. “That is a theory I’d like to read more about.”

Amelia materialized beside us, looking sheepish. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need a hand in the ladies’. I love this dress, but needing three people to help me pee is the worst.”

“I’ll be right back,” Katherine promised, hitching up on her tiptoes as she stretched for a kiss, which I provided.

I sighed happily, slipping my hands in my pockets as I watched them go. My fingers closed over the ring box and turned it around, testing the corners.

Tommy stepped up next to me, my duplicate in almost all ways, including his pose. Our eyes were still following them.

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” he said with a lovesick smile on his face. “How I ever convinced her to love me, I’ll never know.”

“Well, when you’re not being a pain in the ass, you’re pretty lovable.”

“Flatterer,” he said with a smirk.

“You’ve met your match.”

“I have,” he said quietly.

“And I think I’ve met mine, too.”

He stilled but for his face, which turned to me.

“I know it’s crazy, but I love her. I’ve never…I just didn’t even know it was possible to feel like I do. I’d take a fucking bullet for her. I’d wither away and turn to dust without her. She’s it. This is it.”

He watched me for a protracted moment. “I don’t think it’s crazy at all.”

It was my turn to lay a look on him. “What, no quip? No warning?”

“If it were me before Amelia, I’d have told you you should get your head checked. But now that I know? Theo, if she’s it, then go get her. Look at me. Have you ever seen me this happy?”

“Never,” I admitted.

“And it’s because of her. I didn’t know how miserable I was until she got caught up in my life. Until she saved me from myself. I want that for you. I want you to be this happy. I want you to have what I have. I knew from the second I saw you and Katherine together that this was it. You found her, Theo. Do whatever you have to do to keep her.”

I nodded, swallowing hard. “Tonight. I’ve been waiting for weeks, and I don’t want to wait a minute longer.”

He clapped me on the shoulder, his face alight as he pulled me into a hug.

“Then don’t. Go get your girl.”