Page 176 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

"That's—" Beckett starts.

"Pancakes are getting cold," I sing, taking mercy, and carry the plates to the table.

We eat.

Actually sit down and eat, all four of us crammed around a table that's a little too small, elbows knocking, the good maplesyrup going around, and it's loud and warm and stupid in the best way.

August steals the crispy edges off Beckett's stack when he thinks no one's looking. Beckett notices every single time and lets him.

Sawyer keeps up a running commentary rating each pancake on a scale he refuses to explain.

"That one's a seven-point-five," he declares around a mouthful. "Good crumb. Lost points on geometry."

"Pancakes don't have geometry," Beckett says.

"Everything has geometry, Beck. That's what makes it a nine or a seven-point-five." Sawyer aims his fork at August's plate. "His come out nines every time, because he pours them like he's defusing a landmine. Slow. Even. It's honestly a little sad how good he is at it."

"I contain myself," August says serenely, and reaches over to lift another crispy edge off Beckett's stack.

"That's the fourth one," Beckett says, without looking up.

"I'm aware."

"Just say you want your own, August."

"I don't want my own. I want yours. It tastes better when it's stolen."

"Everything tastes better stolen," Sawyer agrees. "Ask any raccoon."

"I am not a raccoon."

"You have raccoon values. It's a compliment — raccoons are survivors."

Beckett slides the last of his crispy edges onto August's plate without a word, the way you'd feed a stray you've quietly decided to keep, then goes back to his coffee like he didn't.

August pretends not to notice.

I pretend not to notice August pretending.

I referee, badly.

I eat more than I mean to.

The whole time there's this ache building behind my ribs that has nothing to do with hurt.

Nobody mentions the empty chair.

Cade never came home last night —chose the bar again, the way he keeps choosing everything else but me lately— and the four of us have gotten quietly good at leaving a Cade-shaped gap in the conversation and stepping around it.

I notice the gap…always notice.

I just don't have it in me, this morning of all mornings, to be the one who names it.

This is the exact thing I spent five years refusing to picture, because picturing it and not having it might have finished me.

A slow Sunday. A crowded table. Three men who bicker like brothers and look at me like I'm the point of the whole arrangement. I've orchestrated other people's happily-ever-afters for a living, hundreds of them, and I never once let myself believe I'd get to sit inside my own.

"You've gone quiet," August says, gentle, watching me over the rim of his coffee with those hyper-observant eyes that never miss a change in a room. "Good quiet or bad quiet?"