Page 65
No shoes by the door. No jacket tossed over a chair. No casual evidence that someone comes home here and lets himself belong to it.
It's like the man comes home and barely touches anything. Like he doesn't trust himself to settle in.
Something about that gets to me more than I think he'd ever want it to.
"Finally," a male voice calls from the kitchen. "The groom has arrived."
Levi is already there, holding a drink and grinning like he's been waiting specifically for an audience.
Behind him, Christian loosens his tie with one hand and takes a sip of something amber with the other. He looks like he came straight from the office.
"We're early," Everett says.
Zayne walks out from the kitchen and crosses the living room. "Aria. You wore my favorite color."
"You have a favorite color?" I ask.
"I didn't until right now," Zayne grins.
Everett's hand lands at my lower back.
"Stop."
Zayne blinks innocently. "I'm being charming."
"No," Everett says. "You're being Zayne. For once, can all of you stop being yourselves until after she says I do and signs the marriage certificate. Before she gets enough sense to walk back out that door."
There's the faintest ghost of a smirk on his mouth when he says it, and the room laughs.
"She might as well know what kind of family she's tying herself to," Levi mutters into his drink.
Wes walks in already on a call, murmuring something about a purchase structure before ending it and slipping his phone into his pocket.
Archer appears next, quiet and sharp-eyed, like he'd rather be reviewing security reports than attending a family event but came anyway because family is family.
And suddenly all eight of them are here.
All Kauffmans. All in one place.
Everly materializes at my side the way she always does—already mid-thought, already three steps ahead, like she's been waiting for the rest of us to catch up.
She hooks her arm through mine.
"Come on," she says. "Before they all get louder."
She steers me a few steps away and lowers her voice.
"Thank God there's finally going to be another woman in this family. I'm drowning in testosterone."
"Only for the next year," I remind her.
She gives me a look. "Yeah. We'll see about that."
I laugh, then glance back toward the others. "It's still crazy to me that all eight of you only met five years ago. You'd never know it watching you together."
Her smile softens.
"Somehow it feels like we were always supposed to end up here anyway," she says. Then she tips her chin toward the room. "Levi is the heart. Colston is the bulldozer. Zayne is the glue. Wes is the brains. Archer is the protector, and Christian is the conscience, which must be exhausting for him. Everett is..."
