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“Speak for yourself,” Sariah interrupted.
“I am. You were unpleasant constantly,” I replied, and she flipped me off. “But mostly, I think we were both just scared. We convinced ourselves we didn’t need anyone. We’d learned early on that love is conditional. That people stay until you become inconvenient, difficult, too much, not enough… whatever excuse they needed to make leaving feel justified.”
Somewhere in the crowd, my gaze found Theo. He leaned against the table, his chin resting in his hand as his attention focused on me.
“When that happens enough times, you begin to realize that the smart thing to do is beat everyone to it. You make sure you don’t need people, you don’t trust people, and you don’t give anyone enough of yourself so that losing them could actually hurt,” I continued. “We were both really fucking good at that part. And for a long time, we thought that was strength.”
I finally forced myself to look back at Sariah. Her expression had softened as her arm looped through May’s, and she rested her head on May’s shoulder.
“But the problem with building walls to keep people from hurting you is that eventually, you end up trapped behind them too,” I said. That one hit harder than I meant it to because I understood the concept more intimately now. “And then Sariah lost a bet, which meant she had to go do a stranger photoshoot—the pictures are the centerpieces. You should go around and take a look when you get the chance.
“May, I’ve watched you love this woman relentlessly for years. You never once tried to tear down her walls.” I glanced toward Theo again, my attention drawn back to him. “You just kept showing up whenever she needed you, even when she thought she didn’t. You showed through your actions every day that she didn’t need those walls with you.”
Theo’s smile widened a little too knowingly, and my throat tightened. Fuck. This was supposed to be about Sariah.
It was absolutely about Sariah.
And yet, I could practically feel Theo’s hands on my thighs as I rambled about stars. I could hear him telling me he wanted to hear more. I could see the unlocked back door, the beach, the coffee shop. Every little moment he had given me room to become comfortable instead of demanding more than I could possibly give.
“You gave her space when she needed it. You stayed close when she didn’t know how to ask you to. You learned when she needed reassurance and when she needed someone besides me to tell her she was being a stubborn asshole,” I said, and May laughed softly through the emotion already gathering in her expression. “I can’t think of another person better suited for my best friend than you.”
May’s gaze dropped to Sariah, and something passed between them that was so quiet and intimate I almost felt like an asshole for speaking through it.
“But I think the thing I admire most is that you never decided you knew better than she did of what your love was supposed to look like. You learned her. You learned when to push and when to back off. You learned which silences meant she needed space and which ones meant she was waiting for someone to notice she wasn’t okay.”
Sariah blinked quickly, trying to hold back tears.
“You figured out that loving someone means figuring out what makes them feel loved and deciding, over and over again, that they’re worth the effort.” My gaze wandered right back to Theo before I could stop it. There was something in his expression I couldn’t quite read—not quite surprise but something like recognition. I wondered if he was thinking about all the times he’d done precisely that for me because I sure as hell was. That wasn’t the point of the speech, but here we were. “Sometimes love means flowers and ridiculously grand gestures like buying two fucking houses because apparently your girlfriend moving forty-five minutes away from her best friend constitutes a humanitarian crisis.”
A wave of laughter broke through the heaviness, and May shrugged without the slightest hint of regret.
“It was over an hour with traffic,” she corrected.
“Thank you for proving my point,” I replied. Sariah laughed against May’s shoulder. “But a lot of times, love doesn’t look that impressive from the outside. Most days it’s patience and consistency. It’s showing up every day until one day they stop waiting for you to leave.”
The last few words came out quieter. Theo’s eyes held mine as we both went to the same place. There had always been a reason with me—a reason for him to walk away. I gave him more reasons to walk than I ever did to stay. At least it felt that way. How many times had I pushed him away, put up boundaries, or reduced what we were to something trivial?
And yet, he stayed anyway.
“And sometimes, love is giving someone a safe place to be afraid,” I said. “I’ve had the honor of watching love happen to you, Sariah. I’ve watched you go from treating vulnerability like a hostage negotiation to promising forever to a woman who quite literally refused to leave you alone.”
A watery laugh escaped Sariah.
“A lot of people will say that love changes a person, but I don’t think May changed you. I think May made you feel safe enough to become more of who you already were,” I said softly. That last one got to me because I understood it all too well. Theo had never asked me to change. He’d never treated the pieces of me I struggled with like flaws he needed to fix. He wasn’t trying to make me into someone else, but the more time I spent around him, the more I realized I was becoming someone I didn’t have to hide. “And I think I can speak for everyone in the room when I say that both of you give the rest of us hope for finding exactly that.”
Sariah fanned her face, blinking rapidly, as she tried to stop the tears that inevitably fell down her cheeks. I reached for my glass on the table and lifted it, waiting for the rest of the room to follow suit.
“So… to Sariah and May,” I said, lifting my glass higher, “may you never stop choosing each other, even when one of you is being impossible, the other one is being dramatic, and both of you are absolutely convinced you’re right.”
That last line earned me a laugh as glasses clinked around the room. Sariah was smiling just as hard as she was crying and mouthed I love you. I smiled and whispered it back before I drank to my best friend finally getting the forever after neither of us had believed in.
CHAPTER 61
Theo
Sariah had been married all of a few hours, and somehow I’d become her preferred method of transportation. I was beginning to understand why Rhodes affectionately called her a koala. She clung to my back, one arm hooked around my neck, while she waved a mini wine bottle and ordered me around.
“Left,” Sariah said, waving toward the far side of the deck.
