“Ohmigod!” Maggie shrieked and I struggled against taking a step back in reaction to the noise but couldn’t do it because she snatched my hand out of Krystal’s and dragged it close to her face. Then her head tipped back to look at me. “Those are gorgeous!” Still holding my hand, she twisted her torso and shouted across the island, “Ty! These rings are gorgeous!”

Before I could look to Ty to see his reaction to Maggie’s shout, Krystal spoke again.

“I bet you didn’t have to say a word. I bet those rings were all Ty. Which makes you the only female on the planet who didn’t have to give her man some instruction when it came to an engagement ring,” Krystal noted correctly and I looked down at her. “He may drink beer but that boy is pure champagne.”

Then before I could comment on this, another voice came.

“Laurie,” it was Jonas calling from the side of the island, “now that they’re here, can we eat? I was starved an hour ago and I’ve been sniffin’ chicken for forever. Can we break the seal or what?”

And before Laurie could answer, yet another voice came.

“Mommy!” Addison shouted from the other side and she was jumping up and pointing at a bunch of boxes extravagantly wrapped in wedding paper resting on a side counter. “Is it time for presents?” she asked.

“No, honey, not just yet. After we have cake,” Maggie answered but I was staring at the presents.

Presents.

Presents, cake, fried chicken and decorations.

I pulled my hand from Maggie’s and took a step back as my eyesight grew fuzzy but through the haze I heard the cheerful buzz all around. Smelled the chicken. Felt the vibe of friendship that had a hint of relief but more happiness and even love.

Good. Clean. Right.

Ronnie’s best friend was Shift. Shift did not arrange for Ronnie to have a welcome home party when he got let out of prison in Indiana and came home to Dallas. None of Ronnie’s friends did, neither did his family. This was because he’d f**ked up and although we were happy he was home, his future was in the toilet, he’d flushed it down his damned self and that wasn’t anything to celebrate.

But also, outside of Shift, all of Ronnie’s decent friends (who turned out to be not so decent) deserted him after he got home and the crew he found wasn’t the cake, banners, decorations, fried chicken and gift giving kind. They took. They didn’t give.

“Lexie, you okay?” I heard Laurie ask and I took another step back, my eyes moving in the direction of Ty but I didn’t see him.

I didn’t see him because it hit me that Ronnie had never had this but I didn’t either. I had good friends but there was nothing to celebrate for me with Ronnie in my life. He hated it, I knew, but he knew it as I did. He was a shadow blocking out the sun of my world. He wasn’t about happy chatter and good friends rushing around in a two hour window to do something beautiful. If he’d lived and I’d given in one of the gazillion times he tried to talk me into marrying him, our people would have gone through the motions but the chatter wouldn’t be happy, the buzz not filled with love but instead obligation and maybe even doom.

But more than that, I never thought I would have this. Growing up the way I did, dreams like this died early. You learned not to hope for too much when you experienced the bitter taste of disappointed as early as I did.

These people doing this said it all about Ty. It said I was reading those signs right. No one did this kind of thing for an ass**le or a loser. They did it for someone who was worthy of it.

And my marriage to Ty might have started out fake but this… this was real. These people cared about him, a lot, and they were wasting no time bringing me into the fold.

And he’d given me this.

And I’d never had anything so beautiful.

And I couldn’t handle it.

“Ty,” I vaguely heard Maggie call, “somethin’s wrong with –”

I took another step back and my arm went out to find purchase because if it didn’t, I was going to go down. I knew it. My head was swimming, my vision was blurred and my system couldn’t process what was happening.

I felt a burning sensation at the small of my back, the beer slid out from between my fingers and I heard a deep rumble in my ear saying, “Lex.”

I turned and saw a wall of black.

Ty’s t-shirt.

I lifted my hands and my fingers curled into the material right before I did a face plant in his chest, my legs gave out and I burst into tears.

His long, powerful arms closed around me and they did this tight.

“Baby, what the f**k?” I heard in my ear.

“I can’t… this isn’t happening… I can’t process… presents… cake… chicken,” I stammered crazily then tilted my head back, saw him through blurry eyes and whispered, “Ty, honey, you know good things don’t happen to me. They don’t happen to me. I can’t take this. I don’t know what to do with it.”

Then I lost sight of him because the wet was too much to see through so I shoved my face in his chest again and my body shook against his with my sobs.

Then I was up in his arms and I automatically adjusted, pressing my wet face in his neck, wrapping my arms around it, we were moving but I was deep in the throes of a massive crying jag, didn’t see where we were going and wouldn’t have cared anyway.

I felt myself settled in his lap as he sat somewhere, his arms moving to wrap tight around me but I kept my face in his neck, my arms around it though I pushed my torso deep into his, held on hard and kept crying.

Eventually, one of his hands drifted up my back, under my hair to curl hot around my neck.

“Lexie, baby, calm down,” he whispered in my ear.

I nodded but kept crying.

His fingers squeezed gently. “Baby, you gotta get a handle on this.”

I nodded again and sucked in a broken breath. Then I sucked in another one.

Then, face still in his neck, I mumbled, “I’m sorry. I just never… something like that…” I took in another broken breath and whispered, “It was unexpected.”

“Got good friends,” he murmured.

I nodded again because he did, he had good friends, the kind of friends you didn’t just get, the kind of friends you earned.

And I didn’t know what to do with that either.

I kept my face in his neck and held on.

Then I took in another breath, this one didn’t break and my voice wasn’t trembling but it was quiet when I said, “I’m glad you have that.”