Page 95 of Rush

She flinches. Then laughs. A breathless, stunned little laugh.

I grin. “Your turn.”

She hesitates, wide-eyed.

Then—she screams.

Not loud. Not long. But it cracks something open.

When it ends, she clutches her chest like the air’s been knocked out of her. Her face crumples.

“I want to be angry,” she confesses.

“Then be angry.”

“I want to not care what Dad thinks.”

“Then stop caring.”

“I want—” her voice breaks “—I want my mom.”

“I know.” Because there is not a day I don’t feel the same.

Then she steps into me, and I catch her. Arms tight, holding her steady while she lets it all pour out.

The grief. The fear. The scream she didn’t finish.

Then silence. Just our ragged breathing, carried off by the breeze.

“Do you think I should marry him?”

“I can’t answer that for you—my track record is pretty shitty and nonexistent.”

She lets out a soft chuckle.

“But like you said, he drives you crazy in the best way. And he sees you—the real you.”

“He does,” she says, wistful. “I love him so much.”

“He’s not perfect, Pip. Neither are you. No one knows the future. You just have to remember why you said yes in the first place.”

“Because Andrew makes me feel happy…and secure.”

I try not to, but the second she says it, Broderick’s face flashes through my mind.

Happy and secure.

“You know, for someone without a track record, you’re pretty good at this,” she says after a beat.

I roll my eyes. “My lack of boyfriend begs to differ.”

We stroll back inside hand in hand, warmth between us clinging to our skin, staving off the chill of the night.

The house has quieted; most of the guests have already turned in.

The soft click of our heels—now dangling from our fingers—echoes as we make our way upstairs, laughter still ghosting between us in breathless little hums.

We round the corner of the bridal wing?—