Cooper heads for the locker room a minute before I do. “Hey, Luke!” Lane smiles brightly at me from her usual spot.

“Hey.” I glance toward the locker room, let her know I’m aware of her situation. Sly. Then I lower my voice, keep our secrets hidden. “You’re still coming to Luce’s wedding tomorrow, right?” Okay, I don’t know if her possibly spending the day with me is a secret, but I pretend like it is. It’s more fun that way.

She nods. Her volume matching mine when she says, “I can’t believe they’re getting married so soon.”

“It’s Cam and Luce. There’s no point waiting with them.”

But I’ll wait, Laney. I’ll wait forever for you.

We’ve had a lot of functions on our property before. Birthday parties, company picnics, but never a wedding. When Luce would talk my ears off about it after I talked her ears off about everything going on with Lane, I couldn’t really picture what she had in mind. The moment I got Lachlan dressed and stepped out of the house, I knew her vision had become a reality. A section of our land is scattered in white… white chairs, white tents, white fairy lights. It’s as beautiful as she was in our mom’s wedding dress, walking down the aisle toward her forever. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house when they said their vows. Romance and love and promises of eternity can do that to people. Even Dad.

Laney wiped at her tears the entire time, and I expected nothing less. She’d been around, watched from a distance as Cam and Lucy made love look easy. It wasn’t as easy as she thinks, but I let her believe in the fantasy.

At the reception, she sits with her dad and Misty. Cooper wasn’t invited. It was at my request, but Cam and Luce had no problem fulfilling it. They didn’t like Cooper either, and considering they went through their entire school lives with him, there was probably a good reason for it.

I tap Lane’s shoulder. “Come on. Lachy’s about to break out his dance moves. Trust me, you don’t want to miss it.”

She takes my offered hand, walks with me to the dance floor.

“Watch me!” Lachlan yells, and he moves to the center of the circle and attempts what I guess is break-dancing, but really, he’s just rolling around on the floor. Still, my brothers and I pretend like it’s the greatest thing in the world, our hands in the air, our shouts of “Woah” and “Yeah” spurring him on.

Next to me, Laney laughs.

“The sprinkler,” Logan yells. “Do the sprinkler!”

So Lachlan stands, does the sprinkler dance.

I throw my arm around Laney’s shoulders, dip my head, speak close to her ear so she can hear me over the music. “You having fun?”

She tilts her head back, smiles up at me. “I am.” Then she motions over to where Cam and Lucy are sitting with their friends. “It was such an amazing ceremony, and Lucy looks so beautiful.”

“She’s the second most beautiful girl here,” I tell her. And it’s the truth. When I saw her get out of her car, my stomach did that stupid twisty thing. It shouldn’t be fair that one person can hold that much enchantment, that much grace. It took Leo shoving me and practically forcing me to trip over a pile of chairs for me to tear my gaze away from her. “You can look, but don’t touch,” he warned.

I was just looking.

Laney coos, fanning herself dramatically. “And Cameron…”

I tense.

She smirks. “He’s so dreamy,” she sings, teasing me about my assumptions all those years ago.

“Shut up.” I shove her away jokingly. “I totally thought you were into him, okay?”

Her smile falters, her hands going to her purse to fish out her phone.

“I have to go. Cooper’s waiting,” she tells me.

I rear back, my lips pressed tight. “Really? You can’t even stay for my speech?”

She looks as disappointed as I feel. “I wasn’t sure how long the ceremony would go for, and I told him I’d be there an hour ago.”

I sigh. “All right, Cinderella. Let me walk you to your carriage.”

“You cold?” I ask her, walking under the twilight sky toward the temporary parking lot.

She rubs her hands on her arms. “A little.”

I shrug out of my jacket and gently place it on her shoulders. “You really do look beautiful tonight, Lane.”

“Stop it,” she murmurs, backhanding my stomach. It’s like having Old Laney back.

I fake hurt, but she doesn’t. She grasps her hand, her eyes wide. “Have you been hitting the gym?” she asks.

“I have,” I say. “Under your boyfriend’s advice, actually. He suggested I need more power in my start, so…”

With a smile, she says, “I’m glad you guys are getting along so well.”

“You know what they say, right? Keep your friends close, your enemies closer…”

“Lucas,” she warns.

I nudge her side. “I’m kidding.” For forty-six long ass seconds, we walk in silence. Then I say, “Not that it matters, but I just wanted you to know that I won’t be around for a few days.”

“Really? Why?”

“I’m going to hit up Vegas with Lucy and her friends—kind of like their honeymoon.”

She stops walking. “Vegas?”

“Yeah.”

“Does your dad know?”

“No,” I say through a chuckle. “He thinks I’m visiting Jason in Jersey.”

She chews on her lip, looks down at her feet. “Vegas, huh? It’s like stripper capital, right?”

“I don’t know. I’m not really going for the strippers.” I laugh.

She looks back up at me, her brow knitted. “Then why are you going?”

“I just need to get away for a while, clear my head.”

“Is something going on? Are you okay?”

No, I’m not okay. I’m in love with you, Laney. And you’re in love with someone else. “I’m all good. Don’t worry about me.”

She starts walking again, slower than before. “So are you nervous about your speech?”

“Not really.”

“Have you got it planned out?”

I chuckle when she pats down my jacket, searching for the written speech. “I don’t have it written out if that’s what you’re looking for.”

She stops searching and pouts up at me. Yeah. I love Old Laney. “I’m sad I’m going to miss it. What are you going to say?”

“I don’t know.” We get to her boyfriend-bought car, and I lean against it. “It’ll be easy, though, I’ll just speak from my heart.”

She copies my position, our sides touching. “You should practice on me,” she says. “What better person is there to trust to tell you if it sucks than your best friend.”

I hide my smile, look down at the ground. Then I clear my throat, shove my hands in my pockets to keep me from touching her. “I guess I’m just going to talk about a boy—a kid, really—who fell in love with a girl at an age and a time when love felt bigger than the world around them. How he was her strength when she needed it, her voice when she didn’t have one. I’ll say something about the way he looks at her as if there’s no one and nothing else out there that could possibly hold his attention as much as she can…” I chance a peek in her direction, wondering if she can hear it in my words—that I’m speaking from my heart. But she’s looking down at her shoes, her breaths shaky. I add, “He’s always loved her, way before he realized that she loved him back. But I could see it in the way he looked at her. He hoped that one day she’d see him the way he saw her. And he saw her, Lane. I mean, Cameron—he was always able to read her—to see her in ways she didn’t see herself. He knew what she wanted, what she needed, and she never had to say a word. And I think, ultimately, that’s what true love is, you know? To want to be someone’s hero when they’re faced with villains. To want to be the one who saves them. To be their Wonderwall.” I choke on a sob, visions of Laney dancing with my dad in our living room filling my mind. I clear my throat again. “And I’ll end it by saying that I wish, more than anything, that I can one day be the man he is.”