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“My, you’re eager. Aren’t you going to ask my name first?” “Nah. Already know it.” With a perfect, wide grin, Emmett Brodie deposits his phone into my hand. It’s opened to the New Contact page, except the name field has already been filled out. Mrs. Brodie.
“C’mon, Mrs. Brodie. The quicker we get through the formalities, the quicker we get to the fun stuff, like my ring on your finger and you in my bed for the rest of our lives.”
“This is my favorite birthday ever,” he murmurs against my skin. “What? It’s your birthday?” “Mhmm. For another two minutes, at least. New Year’s baby, freshly twenty-seven. Feels a lot like the first day of my life, though.” “Happy birthday,” I breathe, heart pounding at the feel of him pressed against me, his fingers dancing down my hair. “What did you get?” His palm settles in the curve of my lower back, his whisper pressed to my ear. “You.”
“But one look is all it took to know you had to be mine. I don’t deserve you now, but I’m gonna spend the rest of my life making up for that, and when I die, I’ll be a worthy man.” He tilts my head back, mouth hovering a breath from mine. “Tell me I can have you, gorgeous. Because it’s you or no one.”
This kiss is everything you ever dream of. It’s shaking hands, biting nails, suffocating grips. It’s hot breath, lashing tongues, hungry moans, and desperate whimpers. It’s realizing that everyone before him has meant nothing, because this? This is what it feels like to be alive. To want something so bad all semblance of control leaves my body on a single breath. I want to give it up, all of it, the power I always squeeze tightly in my fist, and let him take it, wield it however he sees fit. I don’t have to wonder if I trust him enough; I just … do.
“Because my heart stopped when I saw you. Because when you turned to walk away, my body said I think the fuck not.” Sweat trickles down his temple, and his mouth takes mine in a searing kiss that has me trying to crawl inside him. “Because never in my life have I felt the way I feel right now, inside you, like I’m exactly where I’m meant to be. I don’t know why, but I know every time I look at you…brain just keeps screaming mine.”
“You wanna be a mom one day?” he asks as he tries—and fails—to fix my dress, the mess of hair on my head, and I think it’s wild he’s asking me this when he still hasn’t asked my first name. “One day,” I manage, gasping as I stumble, legs officially giving up the fight. Emmett catches me around the waist, pressing his whispered words to my mouth. That’ll be the second-best day of my life, right after the day I make you my wife.”
There was Cara Hunter, the woman who was happy and capable of doing it all on her own. And then there was Cara Brodie, the woman who’d never need to do anything alone again, but with the man who reminded her day in and day out that she could. I was unstoppable before Emmett. With him, I’m indestructible.
“Don’t let the voices win,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to mine. “They don’t know you the way I do. They don’t know your fight. My loud girl doesn’t let anyone else dictate the rules. Me and you, Care? We build our own rules.”
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
“If I haven’t already made it abundantly clear, I’m fucking crazy about you, firefly.” “It’s been six days,” I croak. “I know. And I know that scares you. Scares me too, because I know this feeling is only gonna grow. Keeps me up at night, just staring at you, because suddenly it feels like my world is centered around a single person, and I am terrified that without you … everything collapses.”
At the end of the day, the only opinion of you that matters is your own. Be proud of yourself, and celebrate every win, even if it seems small. Life is too hard to not give yourself credit.”
Emmett chuckles, then stops abruptly. “Oh, fuck.” His hands go to the sides of his face, eyes wide, a little horrified. “I think…am I…?” “Dating the female version of Carter?” Adam winks at me. “Yup.” “Don’t insult me like that,” I say. Carter scoffs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You better treat Cara like the angel she is, or she’ll kick your ass, and I’ll watch the door so she doesn’t get caught.”
“I’m going to marry you, Cara. I see my future as clear as day.” “Yeah? What’s it look like?” Emmett cups my cheek, resting his forehead against mine. “It looks like you.”
You’re a firefly, baby. When the stars are tired, you light your own way, and the way for everyone else, too.” My beautiful girl blinks, and a silent tear runs down her cheek. I catch it with my lips, then press my promise to hers. “You, Cara Brodie, are a once-in-a-lifetime woman, and you can do anything.”
I love you.” Cara’s eyes bounce between mine, like she’s seeing every word, tasting them, searching for the hidden meaning. There is none. She’s mine. She owns me, my heart, my soul, every goddamn thought, and I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense. I’m just going to pray to God that she feels the same way.
My heart hasn’t been mine since the day we met. Now, it wanders around outside my body, and that’s as powerful as it is terrifying.
Have you ever had that crash that comes after the high? You spend the day soaking up the light, the laughter, the love, the same way you soak up the sunshine. A beautiful day that seems to last forever, but as everything begins to grow quiet, you take a moment to look around and realize, at some point, the day is ending, and it’s nearly here. The crash.
He presses a kiss to my lips and my hand to his heart, and I feel it, the way he loves me, the depth of it. Infinite. But then he pulls back, his eyes glossy. He blinks, and a single tear drips from both eyes, carving his pain into his face. Pain I put there. I let go of the steering wheel. And I crash.
The only thing that’s come easy in my life is loving you. I’d spend the rest of my life fighting, as long as it’s you I’m fighting for.”
“You’re my landslide, Emmett. Everything I thought I knew fell to my feet when our worlds collided. Then we rebuilt a world together, and I finally understood why good things needed to end so something so much more beautiful could be built in their place.”
I am who I am because of you, Cara. Because you love me in ways I didn’t know existed. Because everything made sense the first time we kissed. Because I found a home in your eyes, your arms, and your heart. Because with your hand in mine, I can breathe.
“Uh-huh. So, hey, do me a favor?” “Of course.” She smiles at me, everything saucy and knowing and all my best friend. “Cut the shit.”
Hope, in the face of infertility, is by far the most exhausting, isolating, soul-crushing emotion I have ever, ever felt.
“It’s nothing compared to that smile, Cara.” She points at me, squinting. “Right there in the corner. Small and unsure, but still my favorite sight.” She smiles then, soft and so full of love. “I don’t care what you wear, darling. But the world loses so much when your smile is gone. Feel what you need to feel. Just remember who you are through all of this. Don’t let anyone or anything steal that from you.”
Sometimes, grief is mourning what never was, wiping away the tears, taking a deep breath, gluing a broken smile on your face, and convincing yourself that there’s always next month, next cycle. And sometimes, grief is defeat. Giving up the fight, the effort. Empty smiles. Empty eyes. Empty words, whispered without meaning. A broken soul, a shell of the woman she was before.
“I’m fine, Carter! I’m just—I’m just …” He stops in front of me, every inch of me trembling as he takes me in, a version of me he’s never seen, never known. Small and broken, like the three words I whisper next. “I’m not okay.”
All that hurt, those clouds, and those rainy days? We live with them because that love, the love that drove our lives to change, it never ceases to exist.”
“Do you hear me, Cara? I was existing before you. But since you? Since you, I’ve been living.”
Five minutes before this, my mom made some snarky comment about how I abandoned my family for a hobby. You wrinkled your nose and said, What an odd thing to say about your son chasing his dreams and succeeding, when most people don’t even have the courage to dream. Nobody has ever stood up to my mom for me before, but you did, because you always fight for your people. Don’t you, Care? Always fighting for the people you love. So why aren’t you fighting for yourself right now?”
“I’m not who I was! I’m not the girl in the pictures! Not anymore! You can … you can go. You should go! I’m giving you permission, Emmett. Take it! Find someone like that girl, confident and strong and not … fucking … broken!” I sob harder, trying like hell to free myself. “Why are you here, Emmett? Why are you still here when you could be anywhere else?” “Because you’re here!” he shouts, hauling me against his heaving chest, forehead pressed to mine as he breathes. His fingers flex around my wrists, squeezing and releasing, like he’s fighting for self-control. “Because you’re here,” he
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“Your heart is a mosaic,” he tells me softly, my face in his warm, capable hands. “Thousands of pieces woven together, each one with its own story. Your heart is beautiful and kind, and it loves the way it does not in spite of all its pieces, but because of them.” A gentle smile as he swipes at the tears on my cheekbones. “You are what it means to grow. To bloom after a bitter winter. You aren’t the same as you were, but why would you be? You get better every single day, even when I think there’s no possible way, because you are committed to loving yourself, to being the best version of you.
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“Breathe, baby. Breathe with me. Because I can’t breathe without you.”
“No mountain is too high.” “For you, Emmett? For you, I’d climb every mountain.”
“We think of heartbreak like it’s the end, and I know it feels like that in the moment. But the older I get, the more I look back at all my old heartbreaks and realize they were just the beginning. Another door opening, a chance for us to know ourselves better than we ever did before. That part of you will always hurt, but maybe it’s also the foundation you build on. Maybe it’s where you honor the person you were, and where you fall in love with who you are now. So don’t you dare undermine what that heart of yours is capable of. It can bend, it can break, and still, it will do all of those
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Carter smiles. “This is Brodie.” Emmett stills. He looks up at Carter, Olivia. Tears well in his eyes. “Brodie?” “Uh-huh. Named after someone special.” “Oh, fuck.” I flap at my eyes. “How dare you guys? How dare you? I am not emotionally stable enough for you to name a baby after Emmett.” Carter grins. “Oh, then this is really gonna wreck you.” He slips the older twin into my arms, and every noise in my head quiets as I stare down at the sweet face I held hours ago. As those teensy tiny fingers wrap around one of mine, I swear everyone can hear the way my heart thunders in my chest. But then
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“If Abel deserves a better shot at life, so do you. Love yourself enough to chase it. Love yourself enough to know that the only person who determines your worth is you. Love yourself enough, value yourself so much, that giving up? It’s no longer an option. Sometimes the only voice cheering you on is your own, so it should always be the loudest.”
Happiness wasn’t the fall from grace headfirst into a grief so deep, so mind-altering, I thought I’d never return, and it wasn’t the treacherous climb back up. But maybe happiness is the view from the top of the mountain, the gasp of fresh air when I finally open my eyes, because every step I’ve taken, no matter how small or how slow, has led me here. Maybe happiness is understanding I’ll never be the same person I was before, thanking her for everything she did for me, saying goodbye, and welcoming the woman I was always meant to be.
Because maybe happiness is understanding that it can still hurt, that it can burn and bleed, that I can cry, scream, struggle, and still, I can heal. I can love, and I can be loved. Maybe it’s making peace with every broken fragment, every wound that’s turned into a scar, letting them serve not as a reminder of my failures or shortcomings, but that I was stronger than what tried to destroy me. That I survived, even when I was so sure I couldn’t. Maybe it’s understanding that there is so, so much love despite it all. Love to give, to receive, to build. Love that doesn’t require you to be fully
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Catharine is ready to meet to discuss the next steps in Abel’s placement plan. And suddenly our future looks as dark and scary as this starless sky.
“This is my favorite,” he says with a happy sigh. “Fireworks?” Emmett asks. “You,” Abel answers.
“I’ve decided to sign over the adoption rights. I think, for all intents and purposes, you’re already Abel’s parents. So if it’s okay with you … I’d like to sign those rights directly over to you.”
“Are we going home now, Mommy?” “We’re going home, Abel.”
He brings Abel’s hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to his palm and whispering, “If you and your mama were the only stars in my sky, that would be all I needed.”
Jennie’s pregnant too. With the exact same due date as Lennon.
“You’re pregnant, Cara.” And all those Skittles and M&M’s that have been sitting like lead in my stomach since last night? They choose this moment to make their reappearance, painting the kitchen sink as I promptly empty the contents of my stomach into it. “Huh,” Carter murmurs from somewhere behind me. “That’s one way to taste the rainbow.”
“All right.” Carter climbs to his feet, gesturing at himself. “Let’s go. Bring it in. Group hug.” Jaxon groans, and I grip his shirt, hauling him to his feet along with me.
Because the truth is, friends like these, this family we’ve found, built from the ground up, fought for every step of the way … they’ll save you every damn time. And that? That is something I will always cling to. I was unstoppable before them. With them, I’m indestructible. “I hope we find each other in every lifetime.”
“Yeah, well, you better get used to me annoyin’ you. My daddy annoys my mommy every single day, and they’re married. You know what that means? It means I’m gonna marry you one day.” Lana rolls her eyes. “As if I would ever marry you.” She sticks her finger in her mouth and pretends to gag. “Vomitrocious.” “Oh, fuck.” I chuckle quietly, rubbing the back of my neck as I glance at the guys, all watching with intrigue, even though this is a fairly normal occurrence between Lana and Hunter. Kids can’t seem to get along no matter how hard we try to make them. “It’s her word of the day. Can’t believe
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