When he hesitated, she pressed.
“It’ll be after. When the rest is done. However long it takes, that wedding, at least, will be after.”
“I’d want to be there.”
“Good enough.”
“You’ll make plans, some of them, when you go in the spring.”
“You can count on that.” They stepped out of the woods; Bollocks streaked to the bay. “I appreciate you not putting up any obstacles over that.”
“You have your family and your work.”
“I do, but I won’t go if I’m needed.”
“So you said before.”
Inside, he tossed his duster on the peg, took her jacket to do the same.
“We can have some wine—or a beer for you, if you’d rather—while I heat up the leftovers.”
Even as the words were out, he lifted her off her feet.
“Those can wait. Light the fire,mo bandia. Here.” He stopped by the living room sofa. “This is far enough.”
“Works for me.”
“I would have come back sooner.”
“I know.”
That he would have, she thought as he laid her on the sofa, was all she needed to know.
Later that night, Marco sat on a hill, wrapped in a blanket with Brian, drinking sparkling Sidhe wine. A fire blazed in a circle of stones while the moons—two halves he imagined nudging together for one big-ass ball of white—competed with the stars to shed light.
A midnight picnic, Brian had said, and Marco figured there was a first time for everything.
“I really, really like your family.”
“They love you already.”
“They sure love you. And they made me feel so welcome. Two minutes in, I forgot to be nervous. Ten minutes in, it’s like I’ve known them my whole life.”
He turned, brushed his lips to Brian’s.
“And there you are, charming them head to toe and back again. Saying to my father how you see now where I get my good looks, and to my mother how you see where I got my good brain. That was clever of you.”
“How I saw it, so that made it easy.”
He tipped his head toward Brian’s, watched the fog of their breath merge, then whisk away.
“Now I’m sitting here with you, midnight picnic, a sky full of stars and moons. I’m looking down at where you were born, where you grew up, and down there at the tree you climbed to stuff yourself with green apples until you got the mother of all bellyaches.”
“Ah, my ma and her stories.”
As happy as he’d ever been, Marco snuggled closer.
“Can’t wait to hear the rest of them. Like I can’t wait for you to meet Sally and Derrick in person instead of just over FaceTime. They’re going to love you, Brian, like I do. They’re my real family, along with Breen. And my sister.”