“By the same token, you love anal,” I muse.

“I do?” She cuts a no-bullshit sideways glance my way.

“Yeah. Because I love anal, and you love me.”

“Only on your birthday.” She raises her finger in warning. “Apparently, I only love you then.”

“And on national holidays,” I negotiate.

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Canada’s, too. It’s high time we show them some solidarity.”

She laughs. So do I. I can’t wait for the baby to start kicking and join the party.

That kid doesn’t know how long we’ve been waiting.

How I always wanted them around.

How that day, shortly before Mom died, when I apologized to Luna for going bareback, it was a ninety-nine percent apology. Because I wanted us to have a child.

I wanted us to atone for what our mothers did.

Only Dixie is not the same woman I resented. Maybe she never was. Maybe sometimes we make people monsters in our heads because we can’t understand them.

Maybe we don’t understand them because we don’t try to.

And maybe we don’t try to because we’re scared.

Either way, I’ve stopped being scared. Of love. Of feelings. Of forgiving.

Luna and I have carved each other’s personalities since the very beginning. Needs. Wants. Morals.

And most of all, our love.

I’m wearing a black dress that cannot hide the small bump in my lower stomach. I don’t want to hide it. I’m proud of that bump something fierce. I feel whole while pregnant. I think I’m going to be one of those women who has a lot of children, biological and not biological, but I don’t want to scare Knight by telling him this. He’s not officially twenty yet.

Also, we promised each other to take it one step at a time, and we still need to get married before I pop this nugget into the world or before our parents have heart attacks because our child will be born out of wedlock—whatever comes first.

I’m pacing back and forth behind the stage’s heavy black curtains, knowing they’re about to call my name. That I will get on this stage, and they will ask me questions. And I will answer them. At length. More importantly—with words.

That was part of the contract I signed when I wrote a book about my seventeen years of silence. Silent No More was dedicated to Rosie and to Val, two women who played very different roles in my life. One killed my voice. The other brought it back.

The book published last week and hit USA Today’s Best-Selling Books list. I am on the verge of signing my second contract with the same publishing house. I have no idea how I’m going to juggle school, a baby, a book, a husband, a life, and a trip to London to see Vaughn’s exhibition next year. But I’m about to find out.

“Moonshine.” My fiancé saunters backstage with a cup of tea and a small white box. He hands the tea to me. “How are we doing?” He drops a kiss to my forehead.

“Fine,” I say.

We look at each other and laugh, because we know what this word means. Nothing. It means nothing.

I take a sip of my tea. “Seriously, though? I’m excited more than scared.”

“Good. Have a donut.” He pops the box open, and I eye the carb-loaded treat inside.

“It has a green thing on it.” I scrunch my nose.

“Yup. Pistachio.”

“I hate pistachios.”

“Nugget might like it, though.” Knight rubs his cheek. “Worth a try.”

“Why would Nugget like pistachios? That’s random.”

“Because I did.”

I humor him for sharing this intimate piece of information with me, taking a tentative bite. Despite my disliking pistachio, I feel my stomach flutter immediately. It’s like a little goldfish is swimming in my lower belly. My eyes widen on his.

“What? What?” Knight’s grin might split his face in two.

I’m about to answer him when the event coordinator takes my hand in hers and pulls me toward the stage.

“They’re calling your name. Good luck, Ms. Rexroth!” she says, just as I hear the claps and shouts.

I can also hear some whistling as I stumble to the stage and immediately detect their source. Hunter and Vaughn are sitting in the front row, slung low on their seats with Hunter pumping his fist in the air. Next to them, April, Ryan, and Josh are sitting and staring at me with smiles so big, I know my apology all those months ago was truly accepted.

I flew back to Boon to say goodbye, because I couldn’t fathom the idea of not explaining myself to the people who had changed me so profoundly. Even though April and I had our disagreements, and even though we both did less-than-perfect things, we bridged it out.

And Josh? He’s been dating one of the stable girls for a while now, and it’s getting serious between them.

My counselor Malory is here, too. I kept in contact with her after dropping out. Or, more accurately, she kept in contact with me. She didn’t want to see me crawl back to my old habits, and has been delighted to hear I’ve been doing better than ever.

The event coordinator leads me to a stool in the middle of the stage as the host explains my book. For a minute, I am completely numb. I scan the room, drinking everyone in.

Emilia is smiling at me, a copy of my book in her hand.

Next to her, Uncle Vicious salutes me with a cunning smile.

Dad’s eyes are shining with tears.

Edie is flat-out crying.

Racer, Lev, and Bailey exchange appalled glances. This public display of emotion is not exactly up their alley.

My eyes halt on Dean and Dixie. They sit next to each other, and both look at me intently, ignoring one another. But there’s something there I can’t seem to take my eyes off of: the fact that his pinky finger is almost entwined with hers on the armrest between their seats.

I know Dixie is still wounded and hurt from Knight’s father, although the details of whatever happened have yet to be disclosed.

I know Dean is nowhere near close to moving on from Rosie.

But I also know there’s hope for the both of them, and somehow, that makes me happier for them than I am for me about this book deal.

On her deathbed, Rosie asked me to bring them together, and for the past year, I’ve honored her request: hosting dinner parties, inviting them to restaurants, and making sure they’re around each other, even as the excuses for them to meet up have dwindled and become more and more forced.

Last week, Edie told me she saw them having an ice cream together. A quiet outing. They didn’t speak to each other. They did not hold hands. They simply marveled in the slow, creeping thing called love.

I caress my stomach, put the microphone to my lips, and open my mouth. Feeling the room take a collective breath, I try to hide my mouth with the mic, then start my story from the only beginning that truly mattered. Our beginning.

“It started with an abandoned toddler in a soiled diaper, but the plot twist was a boy with busted knuckles and a heart of gold…”

THE END

I have so many people to thank for making Broken Knight happen. It was definitely one of the most challenging books for me to write, and at one point, I began to wonder if I could write it at all. I had to take long breaks, in which some of my closest friends held my hand and made sure that I saw it through. Here they are.