Home Ice.

Chapter Thirty.

"Well, Mom and Morgan are at a brunch right now so Casey and Grace it is," I say, suddenly not being able to sit here anymore. We don't make a plan of a cute and fun way to tell them, we just go over with the intention of telling our two best friends that Kennedy will have two best friends of her own soon. "Put your seat belt on."

"It's on," she smiles patiently, resting her head back on the headrest as she looks at me. Oh boy, the protectiveness is going to be next level in the coming months.

Who am I kidding. In the coming years. For the rest of my life.

I love the way she's looking at me. I'm relieved by the way she's looking at me. I never doubted that our love faded over the hardest weeks of our lives, but she's looking at me like I'm the most relaxing thing in her life and I wish I could put that feeling in a bottle and keep it close to me for the rest of my days.

We spend the half hour drive talking about plans for finding a house, since our apartment definitely will not have space for four of us. It'll be sad leaving that place but we're onto the next part of our life.

We're going to look for a house in the neighborhood that Casey and Grace live in, I'm going to call their real estate agent in the morning.

Oh, god. I can't stop thinking about everything we'll do with them. How we'll take the skating at the rink and how they'll be hanging out at Avery's store all the time. How we'll volunteer at their school, how Avery and I will be up after they go to sleep baking for their bake sale. They're going to have the best fucking life. I'm going to make sure of it.

When we get to their house, we basically jump out of the car and I swoop in behind her, wrapping my arms around her body and pressing a messy kiss to her cheek. I can't tell you the relief I feel when she doesn't flinch and when she leans back into me, gripping onto my forearms and letting out soft giggles as she scrunches her neck because I'm tickling her. She's happy. I really missed seeing my Aves happy.

We walk up to the door with me still behind her, so I lean over her to ring the doorbell a few times and then give a series of knocks just to be extra annoying. "Ayo, open up!"

Avery's giggles are literally music to my ears and my grin only grows when she lifts her fist and pounds on the door hard. "HELLO?! ANYONE HOME?!"

I join in on her knocks, knowing that Kennedy is at school and we're not going to wake her up from a nap. However our knocks cause Dot to start barking, so there's just a lot of commotion happening.

Our fists against the door do not match up at all and then it suddenly swings open, Casey standing there shirtless and sweaty while letting out heavy breaths. "What the hell?"

My lips purse and my nose scrunches in disgust as I ask, "What, were you making Kennedy a sibling?"

Avery elbows me in the stomach as Casey rolls his eyes. "I was working out."

I nudge Avery to tell her to walk in, so she does and I follow. I pat him on the shoulder as I walk past him and in behind her. "Sure you were."

He scoffs as we enter his home, grumbling. "No, come in. I insist."

Someone's moody.

"Where's Grace?" Avery asks, breaking away from me to peak down the hall. I look back at Casey and it's like he's just realizing that Avery acting so normal and like herself is actually shocking. He looks at me skeptically and I roll my lips into my mouth to try and stop myself from grinning again.

"Upstairs," he responds slowly and cautiously, like he's waiting for a shoe to drop. There's none though, we actually have good news this time around.

Avery goes towards the stairs and shouts up, "Grace! Get down here!"