The weekend arrived with invitations disguised as obligations.
Brinley recognized the pattern immediately , Brandon's name lighting up her phone midmorning, followed shortly by her mother's text an hour later, polite but pointed.
Wedding planning had entered its active phase.
She didn't resent it. That surprised her.
Brandon's call was first. She answered while reorganizing notes at the kitchen table, sunlight warming the edge of the page.
"You busy?" he asked.
"Productive," she replied. "Which is different."
He laughed. "Fair. Listen , Nitika's mom flew in early. We're doing a walk-through at the venue this afternoon. Mom wants opinions. Real ones."
Brinley closed her notebook. "You're asking me because you trust me or because you need a buffer?"
"Yes."
She smiled. "I'll be there."
When the call ended, her mother's message waited patiently, unread but not unnoticed.
Lunch tomorrow? Your father and I would like to see you.
No subtext pretending not to be subtext. Just presence.
Tomorrow works, Brinley typed back.
She didn't feel cornered by either request. She felt… included. Folded back into the shape of things without being asked to surrender her footing.
That mattered.
The venue smelled like fresh paint and garden air, the kind of place designed to hold both ceremony and spectacle. Nitika stood near the center of the room with a clipboard, focused, decisive, completely herself. Brandon hovered nearby, hands in his pockets, pretending not to be emotionally invested while clearly tracking every detail.
When Brinley walked in, Nitika's face lit immediately.
"There she is," she said. "Thank God. I need someone who won't just nod at the seating chart."
Brinley took the clipboard without ceremony. "Show me the problem."
Jaxson was there too , not stationed beside her, not orbiting. He was conferring with the coordinator near the back, posture easy, attention split between logistics and listening. When their eyes met briefly, it was acknowledgment only. No shift. No pull.
The steadiness held.
As discussions unfolded , lighting adjustments, aisle width, timing , Brinley felt herself slide naturally into problem,solving mode. Suggestions offered, questions asked, lines drawn where they needed to be drawn.
"This isn't about symmetry," she said at one point, tapping the diagram. "It's about flow. People need to move without thinking about it."
Nitika nodded immediately. Brandon exhaled like someone who'd been trying to say the same thing without the language.
Later, when they broke into smaller conversations, Brandon pulled Brinley aside.
"You okay?" he asked quietly.
"Yes," she said without hesitation.
He studied her for a beat, then nodded. "Good. I don't feel like I need to guard the perimeter anymore."
That landed , not as a wound, but as release.
Lunch with her parents the next day was quieter than she expected.
No interrogations. No assessments disguised as concern. Just conversation , measured, observant, careful not to step where they hadn't been invited.
Her father spoke about travel plans for the wedding. Her mother asked about work, listened to the answer instead of redirecting it.
At one point, her mother set her fork down. "You seem settled."
Brinley met her gaze evenly. "I am."
"With… everything?" her mother asked.
"With myself," Brinley replied. "The rest is following."
Her mother nodded slowly, absorbing that rather than resisting it.
No one mentioned Jaxson by name.
They didn't have to.
That evening, back at Fast Track, Brinley crossed paths with Jaxson near the entrance. He was heading out. She was just arriving to retrieve something she'd forgotten.
"Wedding walk-through?" he asked.
"Productive," she said again.
He smiled faintly. "That tracks."
They stood there for a moment , not lingering, not rushing.
"Parents?" he asked, carefully neutral.
"Handled," she replied.
"Good."
Neither of them reached for more. Neither needed to.
As Brinley walked back inside, she understood something clearly for the first time: life wasn't waiting for her relationship to resolve before it continued. The wedding, her parents, the business , they were all moving forward.
And somehow, instead of destabilizing her, that motion anchored her.
What she and Jaxson were building didn't need isolation to survive.
It needed space.
And it had it.