She kissed him harder, squeezed him tighter, then pulled back and smiled up at him. ‘I thought of another subtle superpower.’
‘Oh?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I think I’ve already won today: the guy on the boat who smiled at the toddler and got her to stop crying.’
‘He could have been her uncle.’
‘I don’t think he was.’
‘Perhaps he was secretly Ronald McDonald.’
‘Ronald McDonald is creepy as fuck. He’d have made her cry harder.’
‘Not if he wasn’t in his costume, but she might have recognised him anyway, and—’
‘You’re getting a bit far-fetched now, Jess,’ Ash said affectionately. ‘What’ve you got?’
She stretched up and kissed his chin. ‘What if someone had a subtle superpower that meant they could absolutely, one 100per cent sense when a person was going to propose to their soul mate?’
Ash went completely still. Jess grinned, but he recovered quickly. ‘Who does that help?’ he asked. ‘What does that do, other than spoil a surprise?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I just thought – it’s a bit like that woman you met at Borough Market, who said she could sense when complete strangers needed a nugget of advice. A gut feeling.’ She shrugged. ‘But perhaps it isn’t one at all.’
‘Certainly not a great one,’ he agreed. ‘Not as good as the toddler whisperer.’ He caught her hand as she turned away from him, and pulled her against him, so her back was pressed to his front.
‘No, the toddler whisperer definitely wins,’ she said. ‘Even if the guydiddress up as Santa Claus at the Christmas party she went to the year before, and she recognised him despite him not having the beard.’
‘Totally ridiculous,’ he murmured against her neck. Then she felt him take a deep breath, and he said, ‘If someonedidhave that superpower, where they could sense a person was going to propose, what do you think they’d do with it?’ There was no mistaking his anxiety, and Jess smiled to herself before turning round in his arms.
‘I think,’ she said, meeting his gaze, feeling the deep flutter inside her that had only strengthened with time, the certainty that being with him made her more alive than anything else, ‘that mostly, they would just be quiet about it, hold on to that subtle superpower knowledge, and watch the whole thing play out.’
‘You’re sure that’s what they’d do?’ He searched her face.
‘Oh, definitely. They wouldn’t want to spoil anything.’
‘Right. And if they were... if they didn’t justknowabout the imminent proposal, but were in the position to have a say in the outcome, what do you think their answer would be?’
Jess opened her mouth to speak, and found that her throat was clogged up. She swallowed, took a second to listen to the trickle of the water feature and her friends laughing and talking through the open French doors, the bird singing in the tree. She felt the strength of Ash’s arms around her, holding her tightly.
‘Jess?’ he prompted quietly. ‘What do you think she would say?’
Jess smiled up at him, the warning prickle of tears in the corners of her eyes. ‘I think she’d be sensible enough to say yes. What do you think?’
‘I think saying yes would be the best superpower of all,’ Ash told her. ‘But I guess we’ll have to wait another few hours to find out for sure.’ He pulled her close and kissed her in a way that showed Jess he wasn’t unsure about anything, and that, no matter how much time passed before he finally got to ask her the question, they both already knew the answer.
