I’m halfway through stringing lights across the porch when I hear Dahlia’s car pull up.
Perfect timing.
The evening air is warm, the sun dipping behind the ridge, and the cabin smells faintly like cinnamon because I burned a batch of cookies trying to make them “festive enough.” Dahlia will pretend not to laugh at me. She’ll fail.
Her car door shuts. Then footsteps. Then her voice.
“Cyrus,” she says slowly, “why does your house look like Santa had a seasonal identity crisis?”
I grin and turn around.
She’s standing at the foot of the porch, sunglasses pushed into her hair, wearing cutoffs and one of my T-shirts she stole months ago and refuses to return. She looks sun-kissed, gorgeous, happy.
Exactly how she’s supposed to look here. With me.
“Christmas in July,” I tell her, sweeping a hand toward the porch. “Thought I’d ease you into the holiday season six months early.”
She climbs the steps, eyes taking everything in: the lights, the wreath, the ribbon-wrapped railing. She stops in front of me, hands on her hips.
“You did all this?”
“Most of it. Bradley helped hang the wreath. He got tangled in the ribbon and almost died, but he’ll survive.”
She laughs, bright and warm, then reaches up to tug lightly on my shirt. “Why?”
I shrug, suddenly feeling stupid and earnest in equal measure. “Because you missed the cookie exchange last week. And because you love this stuff. And because I like giving you things that make you smile.”
She steps closer. “It’s working.”
I kiss her softly, because I can, because I like her mouth on a good day and a terrible day and everything in between. When she pulls back, her cheeks are flushed in that way that always makes me want to take her inside and ruin her sleep schedule.
But she holds onto my hand like she’s grounding herself.
“Cyrus,” she says, voice dropping into something steadier, deeper. “I have something I want to ask you.”
My stomach flips.
She takes a breath. “I want to stay. Here. Permanently. With you. If you want that. And if you do…” She squeezes my fingers. “Will you marry me?”
For a full second, I forget how to breathe.
Then I bark out a laugh, because of course she did. Of course she beat me to it.
She jerks back, mortified. “Oh my God. I knew it. Too much too fast?—”
I grab her waist and pull her right back in. “No. No. Dahlia. Stop.”
She freezes.
I step back just enough to reach behind me into the pocket of my jeans and pull out the ring box that has been burning a hole back there since June.
Her eyes widen.
“You had one?” she whispers.
“Had it for weeks,” I say. “Was waiting for the right moment.”
She blinks rapidly. “I—I asked first.”
