“This is...” I couldn’t find the words. “You planned all this?”
“I wanted it to be perfect.” He guided me to the blanket, helping me settle among the pillows. “You deserve perfect.”
“I don’t know about perfect.”
“I do.”
He sat beside me, close but not touching, and began unpacking the basket he’d hidden behind the tree. Wine. Fresh bread. Cheeses and fruits and delicate pastries. Food he’d clearly chosen with care.
We ate. We talked. He told me about the greenhouse, about how his mother spent years cultivating certain species, coaxing seeds from the most remote corners of Lytopia to bloom in this controlled paradise.
“She’d disappear for hours,” Caelan said, refilling my wine glass. “My father would find her here at midnight, covered in soil, talking to the roses. She claimed they grew better when you spoke to them.”
“Do they?”
“I have no idea. But she believed it.” His expression softened at the memory. “My father proposed to her under this very tree. She’d been working here all day, and he just... showed up with a ring. Said he couldn’t wait another moment.”
“That’s romantic.”
“He’s a romantic man. Hides it well, but it’s there.” Caelan’s eyes found mine. “We used to come here for picnics when I was young. The whole family: my parents, Patt, Thessa. We’d spread blankets under this tree and eat ourselves into food comas.”
I could picture it. A younger Caelan, less burdened, laughing with his siblings while his parents watched with soft eyes. It was disgustingly wholesome. Hallmark would weep.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “For sharing this with me.”
“Thank you for letting me.”
And through it all, he flirted relentlessly.
“Has anyone ever told you,” he murmured, leaning closer, “that your eyes hold entire universes?”
“That’s absurd.”
“It’s true.” His voice dropped lower. “I could get lost in them forever.”
The man was shameless. I kind of loved it.
The air between us was charged. Electric. Every accidental brush of fingers sent sparks through my skin. Every lingering look made my pulse quicken.
I knew where this was heading. Had known since I agreed to the date.
Then he pulled out the final item from the basket.
Pancakes. Fluffy pancakes, topped with cream and strawberries.
My stomach flipped.
We both remembered. That first morning in my apartment, after he’d claimed me. The pancakes he’d made. The cream and strawberries. The way we’d eaten them together, lazy in bed, before everything went wrong.
“I thought...” He set the plate between us. “I thought we could make a new memory. A better one.”
I picked up a strawberry. Took a bite. Let the sweetness burst across my tongue.
“It’s good,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
