“I do,” he said immediately, like it cost him nothing. Like it was automatic.
And that nearly broke me.
The engines rumbled. The plane began to move.
Somewhere up front, Sloane shouted, “This is the most unhinged girls’ trip in history!”
Hallie Mae laughed, then immediately winced and pressed a hand to her belly.
Noah’s voice—muffled through his blindfold—cut in from two rows up. “Hallie Mae?”
“She’s fine!” Sloane called. “She’s just incubating the heir.”
Hallie Mae threw a pillow. “Hush.”
The plane lifted.
That moment—wheels leaving ground—always felt like a tiny death.
A letting go.
A surrender to gravity’s opposite.
Today, it felt like possibility.
Micah’s hand tightened on my thigh at takeoff. He pretended he didn’t need the grounding. I pretended I believed him.
Once we leveled out, the cabin settled into a hum—laughter, whispers, silk rustling, Portia moving down the aisle checking on everyone like the world’s most glamorous flight attendant.
I watched Micah beside me.
Blindfolded.
Still.
Dangerous even while seated.
But softer, too, in the way his fingers kept stroking my skin in small, unconscious circles.
I thought of Deveaux Bank.
Of lantern light.
Of the wordsBecause I am your motherand the way they had detonated inside me.
I thought of the questions I’d asked—What was wrong with me? Why wasn’t I enough?—and how humiliating it had felt to speak them out loud.
And I thought of my momma on the porch, telling me my name like it was a promise.
Joy.
A gift.
Chosen.
Every day.
I swallowed hard, then reached into my bag and pulled out the velvet box.
