And every time I look at her, she's already looking at me.
After dinner, there's dancing. Nothing formal, just music playing and couples swaying and the kind of loose celebratory energy that comes with good wine and happy occasions.
I find Nadia at the edge of the dance floor, watching the other couples.
"I don't dance," I remind her.
"I remember." She doesn't look away from the dancers. "It's okay. We don't have to."
"I said I don't dance. Not that I won't." I extend my hand. "Come here."
Her smile is worth every awkward shuffle step that follows. I'm not graceful. I'm not smooth. But I hold her close and move with the music and watch her face soften into something that looks a lot like wonder.
"You're full of surprises, Callum Ridge."
"Just this once. Don't expect it to become a habit."
"I wouldn't dare." She rests her head against my chest. "Thank you. For tonight. For being here. For handling my family."
"Your family is fine."
"My family is a lot."
"So are you." I press a kiss to her hair. "I happen to like a lot."
She tilts her face up, and the look in her eyes makes my chest ache.
"I don't want this weekend to end."
"Neither do I."
"So what do we do about that?"
The question hangs there, full of possibilities I'm not sure either of us is ready to explore. Tomorrow is the wedding. The day after, she goes back to Chicago. Back to her life. Back to being someone I used to know for four days in February.
Unless.
"We figure it out," I tell her. "Together. After the wedding. We sit down and we talk about what this is and what we want and whether there's a way to make it work."
"You make it sound simple."
"It's not simple. But the best things rarely are."
She laughs, soft and warm against my chest. "When did you become such a romantic?"
"Approximately forty-eight hours ago. When a mouthy woman with expensive shoes walked into my bar and turned my whole life upside down."
"Your bar? It's Silas's bar."
"Details." I spin her in a clumsy turn that makes her laugh harder. "The point is, you showed up. And now everything's different. And I'm not ready to go back to the way things were before."
Nadia stops laughing. Stops moving. Just looks up at me with an expression I can't quite read.
"Me neither," she says quietly. "I'm not ready either."
We don't solve anything standing on that dance floor. We don't make plans or promises or any of the concrete commitments that would make this feel more real.
But when she kisses me in front of her entire family, soft and slow and full of something that feels like hope, I start to believe that maybe, just maybe, this thing between us has a chance.
