“They’d probably ask if we brought our own blackout candles.”
I grin. “They’d say we have good couple energy.”
I look away, cheeks reddening. Beau doesn’t say anything, only moves slightly to stir the fire.
We find an old board game under the coffee table, the kind with missing pieces and handwritten rules tucked inside. We play anyway. It’s silly, lopsided, and perfect. As the fire burns lower, we talk by candlelight, the afternoon sun barely touching the edges of the windows.
It’s easier now. The muted light helps, but it’s more than that; it’s how Beau listens without interrupting, the way his silence doesn’t demand anything from me. With him, in this light, it feels possible to tell the truth and still be okay. Genuine.
I’ve never talked much about Grayson with anyone other than Jenna and Tess, but right now in this setting—in this relationship we’ve been crafting for a week—I feel ready to share more about myself with Beau.
I toy with one of the game pieces, then move my eyes to meet his. “Have I told you yet how I met Gray?”
Beau shakes his head with a curious expression. I step away to make us hot cocoa the old-fashioned way, but really I’m gathering my thoughts and my courage.
“We met at a networking event my senior year in college,” I say as I warm the milk. “He was giving a talk on personal branding, and I was the only one in the back whispering to myself that it sounded like a datingprofile.”
Beau lets out a low laugh. I keep going.
“Our first date was at a rooftop restaurant in San Diego: sunset, candlelight, him talking about his five-year plans like they were already carved in stone.”
I stir the cocoa mix into the milk and pour it into two mugs. I hand one to Beau and sit down again with mine.
“He was all structure. Meal preps, calendars, color-coded goals. Wednesday date nights scheduled six months out. I thought his predictability would protect me. Guarantee a solid marriage.”
Beau doesn’t cut in. Just watches me, eyes thoughtful, intent and tuned in, as though he’s letting every word land before daring to speak.
“Somewhere along the way, I became a project to Gray instead of a person. He bought me interview blazers I didn’t want. Told me to aim higher, but only in ways that made sense to him. Plan ahead instead of my natural spontaneity. Be more polished, but less emotional.”
Beau shifts beside me, enough that his knee brushes mine. The contact is small, but it’s a reminder that he’s still here.
“One day I caught myself apologizing for getting excited about flower arrangements. That was the moment I realized that…I didn’t recognize myself anymore.”
Beau’s fingers curl into a fist by his side as I inhale and let out a long sigh.
“The change was gradual. He filed me down in fractions.”
My voice drops. “He ended it two weeks before our wedding. By text. Wrote that I was ‘too much, too impulsive, too emotional.’ Said I’d ‘never fit the kind of future he was trying to curate for himself.’”
I pause, the candlelight flickering. “And I believedhim. For a long time, I really did. I stopped trusting my own spark. Started thinking maybe I was only meant to arrange flowers for other people’s love stories. Not live one myself.”
I trace a fingertip along the rim of my mug, circling slowly, “My mom noticed, I think. She once asked me if I still arranged flowers just for fun anymore, and I shrugged it off. But I remember the look in her eyes as if she was losing parts of me too.”
I half-chuckle, half-puff air out of my nose. “I should have caught on way before our relationship got that far. His family should have been a huge red flag. I remember the first time he took me home to meet his parents, after we were engaged.”
“Am I boring you?” I ask suddenly.
Beau says gently, “No. And this sounds like something you may really need to talk about.”
Tilting my chin, I continue, “Now that I think about it, Gray must have purposefully waited to introduce me to his family until I was more of what he thought they would be expecting in a future daughter-in-law.”
I bring Beau into the flashback with me, detailing how the evening progressed, and I see it all as if I were back there again.
We were seated around a long glass table, set with gleaming silver and napkins folded to appear as swimming swans. A huge floral centerpiece sat in the middle, a bit too perfect for my tastes.
A private chef served something with truffle oil I couldn’t pronounce, all very posh and gourmet. At one point, I smiled politely and asked Gray to please pass the gravy.
Gray coughed beside me. His sister blinked. His father froze with his wine glass halfway to his mouth. And hismother stiffened into a pillar of salt, exactly as Lot’s wife did. But Gray’s mom dissolved back into herself, where Lot’s wife did not.
