Maybe they knew what they were talking about.
“I don’t have a speech prepared,” Lincoln admitted. “I tried to write one. Multiple times. Nothing sounded right.”
“Good.” Quinn’s smile widened. “The best things you’ve ever said to anyone came out when you stopped trying to script them.”
He thought about that. About all the careful frameworks he’d built over the years—the social protocols, the rehearsed responses, the endless translation of himself into something the world could digest. And then he thought about Morgan. About how he’d never needed any of that with her.
“She makes my brain go quiet. Still, even a year later,” he said. “That’s never happened before. With anyone.”
His mother’s eyes went bright. His father just nodded, like this was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Then go tell her that.”
Lincoln looked across the bar. Morgan had finished taking Theo’s money and had taken a seat beside Joy. Joy and Bear’s seven-month-old, Henry, had somehow ended up in Morgan’s lap. The baby was grabbing at her hair while she laughed, and Joy was taking a picture with her phone, and Bear was hovering nearby with the particular protective posture of a new father who still couldn’t quite believe his luck.
Morgan looked up. Found Lincoln watching her across the room.
Her eyebrow rose. A silent question.
He stood. Crossed to her table. Held out his hand.
“Come outside with me?”
“Now?” She glanced at Henry, who had gotten a firm grip on her sweater. “I’m being held hostage.”
Joy reached over and extracted her son with practiced ease. “Go. I’ve got him.”
The look Joy gave Lincoln was knowing. Too knowing. He’d told Bear the plan—Bear couldn’t keep a secret from Joy to save his life—which meant Joy had probably told Becky, and Becky had definitely told Derek, and at this point, the only person in the entire bar who didn’t know what was about to happen was Morgan.
He led her through the back door onto the small patiobehind the Eagle’s Nest. The night air was cold, sharp with the smell of pine and distant snow. A single string of lights provided dim illumination, enough to see her face when she turned to look at him.
“What’s going on with you tonight?” She tilted her head, studying him with those eyes that missed nothing. “You’ve been distracted all evening. You missed shots you could make in your sleep. And you keep touching your pocket like you’re checking for your wallet, except I know your wallet is in your other pocket because that’s where you always keep it.”
“You noticed that.”
“I notice everything. You know this about me.”
He reached into his pocket. Pulled out the napkin he’d been carrying all night.
Morgan took it. Unfolded it. Stared at the ones and zeros written in his careful handwriting.
Her lips moved slightly as she translated—binary to ASCII, the way they'd encoded messages to each other for two years. He watched her expression shift as the letters resolved into words.
MARRY ME.
Her breath caught.
Lincoln fumbled the ring box out of his pocket. His hands were shaking—actually shaking, which hadn’t happened since the night he’d pulled her out of that warehouse. He opened the box. The sapphire caught the string lights and threw tiny fragments of blue across her face.
“I had a speech,” he said. “I wrote seventeen versions. They were all terrible.”
“Lincoln—”
“So instead, I’m just going to say that you make my brain go quiet. That I didn’t know silence could feel like peace until I met you. That I want to spend the rest of mylife reorganizing bookshelves with you and arguing about database architecture and waking up next to someone who makes me feel like the strange parts of me aren’t defects.”
Morgan was crying. He could see the tears tracking down her cheeks, catching the light.
“I love you,” he said. “I know I don’t always say it in ways that make sense to other people. But I love you in ways that make sense to us, and I think that matters more.”
