I look around the table—at Bennett raising a toast, at Dominic pretending he’s not watching Jenna, at Audrey’s brothers who’ve already started arguing about whether lawyers are more or less useful than mechanics. At David and Caleb, side by side, finally doing the thing they’ve talked about for years.
Family isn’t DNA. It’s showing up. It’s choosing each other, again and again, even when it’s complicated. Even when it’s hard.
I reach into my pocket and feel the ring box.
Tonight.
I wait until the sun has fully set and the first fireworks are being set up on the dock. Audrey is standing at the railing, wrapped in a blanket I brought from the house, watching her brothers attempt to organize the launch sequence while her father supervises with increasing exasperation.
“They’re going to blow something up,” she says as I join her. “Not the fireworks. Themselves.”
“Mike seems confident.”
“Mike thought he could fix a garbage disposal with a butter knife last Thanksgiving. Confidence is not the issue.”
I laugh, and she leans into me, her head finding its familiar spot against my shoulder. The lake is dark now, reflecting the first stars, and somewhere across the water another family’s fireworks are already popping in bursts of red and gold.
“Hey, Audrey?”
“Hmm?”
“I need to tell you something.”
She tilts her head up, her expression shifting to concern. “That sounds serious.”
“It is. Kind of.” I take a breath. My heart is doing something erratic that would concern a cardiologist. “I had a plan for tonight. A very detailed plan. I wanted to make sure I covered all the relevant variables.”
“Logan, what?—”
“But the thing is, plans don’t really work with you. You’re too unpredictable. Too extraordinary. Every time I think I’ve figured out the optimal approach, you do something that rewrites all my calculations.”
She’s staring at me now, her eyes wide.
“So I’m throwing out the plan.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the box. “And I’m just going to ask.”
“Oh my god.”
I drop to one knee. Behind us, I’m vaguely aware that the deck has gone quiet—that everyone is watching, that Michaela is probably already composing her flower girl acceptance speech—but all I can see is Audrey. Her face in the starlight. The tears already forming in her eyes.
“I spent thirty-four years thinking I was broken. That my brain worked wrong, that I’d never fit anywhere, that love was something that happened to other people—normal people—and I’d just have to watch from the outside.” My voice cracks, but I keep going. “Then you walked into my world with your wild hair and your glasses falling down your nose, and you argued with my code, and you laughed at my terrible jokes, and you made me feel like maybe I wasn’t broken after all. Maybe I was just waiting for the right person to see me.”
“Logan—”
“You see me, Audrey. The anxious, overthinking, socially disastrous mess that I am. The man I am when the world is on the other side of the door and it’s just you and me. You accept all my different parts, and you love me anyway. That’s—” I have to stop, swallow hard. “That’s the most extraordinary thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“You’re going to make me ugly cry in front of everyone.”
“I’ll cry with you. We can be ugly together.” I open the box. The ring catches the light—a simple band, a princess-cut diamond, chosen after hours and hours of research and one very patient jeweler. “Dr. Audrey Greene, will you marry me?”
She’s already nodding before I finish the question, tears streaming down her face. “Yes. Yes, obviously yes, you ridiculous man?—”
I slide the ring onto her finger, and then I’m standing and she’s in my arms and the deck explodes with cheers. Michaela is yelling, “I CALLED IT!” at maximum volume. Someone—probably Dominic—wolf-whistles. Audrey’s brothers are pounding on the railing like it’s a drum.
And then her lips are on mine, and nothing else matters.
“I love you,” she whispers against my mouth.
“I love you too.” I pull back to look at her, this woman who rewrote my entire existence. “Thank you for saying yes.”
