“Yeah.” I’m surprised to find it’s true. “I think I am.”
“That was very mature of you.”
“Don’t get used to it.” I attempt to deflect with a crooked smile, though I know she sees right through me. She always does.
She tucks her hand through my arm, nestling in like we’ve been built to fit this way forever. “I like you this way.”
“Emotionally self-actualized?”
“I like it when you’re bold—alphaLogan.” I laugh, but the look she gives me is sly, proud, and charged with the private language that’s just ours. “Defiant is a good color on you.”
Over her shoulder, I can see my parents awkwardly accepting drinks from Tony, who’s launched into what appears to be an enthusiastic explanation of firework safety protocols. They look uncomfortable. Out of place. But they’re trying.
Maybe that’s enough for now. Maybe it’s the start of something. Or maybe it’ll fizzle out like a damp sparkler, and we’ll go back to polite distance and holiday cards that say nothing real.
Either way, it doesn’t define me anymore.
“Dance with me,” I say.
Audrey raises an eyebrow. “There’s no music.”
“There’s fireworks. That’s basically music.”
“That’s not how music works.”
“I’m a tech billionaire who built a chatbot to practice talking to you. I think we’ve established that normal rules don’t apply.”
She laughs again and lets me pull her into my arms. We sway slowly, out of time with the explosions overhead, while our friends and family cheer, and my parents stand awkwardly on the periphery, and the lake reflects a thousand points of light.
I think about the person I was a year ago. Terrified of connection. Convinced I was fundamentally broken. So certain that love was a bug in other people’s programming, not something my system could run.
I think about the night after the club when I panicked and blocked her kiss with my hand. The months of misery that followed. The chatbot. The spreadsheets. The moment I finally told her the truth—that I was a virgin, that I’d never been kissed, that I’d spent my whole life believing I was defective.
And I think about now. My ring on her finger. Her body in my arms. A future stretching out ahead of us, full of houses to fill and lives to build and probably at least three more PowerPoint presentations about optimal wedding planning timelines.
“Hey, Logan?” Audrey murmurs against my chest.
“Hmm?”
“I’m really glad you blocked my kiss with your hand.”
I pull back to look at her. “You are?”
“Yeah. The timing wasn’t right. We weren’t ready.” She reaches up to touch my face. “But because you panicked, we had to actually talk. Figure things out. And we built something real.”
“So my social catastrophe was actually a relationship strategy?”
“The most effective one I’ve ever seen.” She grins. “Remind me to thank your anxiety sometime.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
She kisses me—soft and sweet, a promise rather than a demand. Above us, the finale begins, a cascade of light and sound that drowns out everything else.
When we break apart, she’s smiling. “Ready for whatever comes next?”
I look at her—this brilliant, beautiful, impossible woman who saw through every wall I built and decided I was worth the effort. The woman who taught me that being different isn’t the same as being broken. The woman who gave me a home when I didn’t know I needed one.
“With you?” I say. “Always.”
