When we finally broke apart, we were both breathing hard. Her eyes were bright, her lips swollen, a flush spreading across her cheeks.
"So," she said, slightly breathless. "Still taking things slow?"
"Extremely slow." I kissed the corner of her mouth. "Glacially slow." Her neck. "Painfully, ridiculously slow." The sensitive spot below her ear.
She shivered. "Good to know."
"Mmm." I pulled back just enough to look at her. "I should walk you to the door."
"I can see myself out. I live here four nights a week, I know the way."
"Humor me."
She rolled her eyes but let me lead her to the front door, my arm around her waist, her head against my shoulder. The night air was cool when I opened it, carrying the scent of the garden, roses, and jasmine, and the particular green smell of a world growing back after winter.
I stopped her at the threshold, taking both her hands in mine.
"Claire."
"Nathaniel." She was smiling, but her eyes were serious, sensing the shift in my tone.
"I want this." The words came out rougher than I intended, scraped raw by three months of learning to say what I meant. "Us. Whatever this becomes, however it grows. I want to build it with you." My heart was pounding, but I made myself continue. "For the rest of my life, if you'll have me."
Her breath caught. A smile trembled on her lips, her eyes glistening in the porch light.
"Nathaniel Sterling." Her voice was soft, wondering. "That sounds suspiciously like a pre-proposal."
"Maybe it is." I held her gaze, letting her see everything: the fear, the hope, the love I still couldn't quite say out loud. "But only when you're ready. No pressure, no timelines, no…"
She kissed me quietly. Soft and sure, her hands coming up to frame my face, her lips gentle against mine.
When she pulled back, her expression was serene. Certain. Full of a love that was patient and fierce all at once.
"Ask me again in three months," she whispered. "If we're both still learning. Still growing. Still choosing each other every single day." Her thumb traced my cheekbone. "Ask me then."
Three months. Ninety days. A lifetime and no time at all.
I brought her hand to my lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it. "Three months."
"Three months," she echoed.
Then she slipped out into the night, her footsteps soft on the gravel, and I watched her until her car disappeared around the bend of the driveway.
I stood there for a long time after she'd gone, the cool air filling my lungs, the stars scattered overhead like promises. For thirty-four years, waiting had been my enemy. Waiting meant uncertainty. Uncertainty meant danger. The future was a battlefield that had to be controlled, anticipated, and conquered before it could hurt you.
But standing on my porch, my lips still tingling from Claire's kiss, I realized something had shifted. Waiting didn't feel like torture anymore. It felt like faith.
And in three months, ninety days of learning and growing and choosing each other, I was going to ask Claire Cross to marry me.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it felt like the surest thing I'd ever known.
I smiled into the darkness, turned, and walked back into the house that was finally, after all this time, starting to feel like home.
20.Claire
Six months ago, I had thirty-three dollars to my name and a water stain on my ceiling that looked like some dead politician. Today, I was watching a five-year-old named Marcus sound out the word "butterfly" like he was defusing a bomb, and I had never been happier in my entire life.
"Buh... buh-ter..." He scrunched his face, his finger tracing under each letter. "Fly! Butterfly!"
