She looks like she belongs with me.
“You’re staring,” she says, not unkindly, a hint of laughter in her voice.
“I’m appreciating,” I correct, walking closer. “There’s a difference.”
She rolls her eyes, but her cheeks give her away. “Happy birthday,” she says, quieter now.
I cup her face without thinking, my thumbs brushing over warm skin. “Thank you for stealing me away.”
“I didn’t steal you,” she says. “I borrowed you. Permanently.”
I laugh, leaning down to kiss her—slow, unhurried. The kind of kiss that doesn’t need an audience or an occasion. When I pull back, her eyes are soft, shining.
“I love you,” she says, like it’s the easiest truth in the world.
Something in my chest loosens. “I love you, too.”
We spread the picnic out near the water. She’s packed everything herself—food she knows I like, things that remind her of us. She talks while arranging it, narrating what she’s doing as if I might miss something important otherwise. I listen, because this is my favorite version of her: absorbed, gentle, present.
At some point, she sits beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch. She leans her head against my arm like it’s second nature.
“This,” she says softly, looking around, “is my favorite way to celebrate anything.”
I glance down at her. “Being away from people?”
“Being with the right one,” she corrects.
We eat. We talk. We sit in comfortable silence that doesn’t ask to be filled. The sun climbs higher, warming everything it touches. She laughs at something small I say, and it feels like a reward I didn’t know I’d been waiting for.
Then she shifts. There’s that look again—the one she gets when she’s about to do something that matters to her.
“Okay,” she says, drawing her knees up. “I have something for you.”
I arch a brow. “You already kidnapped me. Isn’t that enough?”
She snorts. “Please. You liked it.”
She reaches into her bag and pulls out her tablet, holding it out to me with both hands like it’s fragile. Precious.
“What’s this?” I ask, though my voice has already softened.
“A gift,” she says. “But… you have to actually look at it.”
I take it from her carefully, turning the screen on. It unlocks immediately.
The first thing I see is a title.
Dhruvtara.
My breath catches before I even realize it has.
I scroll.
An illustration fills the screen. A couple under a mandap. Familiar in a way that’s impossible to mistake. The man is holding the woman in his arms, protective, steady. The woman is smiling—not posed, not perfect, but real.
Her.
Us.
