Her heart did something strange.
“Hank?” she asked.
“You remember when we sat in that awful plastic chair waiting for tech inspection,” he said. “Before any of this. When I told you I didn’t know how to want things that lasted.”
She did. It was burned into her memory, the smell of dry erase and gas, the way his voice had gone quiet.
“I remember,” she said.
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” he said. “Apparently, self-reflection is a side effect of zoning hearings.”
She snorted, but her pulse thudded hard against her ribs.
“I used to think wanting things was the dangerous part,” he went on. “If you didn’t want anything too much, you couldn’t lose it. Then you walked in front of me on the racetrack, in this tiny harbor town, and every theory I had went out the window.”
He pulled his hand from his pocket.
A small velvet box sat in his palm.
Her mouth went dry. “Hank,” she whispered.
He smiled, nervous and a little wild. “I thought about doing some big speech at the board meeting,” he said. “Or down at the harbor, with a sunset and at least three bystanders filming. But that felt wrong. This feels right.”
He went down on one knee on the drop cloth, between splatters of primer and coffee rings.
Her world narrowed to him; the curve of his shoulders, the way his fingers tightened around the box, the deep, steady look in his eyes.
“Aubree Spencer,” he said. “You’re the bravest person I know. You stayed when every part of you wanted to run. You took my chaotic life and somehow made it feel like it points somewhere. I want to spend the rest of my days building things with you. Walls, engines, whatever. I want to wake up in that creaky farmhouse and trip over your paint tubes on the way to the coffee maker.”
He opened the box.
The ring inside caught the light; a simple silver band, a round stone that wasn’t huge but sparkled like it meant it.
“I don’t know what the next race season looks like,” he said. “I don’t know how many permits we’ll have to file or which pipe in the house is going to burst first. But I know I want you there for all of it. Will you marry me?”
Her vision blurred. For a heartbeat, she couldn’t see the ring at all, just color and light and the memory of Bryn saying “You deserve a big love too,” on some long-ago night.
She’d thought that promise went into the ground with her sister.
Apparently, it had just taken the long way back.
“Yes,” she said, the word spilling out before her brain could wrap its arms around it. “Of course, yes.”
Relief crashed across his face, chased quickly by joy. He exhaled a laugh that sounded half disbelieving, half triumphant.
“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay.”
She held out her hand, fingers shaking. He slid the ring onto her finger, the metal cool against paint-stained skin.
It fit like it had been waiting there all along.
She pulled him up before he could say anything else and kissed him, hands fisted in his shirt. The coffee mugs wobbled on the crate, sloshing a little, but neither of them cared.
He kissed her back with everything he’d just tried to put into words and more besides; promises and apologies and wild, startling hope.
When they finally broke apart, breathing hard, he rested his forehead against hers.
“You sure?” he asked, voice rough.
