But then his fingers shift from playful to still, and something like anticipation hums under the surface of his touch.
“Hey,” I say softly. “What’s going on in that beautiful, wolfy head of yours?”
He clears his throat. “There’s… something I want to show you first.”
He takes my hand, guiding me gently across the garden. The ground changes under my feet, soft earth, then firmer soil, then something even, cool, and patterned.
Cobblestone.
My breath catches.
“Jason…?”
“Keep going,” he says, voice warm and nervous all at once.
The cobblestone path leads onward beneath my feet, each stone familiar under my soles, then shifting subtly as I cross from stone to something softer. Moss. Springy, cool, and velvety between the grooves, exactly the texture I told him once, half-asleep, that I wished paths felt like so I could “hear” the ground in a nicer way.
My throat tightens.
Then a breeze shifts, brushing across my shoulders. Something wooden creaks gently overhead, like a porch swing or a garden gate swaying in the wind.
“Jason,” I whisper.
I reach out, hesitant, searching.
My hand meets a smooth post of polished wood, warm from the sun. I trail my fingertips along it. The grain is fine, the finish seamless. Someone sanded this with care. Someone oiled it. Someone built it with intentional gentleness. A railing. My breath lifts into a quiet, shaky laugh.
Another step forward, and my foot slides onto a level wooden platform. I sweep my hand outward and there it is.
Another rail.
Then something else beneath my fingers, small ridges, evenly spaced.
Raised markers.
Carved bumps arranged in…
I inhale sharply.
“Jason,” I whisper again, voice barely a breath. “Is this braille?”
He exhales like he’s been holding his lungs hostage for hours. “Read it,” he murmurs.
My fingertips glide slowly over the symbols, the tiny, perfect dots, each one smoothed and sealed so they won’t splinter or fade. I feel them with the same care I’d touch a skittish cub.
H-E-L-L-O
V-I-O-L-E-T
W-E-L-C-O-M-E
H-O-M-E
“Oh.” I press my hand to my mouth, tears falling from my eyes before I can stop them. “Jason…”
He steps closer, so close I feel the warmth of him behind me, his breath trembling against my hair.
“It’s a gazebo,” he says softly. “A real one. With reinforced rails, moss paths, braille markers on every corner, and… ”
