“Maybe I’m just happy.”
She studied me for another second, then smiled too. Her dad’s voice echoed faintly in my head as I looked back at her,the women in this family tend to err on the side of dramatics.
I liked that, though. Or rather, I likedherdramatics, that fiery spark that had drawn me to her before I’d even known who she was. I grinned, deliberately coy as I leaned forward. “I have something to show you. Something I think you’ll like.”
She gave my crotch a very pointed glance, a smirk curving on those full lips. “Well, I do like it, but you don’t have to show it to me right now.”
I chuckled. “It’s not that.”
“Oh. Damn.” She winked at me before narrowing her eyes. “If it’s not that and you’re actually serious about it, then what is it?”
“Something you’ll like.”
“That sounds suspicious.”
“It’s not.”
“That’s exactly what someone suspicious would say.”
I smiled. “It’s a surprise.”
She pursed her lips, one of her eyebrows slowly arching. “Do you have another secret girlfriend?”
“No.” I scoffed. “One secret internet persona per marriage is enough. This is a much better secret than that.”
“Is it a yacht?”
“Nope.” I hooked my ankle over my knee, enjoying having her all to myself again. “I do have one of those, but that’s not it.”
She sighed dramatically, slumping into her seat. “Well, that’s disappointing.”
The smile she tried to hide told me she was still pretty excited anyway. I chuckled. “I could’ve sworn you told me once that you loved surprises.”
“I do, but I feel like we’ve had enough of those recently to last us at least the next decade.”
I rocked my head from one side to the other, considering. “You’re not wrong, but this is a good surprise. It doesn’t come with another ring or any expectations at all, really.”
“You mean you’re not taking me to adopt a child we’ve been told we had to produce overnight?”
“Nope, but we should probably talk about that.”
“Adopting a child when we get back to Chicago?”
I exhaled deeply through my nose. “Well, I mean, not as soon as we land, but is that something you’d ever be interested in?”
“Yes.”
“You sound very sure about this,” I said. “You didn’t even have to think about it.”
“That’s because I already have. Many times.” She looked back at me, chewing the inside of her cheek for a moment before she sighed. “I had a lot of long, lonely nights to fill, Nate. My friends, coworkers, and it felt like just about every stranger I bumped into on the street were getting married and having babies.”
“Meanwhile, you were texting me.”
She lapsed into a beat of silence before she sighed. “Whenever we talked about running away together, which, if you really think about it, we did freakishly often for two workaholics, but yeah. Whenever we talked about it, I wondered after what our lives might be like once we got there.”
“Yeah, I might’ve had a few of those thoughts myself.”
“Well, mine were probably dirtier than yours.” She smirked. “But I kind of figured after a few months ofthat, we’d eventually settle in and maybe, a couple years later, start a family. Part ofthat thought process was wondering what that our family would look like. That’s why I could answer so fast.”
