“I don’t know!” He sounded frustrated. “HowcanI know it? How can I ever know it without pushing ahead?”
“We haven’t even dated,” she said. “Couldn’t we date?”
Cary looked disappointed. Hurt. “Do youwantto date?”
She shrugged. She felt pathetic. “Why not?”
“Because.Because we already know what we need to know.” He was holding her hands by the fingers. “There’s no getting to know each other, Shiloh. You know me better than anyone. And I knowyou. If we’re together, then it’s already serious. I want to begin our life together.”
Shiloh was sitting back on her calves. She was crying. She lifted her arm to wipe her eyes on her wrist. Cary didn’t let go of her hands.
“What do you want?” he whispered.
She shook her head. “A time machine.”
“I can’t give you the past,” Cary said. He squeezed her hands. “But we could have a future.”
She sniffed. She tried to look at him directly.
His hair was pushed the wrong way, curling a bit over his forehead. He was making a stern face, and the eyebrow makeup made him look extra stern. His eyes were the same old spill of maple syrup. “I’m already yours, Shiloh. Do you want me?”
She nodded. Miserable. “Of course Iwantyou, Cary. That’s not the question!”
Cary was sitting on his ankles, too. “That’smyquestion.”
She jerked on his arms. “I just can’t see this working out.”
“Then I’m doomed,” he said. “Because I only want to be with you.”
Shiloh sighed.
Cary leaned forward, holding their hands up between them. “I only want to be with you, Shiloh. Please let me be with you.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea...” she said again.
“Do you have a better one?”
Her shoulders slumped. “No.”
He rubbed her hands.
“Let me see the ring,” she said. Desultorily.
Cary straightened, his eyes going a little wild, and let go of her hands. He picked up the box, turned it toward her, and opened it.
Shiloh leaned closer. The ring was silver with a round diamond. The band was intricate—twisted with filigree that looked like rope. “That’s pretty,” she said, already too interested. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“It’s yours,” Cary said. “If you want it.”
She looked up at his face. He still looked so serious, even when he was desperate. (She knew he was desperate.)She tried to wipe the paint off one of his eyebrows with her thumb. It smeared.
“I want it,” she said. “I want you. I just can’t stop thinking of all the ways this could go bad.”
“You think it’ll go better with someone else?”
“It’s more like—if it goes bad with someone else, it won’t be so devastating.”
“That’s terrible logic, Shiloh.” He was being gentle.
