“I had a very good plan.”
My smile breaks loose before I can stop it. “Tell me.”
“No.”
“Gray.”
“No, because you already ruined it.”
“I did not ruin it. I streamlined it.”
He gives me a look. “You interrogated me into confessing I bought an engagement ring.”
I try to look repentant and fail completely. “That’s kind of romantic, actually.”
He laughs then, really laughs, and the sound loosens something in the room.
The nerves don’t disappear, exactly. They just shift into something sweeter.
More certain.
I touch his face, tracing the line of his jaw with my fingertips. “You were really going to ask me?”
He leans into my hand. “Yeah.”
“And you thought I might say yes?”
His eyes hold mine.
There is not a single ounce of hesitation in him when he answers.
“I know you will.”
That’s it.
That’s the thing that undoes me.
Not arrogance. Not an assumption.
Certainty.
The kind built slowly, carefully, over every conversation and conflict and airport goodbye and late-night phone call and hard truth and ordinary Tuesday. The kind earned by showing up again and again until love becomes the most dependable thing in the room.
I swallow hard.
“Then ask me,” I whisper.
His expression changes.
The teasing slips away. The laughter softens out of his mouth. What’s left is so open it nearly steals my breath.
“You sure?”
I nod.
“Yes.”
He studies me for half a second, like he’s making absolutely certain I mean it, then gently shifts me off his lap and rises to his feet.
