"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
Over her shoulder, Jon catches my eye. The grin softens into something private. Something that's just for us.
You remembered,I mouth.
I always remember,he mouths back.
Later, after cake and presents and an elaborate game of freeze dance, I find myself on Sera's back porch, watching the chaos wind down. The sun is setting, painting the sky in shades of gold that remind me of a different sunset, a different deck, a moment that changed everything.
Jon drops into the chair beside me, two beers in hand. He passes one over without asking.
"Good party."
"The best." I take a sip, let the cold settle. "She loved the flowers."
"I had good advice." His hand finds mine on the armrest, fingers interlacing. "A very wise six-year-old once told me that's what boyfriends do."
"She's seven now."
"So she is." He's quiet for a moment, watching Rosie chase fireflies across the lawn. "Hard to believe it's been a year."
"I know." I lean into him, let his warmth seep through me. "A year ago, I was in a cabin in the mountains, counting ceiling knots and trying to figure out if the men guarding me were going to kill me."
"And now?"
"Now I run a daycare for the children of special operations personnel, I'm dating a man who carries a gun and makes terrible jokes, and I just watched my goddaughter open presents at a birthday party that didn't end in anyone's death." I smile. "Life is weird."
"Life is good." He presses a kiss to my temple. "At least, mine is."
I turn to look at him. A year of mornings waking up beside him. A year of dinners and arguments and makeup sex and quiet moments exactly like this one. A year of learning each other's wounds and loving each other anyway.
"Jon."
"Yeah?"
“I’ll never forget you saved me.”
He pulls back slightly, brow furrowing. "I think you've got that backward. You're the one who climbed a cliff and pulled my ass up behind you."
"That's not what I mean." I set down my beer and take his face in my hands. "You saved me. Not from the cartel—from the cage I'd built for myself. You looked at all the parts of me I thought were too much, and you didn't run. You stayed."
His eyes are soft in the fading light. "Evie?—"
"I spent years thinking I had to hide. That the real me was too wild, too intense, too much for anyone to love. And then you showed up in a cabin at dawn and told me to trust my gut."My thumb traces his cheekbone. "You gave me permission to be myself. All of myself. That's not nothing."
He's quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is rough.
"You saved me too, you know."
"Did I?"
"I was drowning. Had been for years. Going through the motions, cracking jokes, pretending the weight wasn't crushing me." His hand covers mine on his face. "Then I met a woman who threw a rock at an armed soldier and asked me to trust her on a cliff face. And somewhere between the rock and the climb and the crevice—" He stops. Swallows. "You gave me something to live for. Something beyond the mission."
I kiss him. Soft and slow and full of everything I can't put into words.
When we break apart, Rosie is standing at the edge of the porch, watching us with the knowing expression of a child who's seen too much and understood more than she should.
"Are you guys going to get married?"
