"The forever kind," I say.
She stops walking.
I stop too. Baxter immediately sits on my foot with his full, inconsiderate weight.
When she turns to face me. "George," she says, and then the sentence stays unfinished between us.
"Don't worry." I meet her eyes. "I can wait."
And I mean that too though I'm aware that it sounds like patience and is actually something more like certainty.
Baxter, either sensing the emotional weight of the moment or spotting a squirrel in his peripheral vision, chooses this exact instant to launch himself between us with a bark that startles us both. Tessa laughs and the tension breaks like a window opening, letting something fresh move through.
We drift back toward the oak without quite deciding to, following some low gravity neither of us names. Baxter circles the base of it twice with great ceremony and then folds himself into a heap at our feet, heaving a sigh of profound personal satisfaction.
She leans her head against my shoulder. I put my arm around her waist.
The leaves shift overhead and the light moves through them in slow patches, warm across my arm. Baxter snores.
I could stay here forever.
