"Don't be mad."
"I'm not mad. Callum has the biggest mouth in the valley and he has no business being trusted with a secret."
She laughs.
Tilts her head up.
"I love it."
"You haven't seen it."
"I don't need to see it. You built it. That's the part I love."
She kisses the underside of my jaw.
"Gray."
"Yeah."
"Ask me."
My chest goes still.
"Simone."
"Ask me. Please. I've been waiting."
"I was going to do it the day I gave you the cabin."
"Don't wait two weeks."
"It's supposed to be."
"It's supposed to be whenever you mean it. You mean it now. Ask me."
I slide her off my lap. Stand up. Take her hands. Pull her up to her feet.
I don't have the ring on me. It's in a drawer upstairs in a velvet box I've been looking at every morning for six weeks.
I don't care.
I sink down onto one knee on the porch boards.
Her hand flies to her mouth.
"Simone Marie Baptiste."
"Gray."
"I've loved you since the second morning when you told me you'd cook eggs in a firefight."
"That's a weird way to start a proposal."
"Shut up."
"Okay."
"I've loved you since you saidyes sirin my office and I've loved you since you ran down a staircase in Toronto in bare feet in April and I've loved you every single morning for ten months when you reach for the cold side of the bed. The ring is upstairs. I'll get it. I'll do it again properly with the cabin and the ring and the speech if you want me to. But right now, on this porch, will you marry me."
