“Unfortunately,” she teases.
“We should tell him together,” I say after a moment.
Her head turns toward me immediately.
“Together?”
“Yes.”
“That’s scary.”
“It is.”
She laughs again, softer this time.
“I like the plan,” she admits.“I just don’t like how nervous it makes me.”
“I’ll be there,” I say simply.
She studies my face carefully, like she’s checking whether I mean that as much as it sounds like I do.
“I know,” she says quietly.
The room gets quieter after that. It doesn’t feel awkward so much as closer. It feels like something shifted between us without either of us needing to say anything else out loud.
She sets her glass down on the table without breaking eye contact.
“You’re being very calm about all of this,” she says.
“I’m not calm.”
“You look calm.”
“That’s because I’m focused.”
“On what?”
“On not messing this up.”
Her expression softens slightly when I say that, like she wasn’t expecting me to answer honestly.
“You’re not going to mess this up,” she says.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she replies.
The certainty in her voice makes something settle inside my chest in a way I didn’t realize I needed.
She moves closer without saying anything else. Close enough that our knees touch fully now. Then our shoulders. Then her hand brushes mine like she meant it to.
“Blake,” she says quietly.
“Yeah?”
“You’re very distracting.”
“That’s intentional.”
