He did not bother with a gentler entrance.“Maybe we should skip all this and elope.”
His tone came flat, not mocking, not even angry.Worse.Tired.
Her head snapped up.“Are you serious.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Oh, you said enough.”Her chair shoved back hard against the floor.“You walk in here, see me doing every damn thing, and that’s what you come up with.”
“Kyla.”
“No.”She shoved the papers flat again with the heel of her hand.“Maybe if you spent half as much time in this kitchen as you do hiding out in the barn, you’d know what’s left.”
His brows lifted.“Don’t start.”
The pen was in her hand before she noticed reaching for it.She threw it at him.
The plastic barrel struck the center of his coat and bounced away, spinning out across the tile before it rattled to a stop by his boot.A red smear marked the zipper.
Everything stopped.Titus blinked once.The look on his face broke for half a second.Surprise that she had crossed from sharp words into something physical.Shame arrived right behind her anger and settled there like a second skin.
His voice came low and controlled.“I’m not doing this like this.I’ll give you space.”
He gathered his hat and keys and left without slamming the door.Kyla stayed at the table with both palms flat against the wood, sweat slick under her hands.For the first time all winter, she looked at the snow outside and wished it would never melt.
Two days passed with the Victorian stripped nearly silent.Kyla kept her head down over invoices while the ring on her finger turned in a slow, resentful circle.If Titus stopped near her, she did not look up.
By the third morning, her stomach rolled.She washed her face, twisted her hair into a tight braid, and swiped on lipstick because routine felt easier than thought.
At nine, she stood in the wedding dress shop on Main Street.The fitting alcove stood behind a curtain printed with wilted roses.Kyla ducked behind it, one hand catching the dress at her chest where the zipper still hung open.Satin and lace slid off one shoulder and left the long line of her back bare to the mirror.
She looked at herself.The dress did not look like her.It appeared too delicate, too willing to float where she had spent a lifetime insisting on edges.
The curtain shifted.Heavy boots moved over the carpet in a familiar rhythm.
Titus stepped inside and pulled the curtain closed.In one hand he carried a bouquet of wild flowers.His face looked rough from lack of sleep.
“Wait,” he said, voice low.“I need to say this first.”
He went down on both knees.
The flowers landed near her bare feet.
“I have been avoiding you,” he said.“All this wedding planning put too much on me and I shut down instead of talking to you about it.That was wrong.”
He touched her carefully, palms moving to the backs of her knees.His mouth pressed first to the inside of her knee.Then higher.Not rushed.A long, careful apology delivered without a single word more.
Kyla’s fingers found his hair.Every hard edge she had carried into the fitting room began to give way.He paused with his forehead against her for one breath, then looked up at her.He showed no shield and no pride, only himself.
“I am sorry,” he said again.
Kyla threaded her fingers tighter into his hair, not pulling, only keeping him there.Pressure built through her body.When release came, it broke through her so hard her knees nearly failed.Titus kept her upright with both hands.
Only then did he rest his cheek lightly against her thigh.Kyla looked down at him, chest still rising hard.The first smile she had managed in days started at one corner of her mouth.
Titus rose slowly.He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.Kyla adjusted the straps of her dress without bothering to zip it.
“I love you,” he said quietly.“We will get through the wedding plans together.No more avoiding it.”
