“She capitalizes nothing,” I said.
Nick’s eyes stayed on my face. “I’m aware.”
“Punctuation is also inconsistent.”
“Yes.”
“That reflects poorly on you.”
“I’ll address it.”
I handed the phone back because if I kept looking at the words, I might do something embarrassing, like cry, or worse, speak honestly without adequate preparation.
Nick slid the phone into his pocket.
The patio noise swelled behind us. Rayann laughed, and Max murmured something near her ear that turned her next sentence into a smile. Brynn accused a gull of spoon theft. Jerrick produced another without looking, because apparently black belts came with utensil readiness.
Nick took in all of it without retreating. His thumb rested against my pulse, steady as the noise moved around us.
“I’m not asking for simple,” he said.
My breath slowed.
The words were too quiet for anyone else. Too controlled to be accidental.
“Good,” I said. “I don’t provide simple.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you asking for?”
His eyes moved across the patio, over my sisters and their partners, Daisy and Sofia on the lawn, the house lit behind us, and the table still cluttered with plates and glasses and evidence of everyone we loved refusing to exist neatly.
“All of it,” he said. “The flights. The calendars. Sofia. Your work. My work. The noise.”
“That last one may be permanent.”
“I know.”
“And possibly genetic.”
“I’ve assessed the risk.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
His thumb moved once along the inside of my wrist. “I’m asking for real.”
The word landed exactly where he aimed it. He was not asking for perfect, effortless, or simple. He was asking for the life we had built in pieces and finally stopped pretending not to want.
Real.
Us, with all the moving parts: Sofia’s room her own, my house full of women who considered boundaries a negotiable theory, D.C. weekends, Florida summers, and Nick learning that flip flops were not a moral failure.
Us, with the truth left where both of us could see it.
“That was dangerously close to a proposal, Mercer.”
His fingers tightened around my wrist with deliberate restraint, sending a slow warning through my pulse.
