I turned my head slowly. “Jace.”
“What?”
“I’m going to kill you tomorrow.”
“Respectfully, you’re too emotionally fulfilled tonight.”
Isa covered her face with both hands.
I heard Jace’s retreating laugh. A door shut. Then another.
Then the house finally settled.
Snow tapped softly against the windows.
Isa lowered her hands, still blushing. “I cannot believe your friends and their families know this much about my life.”
“Baby, you proposed with a ring and legal paperwork on their deck.”
“I did not propose.”
“You did something proposal-adjacent.”
“Everyone keeps saying adjacent.”
“Because it was adjacent.”
She pointed at me. “I can still leave.”
I looked down at her. No smile now.
“No,” I said.
Her breath stopped.
I reached for her coat zipper and dragged it down slowly. “You can’t.”
“Drew.”
“You came all this way.” I pushed the coat off her shoulders. It fell onto a kitchen chair behind her. “Told me you loved me.” My hands moved to her waist, over my hoodie. “Gave me a ring.” I leaned down until my mouth hovered near her ear. “Brought legal documents into a snowstorm.”
She shivered.
Her hands fisted in my shirt.
“My girl.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
This time I didn’t try to take them back.
Isa heard the difference.
Her eyes lifted to mine, dark and bright and wide with everything we hadn’t done yet.
“Am I?” she whispered.
My chest ached.
