I shaved.
I was standing in front of the mirror when my phone buzzed.
Mira:She’s closing the diner. She’ll be at her house in 20 minutes. Don’t be late.
I had a team. I had accomplices. Heather had said yes immediately when I asked if I could cook dinner at Maple’s house. Mira had said yes when I asked if she would help set the scene. Sue had said yes when I asked if she would bake the cake. Maddox had said yes when he asked if he could borrow something—a story, a moment, a reason.
Forty-three days of keeping this secret.
Forty-three days of knowing that Maple was wearing my first ring and that the second ring was coming, and that she had no idea, and that the whole town was in on the surprise like they had all been waiting their entire lives for this moment to happen.
I left the apartment at 5:12 p.m.
The drive to Maple’s house took six minutes.
She was not there yet. I let myself in with the key she had given me on Day 20 and I walked through the small craftsman house like it was already half-my, because it was. They hadtalked about moving after the wedding—maybe into something bigger, something on the lake instead of one block off it. But this house was the one her grandmother had left her, and so this house was sacred.
I moved through the kitchen and I began the preparations. My hands were steady—the hands of someone who had learned to work with precision, to move with intention. I laid out the ingredients. I checked the oven temperature three times. I was going to do this right. I was going to cook her a meal that said: I am staying. I am building. I am yours.
The grocers had delivered the ingredients that morning—bison steaks, potatoes, asparagus, a sauce that was more complicated than I could ever make myself. I had called Heather at work two days before and I had said: I want to cook her dinner. I want to ask her to marry me on her grandmother’s porch with the whole town waiting. Heather had said: then you’re going to need help. Heather, whose husband had walked out years ago, understood that meals meant something when you had lost the person to cook them for, had helped me plan every detail. They had talked about it the way people talked about rituals—with care, with intention, with the understanding that this was not just food, this was love made visible on a plate.
I had the steaks on by 5:48 p.m.
Heather arrived with the table settings at 5:53 p.m. She was quiet—she was always quiet, but today she was specifically quiet, the kind of quiet that said she was protecting something fragile. She set down the dishes and she said, “She’s going to say yes.”
I said, “I know.”
Heather said, “You’re terrified.”
I said, “Yes.”
Heather said, “That’s good. That means you understand what you’re getting.”
I could hear her truck pull up the driveway at 6:17 p.m.
I had time for one deep breath.
Maple came through the door and she froze when she saw what I had done—the table was set with white plates and cloth napkins, the candles were lit in every corner, the steaks were resting on the counter like they were the most important thing in the world (and in this moment, they were), and I was standing in the kitchen in jeans and a sweater like it was just an ordinary evening and not the night that was going to change everything, the night that was going to alter the trajectory of both their lives, the night that was going to make them a unit instead of two separate people trying to figure out how to exist in the same space.
She said, “What is this.”
I said, “Dinner.”
She said, “Knox. The proposal was supposed to be at the house. On the porch. The formal one. The one where you get to do the string lights.”
I said, “I know. And that’s enough. That’s more than enough. That’s everything. You choosing me every day—that’s everything I’ll ever need.”
She said, “Then what is this.”
I said, “This is me cooking dinner for you. This is me asking you to marry me a second time. This is me asking you to know that I will cook for you. That I will feed you. That I will take care of you the way your grandmother took care of this town.”
Maple was crying already, and I had not even done it yet.
They ate dinner at 6:47 p.m.
I had cooked the steaks perfectly—the inside rare, the outside charred just right. She did not taste much of it, I thought. She was looking at me instead of the food. She was trying to figure out what I was going to do next.
At 7:22 p.m., after they had cleared the dishes, I said, “Come with me.”
