Page 20

Much better.

The enchiladas come out perfect. Sage admits it with visible reluctance. Rivera has thirds. Dante sits beside me at the long kitchen table, his hand on my knee under the surface, thumb tracing slow circles while he talks to Jake on the phone about the retreat security plan. Multitasking. Our love language, apparently.

After dinner, the crew clears out. Rivera makes a show of saying goodnight loudly enough for the entire lodge to hear. Sage takes a container of leftovers "for Jabari" that is absolutely for herself. The kitchen empties.

Dante washes dishes. I dry. We've done this a hundred times. The domesticity of it still gets me. Six months ago I was eating takeout alone at a desk in Vancouver. Now I'm drying enchilada pans in a mountain lodge kitchen while the man I love washes them with the same careful attention he gives to everything.

"Hey." He shuts off the water. Turns to me. Those dark eyes, soft in the warm kitchen light. "Come outside for a minute."

The terrace behind the lodge overlooks the valley. April night, cold, clear. Stars scattered thick above the ridge line. The bonfire circle from the Autumn Harvest is still there, the stone ring a permanent installation now. My idea. Noah approved it in January.

We stand at the railing. His arm goes around my shoulders, pulling me into his side. Warm. Solid.

"You did something amazing here." His voice is low. "Six months ago this was a three day experiment. Now it's a program. Your program."

"Our program. You redesigned the entire crowd flow system after the Holiday Gala."

"You redesigned the crowd flow system. I moved some posts."

"You moved them before I asked."

"I pay attention." His thumb strokes my shoulder through my sweater. "That's my whole job. Paying attention to what you need before you know you need it."

My throat tightens. Because that's exactly what he does. Every morning. Every event. Every fight about the thermostat (he keeps it at sixty eight, I need seventy two, we compromise at seventy and both complain). Every Sunday in bed. Every time I stress about a vendor call or a budget shortfall, he doesn't fix it. He just sits beside me with coffee and silence until I figure it out myself.

Present. Always present. Siempre presente.

"I have something for you." He reaches into his jacket pocket.

My heart hammers. For a wild, irrational second I think he's going to pull out a ring, and my body goes simultaneously electric and terrified in a way that tells me everything I need to know about where I stand on the idea of marrying this man.

He pulls out a key.

A single brass key on a leather cord.

"It's to the equipment shed," he says. Deadpan. "You keep borrowing mine."

A laugh rips out of me. Full belly, head back, the kind that echoes off the mountains. He's grinning, that rare full smile that only comes out when he's caught me off guard.

"You ass."

"You thought it was a ring."

"I did not."

"Your whole face changed. Your eyes got huge."

"They did not."

"They got enormous. You looked like a cartoon character."

"I'm going to push you off this terrace."

He's laughing now too, pulling me against him, his arms wrapping around my waist from behind while we both face the valley. His chin rests on top of my head. Both of us breathing through the laughter, the cold air, the ridiculous perfection of this moment.

"For the record." His voice drops. Serious beneath the humor. "When I do ask, it won't be a key on a leather cord."

When. Not if. My chest fills with something warm, expanding outward from behind my sternum until my whole body feels lit from the inside.