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“He wouldn’t cheat on her.”

I look at Tate now. “You can’t know that.”

“I do,” he argues firmly. “He loves her. Has for years.”

I shrug. “People fall out of love every day.”

“I never did,” he declares. My breath stalls. “My feelings for you never changed—even when I tried to change them.”

My throat feels suddenly tight. “Are you saying that you’ll never cheat on me?”

“I’ll never do anything to jeopardize the life I want to life with you. Never.”

“Tate…”

“I’m serious. I knew the moment I saw you roll up in that ugly cruiser your parents love so much that I was gone for anyone and everyone else. Some people just know, and I knew.” His eyes peer into my own, needling my soul with the truth I wish wasn’t so complicated. “My grandpa knew with my grandmother, you know?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Holt never told you about them?”

My breath hitches at the casual mention of Holt. Tate’s been doing that lately. Bringing him into casual conversation like it doesn’t shave a strip from my already wounded heart.

I shake my head because I can’t quite summon the ability to speak.

“Grandpa saw Grandma when they were young, too. Not as young as us, but young enough to be delusional. She was already dating someone, but he fell for her in a way that he knew she’d be his.” He laughs low with the memory. “He used to love telling the tale of them. How he’d pick wildflowers for her every morning, stopping in to where she worked at the old folks’ home. How he’d tuck it into her curls, and she’d wear it all day long.”

“But she was someone else’s?”

He shakes his head again. “To Grandpa, she was always his.”

“But—”

“He’d play a round of checkers or a game of cards with one of the residents before he’d leave for work. I think that won her over as much as the flowers, to be honest. Grandma has a big heart.”

“What did he do for work?”

Tate grins a rogue grin. “Construction. It’s a family talent.”

“How’d he meet her? If she had a boyfriend already?”

“Saw her one morning while driving to a job site. She was walking through the garden with a resident. He stopped right then, picked her a flower and asked her to dinner.”

“She denied him?”

“She did. But only for a while. Grandpa’s persistence proved worthwhile, because she broke things off with the man she’d been seeing to take Grandpa up on his offer of dinner. And that was that.”

“Where are they now?” I ask cautiously. “I’ve never met them.”

“Grandpa has pretty bad arthritis. They moved to Arizona about ten years ago. We went when we were younger, but life got busy when Holt started taking hockey seriously. Then the business took off and—” Tate twists his lips to the side in thought. “We should take a trip once the baby comes. Grandma would be over the moon to meet her great grandbaby.”

A fist squeezes my heart, because we’re making real plans like a real couple. Tate is touching me freely, like a man should touch his to-be wife. He’s kissing me…

Hope trickles into the heart that has felt so painfully hopeless.

“I’d like that, Tate.”

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