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We’d been behaving like a couple, but also like friends and colleagues. I needed to make myself clear on where I was at, and hope she was in the same place.

I leaned back in the driver’s seat of my truck, staring out into the dark cemetery. I had no idea how to do this. Love seemed complicated. Every rom-com I’d seen, which, granted, wasn’t many, had some dramatic scene. One person was running through an airport or singing on stage for some reason.

I was not doing those things. It might work for twenty-year-olds, but we were in our thirties, and no one wanted to be serenaded.

At least, I hoped not.

But what was the adult equivalent of laying it all on the line?

Briar didn’t strike me as a flowers and chocolates kind of girl. Although I suspected ice coffee wouldn’t be turned away. I wanted to do more than just ask her out. The things I was feeling for her weren’t that casual.

I’d had an idea swirling in my mind for the past few hours. Something I thought would be romantic in a way only Briar would understand.

It was a complicated long shot, but I wanted to put in the effort.

The last few hours of my shift dragged on. I hadn’t had a decent sleep in a few nights and my body was past feeling it. I couldn’t go home yet. I had one very important stop first. I drove through the early dawn light with Mercer’s hotel as my destination.

If he had already left town then my plan would need to be reworked.

Luckily, when I pulled into the now-familiar parking lot, his car was still out front.

I hunched against the cold as I jogged from my truck to his front door and knocked.

I could hear him grumbling inside, but ultimately, the door swung open. The thin man was dressed all in black, minus the dramatic robe from his livestream. He stood stiffly when his eyes landed on me.

“Fuck, what now? Lose your grocery list and assume I stole it to mess with you?” He smirked in a way that was very tempting to punch.

I pushed the feeling down…for now.

“I have a suggestion for you.”

His brows dropped. “A suggestion as in, do it or I’ll rearrange your face?”

I shrugged. “Take it how you want. You should have a new headstone made for the nameless grave.”

I handed him a piece of paper with Honor and her baby’s information written on it.

He took it tentatively, staring down at it for a long moment.

“Why would I do that?”

“You profited from their deaths. I think it would be a nice thing to do. Could probably even call it a business expense on your taxes.”

He actually seemed to be thinking about it, and that was more than I expected. I wasn’t going to argue with the guy or intimidate him. I’d leave it at that.

“Here’s my card. It’s the right thing to do, Mercer.”

I turned and went back to my truck, his very punchable face still in one piece.

The next week was a boring mix of work and waiting. I never heard from Mercer, Briar, or anyone else for that matter. I stood in the dark among the headstones, then went home to my small cabin, which was feeling too big without her in it.

My usual routine had always been enough. Cut wood for winter, enjoy a coffee in the silence of the trees, do my job the best way I knew how.

It wasn’t enough anymore.

The little black cloud of a woman had brought color to my life, and without her here that color was gone.

Finally, a week after I met with Mercer, I got the call I wasn’t sure would come. The gravestone was ready, and Mercer had put my name and number down as the person who would pick it up.