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I know exactly how it will feel wrapped around my fingers too. His eyes meet mine as he gets closer, and the corner of his mouth lifts as though he knows where my thoughts went.

Nash used to keep enough distance between himself and everyone around him that he never had to depend on anyone else. He doesn’t do that anymore. He reaches for me now, calls my family when he needs something, and lets the people who love him show up for him.

Nash still finds people who deserve our attention, although these days he doesn’t disappear into the middle of nowhere alone to deal with them. He claims that means I’ve corrupted him into becoming a team player. I consider it evidence that he’s finally developed some common sense.

When he reaches me, I take his hand and run my thumb across the ring he already wears. I gave it to him a year ago after he informed me that apparently proposing to someone usually involves giving them something to mark the occasion. In my defense, Nash said yes before either of us realized that was what I was doing, and remembering the look on his face when he figured it out makes me smile.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

He studies my face for another second before turning toward the man waiting to marry us. He’ll ask me again later, probably when we’re in bed and he remembers I never answered him.

Our family fills the chairs behind us, and I don’t need to turn around to know where everyone is. Declan and Xavier are closest, with Kieran and Alessia across the aisle. Somewhere behind them, Ronan and Colton are trying to keep Ollie occupied, although at three years old, he’s already asked loudly enough for everyone to hear when we’re having cake. Conor and Jaxon are sitting with Liam and Finn, along with the handful of people Nash wanted here from his life before me. Max arrived early enough to tell Nash there was still time to reconsider his choices and then spent the next hour helping him get ready, so apparently he wasn’t too concerned about saving him from me.

We kept the ceremony short because neither of us wanted someone else spending half an hour telling us what marriage is supposed to mean. We’ve spent two years building a life together. Whatever this means for us is already waiting inside the house behind me, in Sunday dinners that somehow end with everyone staying too late, the arguments we never completely stop having, and all the ordinary days in between.

When it’s time for our vows, Nash turns fully toward me and pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He looks down at it for several seconds before shaking his head and putting it away again.

“I wrote them down because everyone kept telling me I was supposed to.” A quiet laugh comes from behind us as his fingers tighten around mine. “When we met, I thought you were an arrogant man who needed someone to tell you no more often. I was right about that part.” His mouth curves when I narrow my eyes at him, but he keeps going. “You’re controlling and completely unreasonable sometimes, but it took me a while to understand that underneath all of it, you were trying to take care of everyone around you. You just had a really fucked-up way of doing it sometimes.”

My thumb moves slowly across his knuckles.

“I’d been taking care of myself for a long time before you came along, and I was pretty fucking good at it.” Nash’s fingers move against mine, and I have to fight the urge to tell him that part is debatable. “Then you decided I was yours and started fixing things I hadn’t asked you to fix, buying things I didn’t need and showing up whenever you thought I might need you. Half the time, you pissed me off so badly I wanted to throw something at you.”

A few people behind us laugh, and Nash smiles before continuing. “The problem was that you kept showing up even when I told you not to. When I actually needed you, I never had to ask twice. Somewhere along the way, I stopped thinking of this as your house. I stopped feeling like I was visiting your family. I started coming home instead of coming to your house, and I don’t even remember when that changed.”

His thumb brushes across my hand as his expression softens. “I love what we have, Duncan. Not because it’s perfect, because we both know it fucking isn’t. You still try to tell me what to do, I still tell you to go fuck yourself when you push too far, and I don’t see either one of us changing anytime soon. But I never have to wonder whether you’ll be there when I need you, and I hope you never have to wonder that about me either.”

He moves a little closer, bringing the toes of his shoes against mine. “So I’m not promising to obey you, because we both know that would be bullshit. I’m promising to stay. I’ll argue with you when you need it, listen when you’re right even if it takes me a while to admit it, and keep choosing this life with you every day we get to have it.” His fingers tighten around mine as his eyes hold mine. “I love you, Duncan.”

“I love you too, mo sholas.”

I lift Nash’s hand and press my mouth against his knuckles. I wrote my vows last night after he finally fell asleep, but the paper stays in my pocket. Looking at him now, I don’t need it.

“I spent most of my life thinking I already had everything I wanted. I had Declan, my family and the company, and I never felt like anything was missing. Then everyone around me started falling in love. I watched them make choices I wouldn’t have made and take risks I couldn’t understand. I thought loving someone had made all of them irrational.”

Nash smiles, and I run my thumb slowly across his knuckles before continuing.

“Then you started bringing me lunch. At first, you were just the man who showed up at my office every day, but somewhere along the way, I started waiting for you. I noticed when you were late. I knew Thursday was your day off because you weren’t there, and I hated Thursdays long before I understood why. I found reasons to keep you in my office after you finished your delivery because I wasn’t ready for you to leave. By the time I finally admitted I wanted you there, I’d been arranging parts of my day around you for months.”

His fingers tighten around mine as I slide mine between them.

“I wanted you in my house, in my bed and anywhere else I happened to be. I wanted to protect you from anything that could hurt you, and for a long time, I didn’t understand that protecting you couldn’t mean making every choice for you. I still don’t always get that right, but I’m trying because you matter more to me than being right.”

The shine in Nash’s eyes grows, but he doesn’t look away from me. I bring his hand against my chest and hold it there.

“I want the life we already have, Nash. I want Sunday dinners and mornings when you steal my coffee even though yours is sitting beside you. I want to come home and find your books where I never would have put them and food in my kitchen I never bought before you lived here. I want the arguments we haven’t had yet and all the ordinary days when nothing happens except that I wake up beside you and go to sleep the same way.”

I move closer until there’s barely any space left between us, still holding his hand against my chest.

“I spent years believing I already had everything I needed. Now I can’t imagine this house without you in it or a future that doesn’t have you beside me. I don’t know what the next twenty or thirty years will look like, but I know who I want there for every one of them.” I hold his gaze as I finish the only promise that matters. “I love you, mo sholas. I want to grow old with you.”

Nash doesn’t say anything right away. He looks at me with the openness I’ve learned to recognize over the last two years, his eyes shining as he moves closer until our joined hands are pressed between us.

“You had to make me cry.”

I wipe the moisture beneath his eye with my thumb and leave my hand against his face for a moment. “I meant every word.”