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We ease into it the way we always have, no work to it. She tells me about her Monday, seven clients. I tell her about the gutters I cleaned for the couple down the street, because I had the morning and they had a ladder they had no business being on.

Then it settles, one of those easy silences we’ve gotten good at, and she reaches up and tucks a piece of hair behind her ear, and I don’t know why, but that’s the thing that does it. That small, unguarded motion. That’s the opening I’ve been waiting for.

“So what are we doing here, Olivia.”

She wraps both hands around her cup like it’s the only thing holding her in the chair, and keeps her eyes down on the lid. “Having coffee.”

“You know what I mean.” I keep my voice low and even, watching her, waiting for her to look up.

“I do.” She turns the cup a little. Still not looking at me. “I just wanted to make you say it first.”

There it is. A smile, shy at the edges, and her lashes drop. She is not going to make this easy on me, and I find I don’t mind doing the work.

“Fair.” Then I quit stalling and I duck my head a little, low enough to catch her eyes and hold them, so she can’t hide from this part. “I’d like this to be real. We were never any good at the friends thing.”

That gets her. Her eyes come up to mine and stay.

“We were terrible at it,” she says.

“The worst I’ve ever seen.” I let myself grin, and I keep my eyes right on hers while I do it.

She huffs out a laugh, and some of the nerves go out of her shoulders, and I watch her decide, right there, to stop bracing.

“I want to take you places,” I say. “I want to be the guy who picks you up. I want to know what your week looks like without guessing. I want...”

And here’s where I trip. Because I’m about to say I want you to be part of everything, and I realize half a beat too late that everything, for me, is not a simple thing. Everything is a ten-year-old and a grandmother and a hamster named Fluffy and a life already full of people who need me.

I glance up at her before I go on. She’s gone still, watching me, and there’s something working behind her eyes, soft and a little startled, like nobody has ever sat across a table and wanted her out loud like this before. She isn’t pulling back. She’s just taking it in, letting me get there.

I’ve been a package deal so long I forget it’s a decision for anybody but me. To me, Bo isn’t a term of the offer. Bo is the sun. You don’t ask somebody if they’d like to sign up for the sun.

But she would be signing up for him. For all of it.

The thought goes by fast, and I let it, because tonight is good and I’m not handing her an ultimatum before she’s finished her latte.

But I know what I want. I’ve known for weeks. So I lift my eyes to hers and hold them, and I say it.

“I want the whole thing,” I finish. “With you.”

She sets her cup down, slow, and doesn’t say anything yet. I don’t let her, not because I’m scared of the answer, but because she deserves the rest before she gives it.

“Before you say anything back, you should know what you’d be saying it to.” I hold her gaze. “I don’t date for fun. If I’m in, I’m in all the way. I’m dating you because I want to marry somebody, and I think that somebody might be you.”

I hold her eyes for the last part, because it’s the truest and the heaviest thing I’ve got.

“And when I say marry, I mean I’m looking for the woman who gets to be Bo’s mom too. I’m not asking you to decide that tonight. I just won’t lie to you about what I’m hoping for.”

It comes out heavier than I mean it to. It lands in the middle of the table like I’ve set down something made of iron.

She laughs.

It’s not the reaction I’m after. It’s short and startled and she claps a hand over her mouth right after, but it’s a laugh, and I feel it go through me the wrong way.

“Sorry,” she says. “Sorry, that wasn’t at you.”

“It’s alright.”

“It’s not. You said something meaningful and I laughed. That’s a terrible thing to do to a person.” She presses her fingers to her forehead. “I laughed because I don’t know what to do with it. Nobody’s ever said something like that to me. On a first real date. Over coffee.”