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“You look at me a lot.”

“Yes.”

“What do you think about when you look at me?”

He’s quiet for long enough that I glance over. He’s watching me—profile, the side of my face, my hands on the wheel—with that steady, total attention that used to unnerve me and now feels like the safest place I’ve ever been.

“I think Ruby is beautiful,” he says. Simply. Like a fact. Like gravity. “Not just your face, although your face is—” He pauses. “I think about the way you push your hair back when you’re focused. The line of your jaw. Your hands when you’re working. I think about how your eyes change color depending on the light, and how you look when you’re laughing compared to when you’re pretending to laugh, and how I prefer the real version even when it’s quieter.”

I barely breathe. “You can’t say things like that,” I manage.

“You asked me what I think.”

“I know, but—”

“Would you prefer I lied?”

“No.” I exhale. “No, I don’t want you to lie.”

“Okay. Then I think you’re beautiful, and I think about it frequently, and that’s the truth.”

I drive. I focus on the road. I turn the music up slightly because the silence in this car is unbearable, not because it’s uncomfortable but because it’s the opposite, and I need a buffer between me and the man in my passenger seat who just told me I’m beautiful like he was reading the weather report and meant it more than anyone has ever meant anything.

Eventually, we take the exit. The road narrows. Trees line both sides, and the afternoon light filters through and makes patterns on the windshield, and somewhere in the last two and a half hours this car became the most honest place I’ve ever been.

The venue appears around a bend—stone and ivy and exactly as aggressively romantic as I remember. I pull into the parking lot, find a spot, turn off the engine.

We sit.

The car ticks as it cools. Outside, I can see other guests arriving—pulling luggage from trunks, greeting each other in the lot. Through the front entrance, the lobby is visible, warm and bright.

“This is it,” I say.

“Yes.”

“Once we go in there, we’re a couple. You’re my boyfriend. For the whole weekend.”

“I understand.”

“Last chance to back out.”

He turns to look at me, giving me his full attention. Those dark eyes that turn faint amber when the light hits them, and the light is hitting them right now, afternoon sun through the windshield, and he’s looking at me with an expression I’ve never seen on his face before. Not processing. Not calculating. Just… sure.

“I don’t want to back out,” he says.

And the way he says it—quiet, steady, with a weight that has nothing to do with the wedding and everything to do with me—makes my hands tighten on the steering wheel even though the car isn’t moving.

“Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”

We get out. He comes around to my side—opens my door before I can, because of course he does, because he’s been practicing this, because he likes doing it—and I step out and he’s right there, close, warm, looking down at me.

“Ready?” I ask.

“I’ve been ready.”

I take a breath. Take his hand. His fingers close around mine—warm, steady, sure—and we walk toward the entrance.

The lobby is all exposed stone and soft lighting and a girl at the front desk with a headset and a clipboard. I give Natalie’s name, get our room key—one room, because we’re a couple, because I didn’t think this part through until right now and there’s only one bed and I am not dealing with that yet—and we turn toward the elevators.