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Knox stood at Lucy’s shoulder, close enough that she could lean back into him if she chose to, which she did. He was wearing a gray suit, no tie, his glasses catching the afternoon light. His nonprofit had helped forty-three businesses in its first year. His croissants were still terrible, but he was learning to make scallion pancakes.

“Tessa’s crying,” he observed.

“Everyone’s crying. It’s a wedding.”

“You’re not crying.”

“I don’t cry at weddings. I cry at funerals and when the oven breaks.”

“Your eyes are wet.”

“They’re allergic to sentiment.”

He kissed her temple. She leaned into him. The garden was full of people they loved. Devney and Ronan had brought their own baby, a boy named James, five months old and asleep in a carrier on Ronan’s shoulder while Ronan read aloud to him from another emotional intelligence book. Gabriel and Tessa stood at the altar, holding hands, laughing at something the officiant said. Marco sat in the back row, already crying. Mrs. Hadley wore a hat that could only be described as architectural.

And then there was Jane, standing at the edge of the crowd with a man Lucy didn’t recognize, tall, dark-haired, with a scar on his jaw that suggested he’d been in a fight and won. Jane was laughing at something he said, and Lucy filed the information away for later interrogation.

“You’re staring,” Knox said.

“I’m observing. There’s a difference.”

“Your eyebrow is doing the thing.”

Lucy turned to him. The afternoon had gone warm and gold. Her bakery was three blocks from here, in the space with the better light and the scarred floors and the ovens that worked on the first try.

Her apartment was on Eighth Avenue now, two bedrooms, good light, a kitchen she was still learning to cook in because the bakery was where she really lived. Knox had keys to both places. He used the bakery key more often.

Her parents were coming for dinner on Sunday. Her mother would make dumplings, her father would set up the chessboard, and Knox would lose honestly.

“My lease renews in the spring,” she said.

“I know.”

“Rent’s higher than I planned.”

“I figured.”

“And if I can’t afford it?”

“Then I’ll help you find a grant. Not from my foundation. From the city program. The one I made sure was properly funded.”

Lucy looked at him. The man who had signed her family’s eviction notice had learned to fold dough and had spent a year proving he was better than the worst thing he’d ever done.

“I love you,” she said.

“I know.”

“Do you trust me?”

He considered the question. She could see him weighing it like he weighed everything, slow, deliberate, honest.

“I trust that you’ll tell me when I’m wrong,” he said. “I trust that you’ll leave if I hurt you again. I trust that you’ll eat my terrible croissants and tell me they’re terrible and then eat another one anyway.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer I have.”

She kissed him in front of everyone, in the garden, at her friends’ wedding, with the afternoon light on them and Tessa’s baby asleep on Gabriel’s shoulder and the whole garden pretending not to watch.