“Mmm hmm. Yep. So good. Super good. Thank you for the lift okay bye now!” She grabbed Jacob’s arm and dragged him away.

This road was long and narrow, bracketed by the copse-heavy edges of two country fields. Sections of daisy-dotted grass and massive, ancient trees lined the tarmac, and it was into their sunlight-dappled shadow that Eve towed Jacob like an unusually agreeable boat. His out-of-character docility could bode well or ill; she hadn’t decided which. Then again, she was struggling to think straight enough to decide anything. All she could do was stare at the man in front of her, from the starched collar of his perfectly ironed shirt to the familiar name tag on his chest that read HELLO, MY NAME IS: JACOB with more cheer than he’d ever managed to offer a stranger. She swallowed hard, her throat drier than a desperation desert. Now seemed like the perfect time to speak, to say the countless things she’d rehearsed on the way here—except her heart was melting like chocolate on a summer’s day, dripping down through her rib cage to pool in her stomach, and the sensation was rather distracting.

Jacob’s jaw bunched and he shifted his weight ever so slightly from one foot to the other. His hand rose toward his glasses, faltered, fell. Rose again, smoothed over his already smooth hair, and fell. He opened his mouth, closed it, and Eve wondered vaguely if he was having trouble telling her that he still didn’t want to see her ever again and, since he’d established she wasn’t being kidnapped by a giant tattooed biker, she should go away now.

Everything about her drooped.

Then he bit his lip and said, “Eve, I—I was going to get you flowers.”

Her jaw dropped enough to let in flies and let out her garbled sound of confusion. “You were? But . . .” Then slow realization dawned, and she found herself grinning uncontrollably. “That’s funny. I was rushing off to tell you that you were an insufferable prick yesterday”—Jacob seemed to wilt before her very eyes—“but also, that it would take far more than that to get rid of me. Because I’ve chosen you, Jacob, and I trust that choice. So you need to trust it, too. If you can’t—”

She took a deep breath, tapping her fingers against her thighs, wishing she had music in her ear to sweep her through this moment. Hoping she hadn’t read this situation all wrong.

“If you can’t,” she continued, “then this isn’t going to work. Because I am a grown woman and I need the people around me to respect my decisions. Instead,” she added pointedly, “of pushing me away. The thing is, Jacob, I trust you. I believe in you. I think this can work, and I really, really want to try. So.” She pressed her lips together nervously. “What do you think about that?”

After a frozen moment of obvious shock, Jacob gave her a slow but brilliant smile. “I think I’ll do anything you want and everything you need as long as it means I get to try with someone as lovely as you. I think—”