Cooper considered. “I don’t know. Maybe. All signs point to yes. You can’t deny most people don’t seem to know what to make of me.” Particularly wolves, but perhaps that was just statistics, these days. Park was quiet, and when Cooper glanced up at him, he was frowning faintly and nibbling at the scar on his lip. “Not going to tell me I’m beloved by all?”

“I can’t tell you how to think of yourself and neither should anyone else,” Park said promptly and with a startling edge of intensity. Cooper wondered if Park had heard the tail end of his and Neil’s conversation in the bar, after all. Or was it just obvious from the outside looking in?

Park opened his mouth to add something else, then seemed to change his mind. When he spoke next, it was a lot more calm, casual, almost offhanded. “I can’t imagine any amount of time with you that’ll feel like enough. You say too many interesting things.”

“Er, line check,” Cooper said to the imaginary off-set. “Not that I’m cracking under the pressure of that statement or anything.”

“Don’t worry. I like you speechless and gasping, too,” Park said primly, then shot him a half-heated, half-teasing look.

Cooper couldn’t help laughing. “You’re ridiculous,” but pulled Park a little closer all the same.

It was a genuinely beautiful late October day. That brisk fresh air that just felt clean. Some of the row houses they passed had put up Halloween decorations, and the trees here and there were heavy with warm, jaunty colors, at their peak of brilliance right before death. A sort of melancholic splendor that Cooper had always found a bit enchanting, when he bothered to think of it at all.

“What about a fall wedding?” Cooper asked abruptly, interrupting Park, who was planning out loud what time they needed to get ready if they were to be primped and present on time at the gala tonight.

Park looked surprised. “For us?” He smiled and looked down at his shoes. “I like the fall.”

“Good. That’s one decision made, only a million to go.”

Park started to say something when Cooper’s cell rang. Unknown number.

“Hello?”

“It’s me. Where are you?” Neil.

Cooper bristled at the familiarity, but the truth was he did recognize his voice. “We left, why?”

“I need to speak with you.”

“Is this about you and—”

“No. Meet me back at the zoo. Just you. Can you ditch your partner?”

Cooper looked at Park, who could clearly hear what was being said, and raised an eyebrow. “Why? I trust him—anything you need to say to me, you can say to him.”

“And anything I say to you, you can say to him. But I’m only meeting with you. I can’t—this is important. Please.”