I shovel the rest of the food into my mouth and excuse myself from the table. In the bathroom, I flip over my head and run my fingers through the underside of my hair to create volume. I reach for the tube of lipstick in my purse, but I hesitate. It’s cherry red and the formula tends to smear on guys’ faces whenever they kiss me. If Blake proposes, he’ll kiss me, and then there will be photos. I don’t want him to look like a clown in them. I skip the lipstick. My face looks colorless.

When I emerge from the bathroom, Blake is leaning against the doorway. He’s wearing a navy suit jacket that’s unseasonably heavy for mid-September.

“Ready to go?”

Poor thing looks terrified.

“Ready,” I say, slipping my hand into his.

He exits his apartment, and when I turn to close the door, I think he sneaks a feel of his suit jacket pocket, just to make sure that whatever precious cargo he might be carrying is still there. I follow him into the elevator, across his lobby, and onto the street corner. He cranes his neck like he’s looking for a car, but three available taxis with lit-up medallion numbers pass by without him hailing one.

“You don’t want a cab?” I ask tentatively.

“I called us an Uber.”

An Uber meant he could give the address without telling me where we were going.

“Ah,” I say.

Blake has been pretty damn smooth these past few months—and it’s all going out the window now. It’s almost sweet to watch. It’s a good reminder that we’re all only human. I step back and let him look for the right Uber.

A black car pulls up in front of us a few minutes later. Blake opens the door and ushers me in first. He makes nervous eye contact with the driver.

“Hi,” he ekes out.

As the driver heads toward Central Park, crosses over to the Upper West Side, and turns to head downtown, Blake stares out the window. At first, I try to guess where he’s planning to propose: in one of the Central Park rowboats? At the disgustingly beautiful Natural History Museum? On a romantic side street in the West Village? But the car keeps sailing south, and I figure there’s no point in guessing. I’ll find out soon enough.

Ultimately, it slows to a stop by the waterfront, just west of One World Trade Center. I can see the Hudson River, and beyond that, the shoreline of New Jersey, and—wait. Oh. A white yacht is hitched to the pier in front of us. Blake takes my hand and leads me toward it.

“We’re going there?” I ask, swallowing.

“Maybe,” he says, offering that coy grin again.

He looks happier than he has all morning. Maybe the car ride calmed him down.