It’s going to be such a fight, I already know it. The trial, the press. The gossip. It’s going to be so uncomfortable. It’d be so much easier to leave.

“But,” I add, and his hands tighten immediately, briefly on mine. I rub my thumbs over his skin, soothing him. “You need to know, I’m not leaving New York. I ran away from one home because of a scandal. I’m not doing it again.”

There’s a long pause.

“Good,” he says finally, a firm tip of his head. “I’m not leaving New York, either.”

“No?”

He shakes his head.

“But you ha—”

“I love it here,” he interrupts. “You’re here.”

I furrow my brow, remembering our night in Maryland, remembering all of Reid’s frustrations with the city—the noise, the crowds, the gray, the dirt. There’s all that, and now this—this spotlight on him. This reputation that will follow him.

“I don’t know if that’s enough,” I say. “For you to stay.”

“It’s enough,” he says, immediately. “It’s everything.” He leans in, kisses me again. “But there’s also all those numbers in my letter to you. Every place we ever went to together. I love those places. It’s like I said, Meg. I would’ve kept those places close to me forever. Even if you’d never wanted to see me again.”

He pauses, wipes another tear—this one, happy—from my cheek. “And also, still the food.”

I smile, looking into his not-sad eyes. “You made a joke,” I say.

He gives me a real, fully formed, honest-to-God swoonsh.

I press my thumb to it, and for these few borrowed minutes, a break in the storm we both know we’re going to have to weather, Reid and I feel perfectly like each other’s shelter. The only two people in the world who understand each other this well. Letters, numbers.

The perfect code.

“Reid,” I whisper to him. “It wasn’t a mistake.”

“No,” he says, resting his forehead against mine. “It was a sign.”

Epilogue

Epilogue

It wasn’t part of the plan, to return to the wedding business.

In the back room of the shop, I sit in the same seat I’ve sat in so many times before, a gallery of pages set out in front of me. It’s all there, mockups for each part of the job: save the dates, invitations, place cards, and even—oh, yes—a program. Across from me sits a couple who for weeks has been poring over ideas and suggestions, a couple who came in today hoping to see all of those ideas transformed into something special. Something unique, cohesive, them.

It’s so familiar.

And yet.

“Oh, Meg. This is perfect. It’s all so . . . it’s so . . .”

“Whimsical?” I say, grinning across the table.