“Ordered you an old-fashioned.” He nods at the drink sitting in front of me. He holds his usual scotch.

“Thanks.” I lift it toward him. “Cheers, mate.”

“Cheers.”

Our glasses clink, then we each take a sip.

“Where’s Zahra tonight?” I ask. It’s rare to find him without her these days.

“She headed into Brooklyn to visit her sister and her kids for the night.”

I nod and lean back in my chair. “Things still going well for you two?”

If his smile is any indication, then he doesn’t need to tell me they’re going exceptionally well. “Things are great between us. Better than ever.”

Ignoring the uncomfortable pinch in my chest, I smile. “Good to hear. So, what cases have you been working on lately? Anything interesting?”

We chat for a while about what we each have going on at work. I’m not a family law specialist, nor is he a contract specialist, but sometimes it helps to hear someone else’s ideas from outside of our specialty. Oftentimes, I find when you’re deep in it, you can overcomplicate matters, whereas someone on the outside sees things in simpler terms that are sometimes helpful.

After that, we chat about football, or soccer as he calls it. Back in law school, I managed to get him interested in the sport and we’d always take time away from studying to go to a pub on either Saturday or Sunday morning to watch a game.

We order another round of drinks, and after the waiter drops them off at our table, Finn lifts his toward me. He has a strange expression on his face that I can’t quite read. “I’d like to do another toast.”

“What for?”

“I plan to propose to her on Thanksgiving.” His grin would be infectious if he wasn’t talking about proposing.

“That’s… that’s great, man.” I sip my drink to push down the lump forming in my throat.

We clink glasses again and sip our drinks.

“There’s one other thing…” The way he trails off makes me think I might not like whatever he plans to say next. “I plan to propose to her at Thanksgiving and I know that you Brits don’t do the Thanksgiving thing, but I wanted to see if you’d come over and celebrate with us. I want everyone I care about there to mark the occasion.”

My stomach sours further, but I force a smile. “Yeah, sure. Of course, I’ll be there.”

“Awesome. You were my last ask. This is going to be perfect.”

“Who else will be joining us?”

“My parents will be in town, and my sister is going to be there too.”