“You really have no interest in your choice of car? No vehicle that you’re dying to have?”

“Not really.”

“Oh, baby, we’ll have to work on that.”

“I should be tired,” Maggie says two hours later after we walk into my house, and I set our bags inside. “And I am, but I’m not quite sleepy. Do you have any food here? I can make us grilled cheese sandwiches or something.”

She opens the fridge to check out the contents.

“I totally can. You have all of the ingredients. What do you think?”

“You make it, I’ll eat it.”

Her face lights up in a big smile. “Fun. Middle-of-the-night grilled cheese. Do you have wine?”

“I do. Red or white?”

“Since I’ve never paired a wine with grilled cheese before, let’s go with white.”

She sets a pan on the gas stove, and armed with butter and bread, gets to work while I uncork a bottle of white wine and pour two glasses.

“People pair wine with cheese all the time,” I remind her. “This is a fancy meal.”

“Right.” She winks and piles cheese on a sandwich. “When I was a kid, I remember getting up in the middle of the night and finding my da in the kitchen making one of these. He said he’d never heard of it until he came to the States, and it’s a delight that every person should eat at least once a month.”

“That sounds like him.”

She smiles softly. I know she’s very close to her father.

“Were you surprised that they showed up the other day?”

“I was shocked. When I found them at the pub the day that you and Kane pissed me off, I just started to cry.”

“Maggie, I’m sorry—”

“No, it’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay, but I’m fine now. It was just a lot of emotion, and I fell apart for a minute. It’s not a big deal. I love that they’re here until after Maeve has the baby. It means they’ll be here for months, and there’s nothing better than that.”

She slides a finished sandwich onto a plate, cuts it in half, diagonally, and passes it over to me, then gets to work making another.

I crunch into the crispy, hot grilled cheese and moan.

“Good?” she asks.

“Holy shit. I had the ingredients for this?”

Maggie laughs and nods. “I could have added some of that turkey you have in the deli drawer, but I wasn’t sure how long it’s been in there.”

“Probably best you left it off,” I say and take another bite. “We should make this a regular thing.”

“If you like this, you should try it with my homemade tomato soup.”

I stare at her and then stuff more into my mouth before I do something stupid like ask her to marry me.