Jules had been there, and a few friends of Owen’s—Carl, Patty. And Bailey. Of course, Bailey. In a rare display of generosity toward me, she arrived at city hall on time and stayed at the restaurant until after we cut the cake. She even gave me a smile before leaving to spend the night at her friend Rory’s. I hoped that meant she was at least a little happy about the day. I knew it probably meant she was a little happy that Owen let her have champagne.

Either way, I was taking the win.

“It feels pretty great being a married man,” Owen said. “Though I have no idea how we’re getting home tonight.”

I laughed. “It’s not a bad problem.”

“No,” he said. “Not as far as problems go.”

He reached for the champagne bottle, filled his glass, and refilled mine. Then he moved his chair away, sat down on the back of mine. I leaned back against him, breathing in.

“We’ve come a long way from our second date when you wouldn’t even let me drive you to dinner,” he said.

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I was pretty crazy about you, even then.”

“You had a funny way of showing it. I wasn’t even sure I was going to get to see you again after that night.”

“Well, you did ask an awful lot of questions.”

“I had a lot to learn about you.”

“All in one night?”

He shrugged. “I felt like I needed to learn about the could-have-been boys…” he said. “Thought it was my best shot at not becoming one.”

I reached back and touched his cheek—first with the outside of my palm, then with the inside.

“You became the opposite,” I said.

“I think that might just be the single best thing anyone has ever said to me,” he said.

“It’s true,” I said.

And it was true. Owen was the opposite. He had felt like the opposite from day one, from that first meeting in my workshop, but it was more than just a feeling now. He had proven himself to be the opposite. It wasn’t just that it was easy to be with him (though it was) or that I felt deepened by him in a way I never had in a relationship before. It wasn’t even that we understood each other in that elusive way that you either had with someone or you could never quite find—that pervasive shorthand in which a look could tell us what the other person needed: Time to leave the party; Time to reach for me; Time to give me room to breathe.