Finn comes to me in my sleep. We’re alone on the shores of the lake of his camp. Behind us, the white tents flutter in the dark like ghosts.

I deflate upon seeing him. “Not tonight, Finn. Please just leave me alone.”

He looks wounded, his hands shoved in his pockets. “You didn’t come home. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“More than all right,” I say.

“Are you with him?” There’s no venom in his words, just sadness.

I don’t answer. The dream fades, leaving Finn alone in the dark.

I wake to Oliver’s hands drawing slow patterns on my shoulder. “I didn’t know you had freckles here.”

“You do too,” I reply. I reach up and brush my pinkie against the bridge of his nose, where a wash of summer color has created a small constellation of them. “Right here.”

He grins, illuminated in the soft pink light of morning, and I wish there were magic that would allow me to bottle this moment so I could return to it when things get heavy again.

“Thank you,” I say, dipping to bury my head in the warmth of his bare chest.

“For what?”

“Everything.” I mean it. He’s been so patient this trip. He’s been so patient in general.

“Don’t thank me until I have you home. Maxine is going to murder me.”

I blink more awake now and calculate how much light is streaming in from the dim curtains. We’ve certainly slept too late. I want to stay here forever, in this bubble of two. There is nothing I want to do less than face the world outside the warmth of these four walls and the flannel sheets tangled in my bare legs.

But Oliver is right. Lena and Maxine will be worried about me not coming home.

I rise from bed and take stock of my discarded clothing on the wood floors. My dress is in a heap by the bed, my corset thrown over a desk chair. One of my elbow-length silk gloves is on a lampshade; the other is near the closet.

“You’re going to have to help me back into this gown,” I say.

Oliver rises dutifully from bed.

“And then, we can work out when you want to go to my father to secure our official betrothment. I am, after all, a young woman of high moral regard.”

Oliver knows I’m joking. I expect him to laugh, but not even a smile crosses his face. Instead, he shrugs as he bends to pick up my gown and says casually, “You know that I would, if I thought that’s what you actually wanted.”

Together, we wrestle last night’s evening gown into submission and he sends me out the door with one last longing kiss.