“What are you doing?” Jax said, and her expression was somewhere between amused and panicked. Quiet gasps could be heard around them. Several patrons raised their phones.

“Would you make me the happiest woman in the world and not divorce me?”

“What did she say?” a woman beside them whispered to another stranger.

Jax looked around before standing. “Come on,” she said, pulling Gretchen up to her feet. “We’re leaving now.”

Gretchen grabbed her stuff as quickly as she could while being nudged by Jax to hurry up. Once they were out in the cold night, she turned back to Jax and held her in place. “Answer me.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I know.”

“Why would you want to stay married? After everything we’ve been through and all the fighting—”

“Because I’m crazy.”

“I don’t know if we can make it work.”

“No one ever knows,” she said, shivering. “We didn’t even know for sure when we got married, but we loved each other so damn much we chose to believe it. I still believe it.”

Jax took Gretchen’s coat and wrapped it around her. “What if we’re just not meant to have our happily ever after?”

She held Jax’s face in her hands, feeling the chill of her cheeks and warmth of her own love. “I would rather a realistically ever after with you than any version of a fairy tale with someone else.”

Jax rested her forehead on Gretchen’s. “I keep coming up with reasons why I should say no, because I’m scared.”

“Do you love me?” She felt Jax’s cheeks spread with a smile barely visible in the glow of the streetlight. “Can you forgive me?”

“I think we can both forgive each other.”

“So is that a yes?”

“This is the strangest proposal ever.”

“Stranger than getting down on one knee after eating chili dogs at the Windmill?”

“You were so happy when you finished. It was the perfect moment.”

Gretchen pinched Jax’s cheeks. “I’m not moving from this spot until you give me an answer, and I’m starting to get really cold.”

“Okay, okay. Yes, I will make you the happiest woman on earth and not divorce you.”

She wrapped her arms around Jax and held her. Her jacket fell on the sidewalk, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was how tightly Jax was holding her back. She pulled away just enough to kiss Jax. For the first time since waking up, Gretchen felt confident and happy in her reality.

Jax pulled back. “As much as I love kissing you, your face is like ice. Let’s go home.”