Thirty days to forever
“Twenty-nine days, Kai. I don't even have a shortlist. Just a merger memo and a bunch of texts from numbers I don't know.”
I should say something careful here. Ten years of practice, I know exactly how to do the careful thing — keep my voice light, hands still, face doing the friendly, steady version of itself it's always done around her.
What comes out instead is, “Marry me.”
The room goes quiet. A car alarm goes off outside and stops. Sera's looking at me like I switched languages mid-sentence.
“What?”
I could take it back. There's an easy version of the next few seconds where I laugh, say I'm kidding, and we go back to being exactly what we've always been.