Take his name.

Because I love him.

Because when I look into his eyes, nothing else exists but him.

Because even when I don’t look into his eyes, nothing else exists but him.

“I’ll think about it,” I say, throwing his words back at him with a smile. “And you think about the wedding.”

I go slip into my jeans and a sweater, then I grab my bag.

“Where do you think you’re going at this hour?”

“I have a campout with End the Violence. Remember?”

“Ah, fuck.”

“You don’t need to come. This is my passion, yours is work.”

“I have a conference call: China.”

“I know you do.” I approach him and boost myself up with his shoulders. “Go nail it to the wall.” I peck his lips and pat his flat chest. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Rachel,” he says warningly, eyebrows drawn low, “wait for Otis to pull the car around.”

PEACE . . . AND WILDFIRE

I arrive at the park like never before: wholly unprepared. I forgot my chips, my music, my books. All I brought is a sleeping bag and it’s hardly enough to cover me. Scanning the park, I see everybody’s either quietly reading or listening to music. Some are huddled in their sleeping bags, talking.

Rather than look for someone I know, I crave to be alone, so I look for the smoothest patch of ground to lie on, and when I can’t find a good one, I head toward the base of a big tree.

I take off my shoes because my feet ache and I mourn for my fuzzy socks as I tuck my feet into my sleeping bag. It’s already fall. The air is quite cool tonight and thank god for my cardi.

Propping my shoulders against the tree, I tilt my head back and stare up at the leaves and the very few stars you can see in Chicago. I squeeze my eyes shut in happiness and inhale. Being here centers me. It makes me wonder about things, the coincidences in this universe, our roles in the grand scheme of things, and it reminds me that this world is full of so many people, each of our actions creating a butterfly effect in others’ lives.

I think of all the stories I am going to tell now, in my platform. I want him to be proud of me. I want to be proud of myself. My dad to be proud of me. My mom to be proud of me.

And I want to be the kind of wife my husband deserves.

I hear the crunch of leaves and twigs nearby.

A tall shadow walks in the darkness toward me, and then I see the figure’s incredible eyes gleam in the dark and a sliver of moonlight falls on his tan, chiseled face. I close my eyes, disbelieving, and open them in shock. And he’s still walking forward with that achingly familiar walk. Sin.

“I’m not a dream, Rachel,” he chides with a little chuckle. And his voice sounds like those leaves he just crunched, a little dry and earthy. It warms me better than my cardi. Oh god.

Butterflies.

“No tent to protect me from the elements?” I quietly tease him.

His devil’s smile appears. “Just me.”

“What happened to the conference call?”

“I seem to have developed a new ability that’s called rescheduling.”

He spreads a jacket, black as midnight, down on the ground right next to me, and signals for me to sit.

Seeing him after these intense past twenty-four hours is making me ache more powerfully than ever before. “You know, I like touching the earth.” I slip my fingers into the dirt a little and then lift them and dust them off. “It grounds me.”

When he only looks at me in the shadows and settles down next to his jacket, making me nervous to know what he’s thinking about that makes him so pensive and quiet, I feel flutters all over me. AAARGH. We were just in bed together last night.

In fact we’ve been in bed every night together for more than four months.

My eyes widen when he reaches out and picks me up from the ground and straight to his lap. Every bit of him is surrounding me, enveloping me, maddening me. Malcolm turns his head and narrows his eyes when he notices, like me, that some people are whispering and pointing at us.

Self-conscious, I drop my face and his lips press warmly into my ear. “I’m going to cry when I walk up the altar.”

“I’ll hold you.”

“I’ll be alone walking up there with no dad.”

“Your mom can walk you to me. And then I’ve got you. For the rest of your life or mine.”

It strikes me that he, too, will be alone waiting for me up there. No father, no mother, just his best man and groomsmen. Saint will be the only man in my life, and I’ll be the only living family that he loves.

“Did you like being an only child?”

“No.”

I peer into his face. “So you’d be fine with us having two? When we’re ready?”

He chucks my chin and chides me: “Where’s your sense of adventure, Rachel? I was thinking more along the lines of four.”

“I’m going to kill you.” My eyes flare wide. “Four Saints running around the penthouse?”

“I can get a double penthouse. And nannies for each.”

“I’d be fat for almost four years. Of my life!”

His eyes grow lusty as he spreads his hand widely, encompassing my flat stomach. “You’d be pregnant. With my children.”

I blush. “So you want a Kyle, a Logan, and a Preston . . .”

“I want a mini-Rachel.” He squeezes my tummy and looks pleadingly at me.

“Noooo. You can’t have her. It’s a boy first . . . my precious little Saint. See, why should we wait to get married? The sooner we get married, the more we can enjoy each other before the babies come.”