Page 822 of End Game

“YOU DID IT.”

Griffin stops behind me. “I did what?”

“You proposed to your wife.”

“Yes.”

Dex grabs my wrist before I can lower it, turning my hand toward the light like he's inspecting a museum piece. “Oh my God. That is gorgeous.”

Micah catches his shoulder before he manages to bend my arm into a position nature did not intend. “Let her keep the wrist.”

“Sorry.”

He does not look particularly sorry.

Ronan, meanwhile, isn't looking at the ring at all. He's looking at Griffin.

Something passes between them that I can't quite read—not surprise exactly, but recognition—and then Ronan's expression softens.

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

I look between them. “You knew?”

“No,” Ronan says.

Griffin scratches the back of his neck. “I asked him if there were any decent, easy trails open this time of year.”

Ronan gives him a look. “You asked for a trail with a view, minimal mud, and enough privacy that Dex couldn't realistically appear from behind a tree.”

“That is not knowing.”

“It was not difficult to infer.”

Dex presses a hand to his chest. “You planned against me?”

“Yes.”

“Rude.”

Micah finally gets a turn with my hand once Dex releases it. Unlike Dex, he doesn't immediately rotate it through every possible angle. He just studies the ring for a few seconds, thumb brushing beneath the band without touching the stone.

“This looks like you.”

That gets me more than it should.

Maybe because Griffin spent the whole proposal making it clear that the ring was optional. Maybe because I remember sitting beside him with the marriage application open and drawing boundaries around everything I wasn't willing to pretend our arrangement was.

No name change.

No moving into his room.

No ring.

Back then, wearing one would have felt like performing a marriage we hadn't actually built yet.

Now Micah looks at the first ring I've ever willingly worn for Griffin and says it looks like me.