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Turns out the ones that scare you the most are the only ones that ever were.

Chapter 32

Olivia

Royal Brew is packed at seven in the morning, but we get here early for the back corner, so the rush stays on the far side of the room and this little square of it stays ours.

It’s where this whole thing started and now it’s where we land once a week with two coffees and a devotional open between us, before the day gets its hands on either of us.

“’Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.’ First Corinthians nine, twenty-four.” I glance at the question printed underneath and read that too. “’What are you running toward right now? Are your goals aligned with God’s will for your life?’”

I look up.

Luke’s across from me with that ball cap on, turned backward, which he knows I like. He’s squinting down at the book like the answer might be in smaller print somewhere, his coffee sweating a ring onto the table beside it. He rubs his chin.

“Hmm,” he says. Then looks up at me. “Professionally, I run toward fires. So I feel like I’ve got this one covered.”

I give him the look. The one that means be serious.

He holds up a hand in surrender, and when he answers again it’s more meaningful.

“Honestly? I don’t know if I’m running it right.” He scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. “I work a lot. You know that. And the days I’m not on shift, somebody’s always got a fence down or a water heater out, and I can’t make myself say no. Never could, so I just keep going. Fires, then flower beds, then whatever’s next.”

He shakes his head.

“That verse says run to get the prize. I think I’ve been running like the prize is just not stopping. Full sprint, all the time.”

I don’t say anything. He isn’t finished.

“And I keep wondering if I’m getting the one thing that actually matters right. Bo deserves a dad who’s there, not a dad who’s always three favors deep in somebody else’s backyard. I think I’m supposed to be running steady. Pace it so I’m still on my feet at the end.” He meets my eyes. “What about you?”

I take a breath.

“I think I want to bring God into my work. My actual work.” I shake my head. “I spend forty hours a week helping people find their footing, and I’ve got the surest footing I’ve ever had, and I keep leaving it at the door of my own office. I don’t want to leave it at the door anymore.”

Luke doesn’t say anything clever. He just smiles, and nods, like I’ve said something he already knew and was waiting for me to catch up to.

I glance at my watch. “Speaking of. I need to get going.”

I stand, close the workbook and tuck it under my arm, take one last gulp of my watered-down coffee. Then I lean down and kiss his forehead.

“I’m really glad we’ve been making time for this,” I say.

His hand catches my wrist, gentle, and holds it a second.

“Me too.” He squeezes once. “Have a good day at work. See you for dinner. Love you.”

“Love you.”

Royal Brew is one block from my office, which is the other reason we do it here. I walk it in the cold-for-Texas morning.

The study was Dottie’s doing, naturally. She pressed it on Luke a few weeks back and informed him it was for both of us, and now it’s a thing. Once a week, early, before our schedules swallow us whole. We read the week’s chapter on our own, then come back to the table to talk it through, argue the questions, read each other the verses that snagged. I underline. He dog-ears.

And in five days, I’m getting baptized.

Standing in front of the whole church. Submersed in water while every person I’ve let in this year watches me do it.

And Luke’s going to be the one to lower me under.