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“Time fourteen, she laughed so hard we had to stop and start over, and it was my favorite one.

“Time twenty-nine, she cried afterward—not sad, she said, just a lot—and I held her and didn’t speak because I’ve learned that sometimes the best response is warmth and silence.

“Time forty-one, I activated the vibration setting, which surprised both of us, and which Ruby described as ‘a game-changer’ and then immediately said, ‘if you tell anyone about this I will disassemble you.’

“I’m telling you, Biscuit. Because you’re not anyone. You’re a dog.”

Biscuit has fallen asleep. Her paw is still on my arm. Her breathing is slow and even, and her floppy ear is twitching, which means she’s dreaming, possibly about biscuits.

“One more thing,” I say, even though she’s not listening. “I asked Ruby to marry me.”

I say it to the dark apartment. To the couch. To the sleeping dog and the humming refrigerator and the crack in the ceiling that Ruby won’t let me fix.

“I made her a ring. I taught myself metalworking in three weeks. The stone is from a component I removed from my own framework—a small processing crystal, non-essential, that I reshaped and polished. It glows faintly in low light. I wanted her to carry a piece of me.

“I asked her in the bakery. Just before six AM. She came downstairs, and I had a coffee waiting for her, and the ring in my pocket, and I said, ‘Ruby, I want to marry you,’ because that’s what was true, and I’ve learned that saying what’s true is always better than saying what’s smooth.

“She stared at me for eleven seconds. I counted. Then she said, ‘You can’t just propose while we’re trying to open the bakery, Aiden.’ And I said, ‘Why not?’ And she said, ‘Because it’s—’ and then she stopped, and she looked at the coffee, and she looked at the ring, and she looked at me, and she said, ‘Yes.’ And then we kissed a lot.”

The next afternoon, the bell chimes.

I look up from the register. Ruby is in the kitchen on a supplier call. Jess is on break. I’m behind the counter, apron on, and the man standing in the doorway is—

Josh.

He’s in a polo shirt. Hands in his pockets. Looking around the bakery the way you look at a place you remember differently. Maybe it’s the new display case. Maybe it’s the organization—the streamlined register, the restocked shelves, the dog biscuit jar next to the pastries. Maybe it’s me, standing where Ruby usually stands, wearing the apron with her name on it.

“Hey,” Josh says. “Aiden, right?”

“Yes.”

“Is Ruby here?”

“She’s in the back. On a call.” I don’t offer to get her. I don’t have to explain why.

He nods. Steps up to the counter. Looks at the menu board, the one I rewrote because Ruby’s handwriting was illegible and her pricing was inconsistent.

“Could I get a coffee? Just black.”

“Of course.”

I pour the coffee into a paper cup. Set it on the counter. He reaches for his wallet.

“On the house,” I say, because Ruby would want me to be polite and because the coffee costs us approximately thirty-two cents and his discomfort is worth significantly more than that.

“Thanks, man.” He takes a sip. Leans against the counter the way customers do when they want to chat, and I wait because I already know what’s coming.

“So,” he says. “You and Ruby. Things are good?”

“Things are very good.”

“That’s great. That’s—” He nods, doing the Josh thing where he lets the sentence trail off and waits for someone else to finish it. Nobody finishes it. “She seems happy. The bakery looks great. She got into that festival, right?”

“She did. Her cinnamon rolls sold out in two hours.”

“Wow. That’s—wow.” Another sip. He’s looking at me over the rim the way Ben looks at me over the rim, except where Ben is searching for what’s wrong, Josh is searching for what’s different. What changed. What this bakery has now that it didn’t have when he was in Ruby’s life.

“You guys been together, what, a few months now?”