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“You were told there would be no more speeches tonight.”

Bliss narrows her eyes. “You’re holding a microphone.”

“An unfortunate development, I know.”

Cade looks toward the black bag. “What did you do?”

Ryan ignores him. His gaze reaches me for a moment before moving toward Bliss.

“I spent the last month trying to figure out what to say tonight. I’m the guy who loves written words. I studied them, paid too much money to earn a degree involving them, and will argue over them with anyone stupid enough to remain in the room.”

“That’s true,” Briggs says.

Ryan points toward him as if agreeing that Briggs has lost that battle before.

“Words matter to me,” Ryan continues. “They always have. But actions mean everything. People can say whatever they want. What they do after saying it is where the truth lives.”

The pavilion grows quiet and I watch the love of my life prepare to do something incredibly special and remain looking as if its nothing.

“One night in Milwaukee, I was drinking with Briggs because he refused to leave my apartment until he received his required amount of human interaction for the day.”

“I’m social,” Briggs says.

“You’re emotionally invasive.”

“You needed me.”

“I needed sleep.”

“You were awake.”

Ryan looks toward the crowd. “This is what I live with.”

Soft laughter travels between the tables, but Briggs’s expression has gentled. He watches Ryan with the open affection he never manages to disguise.

“I told him about a thought I’d been carrying,” Ryan says. “It became an idea somewhere between his third beer and the moment he started eating food from my refrigerator without permission.”

“You said I could have the cheese.”

“I said you couldn’t take it home.”

“Possession transferred when you handed it to me.”

“It was already mine.” Ryan reaches into the black bag. “Anyway, the thought became an idea, the idea became a plan, and eventually Easton and Rider got dragged into it because Briggs cannot keep a secret without forming a committee.”

Bliss glances between the four men. “What did you do?”

Ryan’s face softens.

“When you were fourteen, you started building something,” he says. “It’s an old cabinet door covered in marbles, although covered doesn’t adequately describe whatever structural crime you committed against that piece of wood.”

“My Nevers,” Bliss whispers.

Ryan nods. “Your Nevers. The ugliest beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

A tear slips over her lashes.

“Every marble represents something you had to experience without your mother. Every time you wanted Cindy beside you and had to survive the fact that she wasn’t there, you wrote it down and gave the grief somewhere physical to live. Something small enough to hold when missing her became too big.”