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“Did Sam feel the same?”
“I thought he did,” Gianna answered. “But I’ll admit that since September, I’ve thought about that conversation more than a few times, and I’m seeing some of the things differently.”
“Like what?”
“Sam was the one who insisted we wait until we were twenty-six to get engaged. He said that by then, we’d be established in our jobs, with steadier income. That made sense to me, so I went along with it.”
“Did you agree with the rest as well?”
“At the time, yeah, I did. Though now, I’m wondering why. I mean, why in the hell would we wait two more years after we were engaged to get married? What on earth would we learn about each other in years twelve and thirteen that we hadn’t discovered in the first eleven?”
“You’re not wrong about that,” Elio agreed.
“But at the time, we were still young, and truthfully, it just felt like words, you know? Not a real plan. Until twenty-four came and went. Then twenty-five. Then…my twenty-sixth birthday arrived, and I thought…”
She didn’t finish her comment, but Elio could figure out what she’d thought without the words. “No ring.”
She shook her head. “He got me a Roomba.”
“Jesus Christ.”
Her eyes widened with amusement, and she snorted. “Worst gift ever, right? Even for a clean freak.”
“Worst. Hands down.”
“Of course, hindsight is twenty-twenty. My birthday was in August. Which was after Sam started dating Emma.”
“Sam is an idiot.” Elio had made similar statements about Gianna’s ex a few times this week.
“God,” she said, smacking her hand over her mouth dramatically. “I swore to myself I was going to stop talking about Sam and then, boom! Another whole conversation about the asshole. I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about him.”
Elio considered that. With any other woman, he would have hit his limit on talk about the ex long before now, but with Gianna, he found himself wanting to hear more. It offered him insights into her past, and who she was as a person, because that relationship had probably defined her as much as the way she’d been raised. He wanted to know her, so that meant hearing about Sam.
Rather than respond to her comment, he changed the subject. “So you intended to come up with another life plan this week?”
She nodded.
“You probably won’t like hearing this, but I think you should skip the plan altogether. Life doesn’t work like that. No one can plot out the big moments in quite that kind of detail because life happens, takes twists and turns you don’t expect. Maybe it’s enough to just say you want to find your dream job, get married, and have kids.”
Gianna considered that, a soft smile crossing her lips. “You’re right. That is enough.”
He bent forward to steal a quick kiss.
“How do you do that?” she murmured against his lips.
Elio leaned back. “Do what?”
“Simplify things for me in such a way that all the things I thought I needed to do to keep my brain from exploding don’t seem necessary anymore.”
“Like what?” he asked.
“I haven’t vacuumed this cabin since Tuesday. We left the dinner dishes in the sink last night. You’ve just convinced me not to make a list. I always make lists…for everything. And none of that is bothering me. Not even a little bit.”
“Have you considered it’s not me? Maybe it’s this place and the fact we’re on vacation.”
Gianna dismissed that suggestion immediately. “I’ve gone on vacation before and trust me, usually I’m more stressed because my daily routines are disrupted.”
He stole another kiss, this one lingering. “I think the reason is pretty simple.”
