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“We always are,” she says. “Let me know if you need a break, okay? All our plans are flexible. I’ve built in plenty of downtime.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m okay right now.”
I press a kiss to her temple, and when I pull away, notice a cherry blossom in her hair. A flash of pink in a sea of red. I pluck it from her hair and balance it on a fingertip. “Make a wish, ciaróg.”
She looks up at the cherry tree above us. “If we stay here long enough, I’m going to have a million wishes,” she says.
She squeezes her eyes shut, and when she opens them again, blows the cherry blossom away. It flies from my finger and over the edge of the canal and into the river.
“What did you wish for?” I ask.
“Don’t be nosy. If I tell you, it won’t come true.”
“Nonsense. I’m Irish. I’m lucky. If you tell me, it’ll bemorelikely to come true.”
She squints at me. “I think you’re making that up.”
I shrug. “Go ahead and risk it, if you like.”
Her cheeks turn pink, and she looks away. “It’s silly. I was just wishing for the meeting with that agent to go well.”
“What’s silly about that?”
She shrugs, and then her eyes dart to the top of my head. “Oh!” She stretches up onto her toes and her fingers brush my hair. “Your turn.”
She holds out the cherry blossom on her fingertip, but before I can make my wish, the wind carries it away.
Raine’s face falls. “Oh, shoot,” she says. “Sorry. I’m sure there will be another one.”
I pull her closer and she wraps her arms around my middle. “I don’t need any wishes,” I say. “And the meeting is going to be amazing.”
“How do you know?” Raine mumbles.
“The luck of the Irish. We just know.”
I kiss the top of her head. “And also because you are incredibly charming and talented. And your music is incredible. I’m proud of you, you know.”
She sighs against my chest. “I know.”
She tilts her face up to mine. “I’m proud of you too.”
“For what?”
She raises her eyebrows and looks around the park. I follow her gaze. Cherry blossoms swirl around us, and that’s when it hits me that I’m really here. When my eyes land on hers again, she’s grinning up at me. I don’t think I’ve ever loved her more.
I hold her tighter. We stand like that for a while and watch the wind carry cherry blossoms into the river. I resist the compulsion to count the cherry blossoms that get caught in her hair and on her coat, fearful that if I don’t, something bad will happen to her. Raine must sense my anxiety, because she steps back from my arms to rummage through the backpack she’s wearing.
“You look like you could use some drawing time,” she says, and passes a pen and a pad of Post-its into my hands.
“I really could,” I say.
Raine sits on the grass with the river to her back. She pats the ground in front of her, and I mirror her cross-legged pose when I sit opposite her. The way she looks with the cherry blossoms in her hair and the river at her back has me putting pen to paper without a moment’s hesitation. I wish I had something better than a Post-it to capture it.
Raine gazes around the park. “What’s caught your eye?”
“My wife, of course,” I say. “Sit still, will you?”
Raine laughs, but does her best to sit still. As I draw, she asks me about the tattoo appointments I have when we get back home, and when that topic is exhausted, starts talking about the agent who emailed her when a snippet of one of her original songs unexpectedly became a viral sound on social media after an influencer posted a video of Raine busking on Grafton Street.
