Evie reached for my hand. “Say it straight, please.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “Will you, Evie Banyon, come live with me, Brady Coyne, in this house?”
“This is a commitment, you know,” she said.
“I’ve thought deeply about it,” I said. “I am not being frivolous.”
“A giant commitment.”
“Yes. I agree.”
“Scary.”
“Yes, indeed.”
She put her hand on my shoulder and leaned toward me. I kissed her on the mouth.
“Okay,” she said.
“Is that like ‘I do’?”
She smiled. “Almost exactly.”
“We’ll have to keep the feeders filled and the bushes and flowers tended,” I said. “This will have to be a bird garden forever and ever.”
“You shouldn’t be too precipitous,” I said. I gave her my most serious expression. “There’s, um, something you should know.”
“Oh-oh,” she said. “What?”
“Somebody else will be living with us.”
“Oh?” She frowned. “And who might that be?”
I glanced at Ethan. He nodded. I patted my knee, and Henry scrambled to his feet, plopped his chin on my thigh, and looked up at me with big adoring eyes. I scratched his ears and arched my eyebrows at Evie.
She smiled. “Henry?”
I nodded.
“Awesome,” she said.