Chapter 40
Luke
The words were out.
Out into the open air of the square, swallowed by the crowd, by the sky, by the soft hum of the microphone still warm in his hand.
The silence stretched, thin and exposed. Luke could hear his own heartbeat, loud enough that it felt like it should be picked up by the microphone. Transmitted by loudspeaker to everyone standing there.
Luke kept his eyes locked on Grace.
She was frozen behind the face-painting table, brush still in her hand. Her eyes were wide. Shocked.
What if this was too late?
His parents were out there somewhere. His boss. People who had known him since he was a kid—who had watched him grow up, people who expected him to follow the path they had set for him.
They had just watched him crack himself open on a wooden stage with a borrowed microphone and no script.
And Grace—thirty feet away, with bodies and chairs and so much space between them—felt farther than she ever had.
He couldn’t read her face.
He knew her intimately. Knew signs to look for. Knew the small sounds she made when she was falling asleep, the look she got right before she came, the way her nose scrunched before she sneezed.
But right now?
Right now, with the whole town watching, he couldn’t tell if that look on her face was shock or anger or disbelief. He couldn’t tell if she was about to say yes—or turn and walk away.
He tightened his grip on the microphone, fingers curling around the metal.
He was all in.
Publicly. Irrevocably.
And even now—even with his pulse racing and his chest tight and his future balanced on the edge of her answer—he knew one thing with absolute clarity.
He wouldn’t take it back.
Not for anything.
Luke held her gaze, refusing to look away, trying to send everything he could across the distance between them without saying another word.
Please.
Not entitlement. Not expectation.
Just hope.
Please, Grace. I know I don’t deserve it. I know I’ve been late and wrong and scared.
But please.