Callan stayed quiet for a second.
“Four?”
“Yeah.”
His arm shifted around my waist.
“How’d you meet?”
I let out a quiet laugh. “At a concert.”
“What kind?”
“Some indie rock thing. Loud. Too many people, way too much beer.”
He chuckled softly behind me.
“Romantic.”
“Very.” I watched the horizon as the memory floated up,distant and faded, as if it had happened to someone else. “He spilled a drink on me, actually, spent ten minutes apologizing like he’d committed a war crime.”
Callan smiled against my shoulder. “Smooth.”
“It worked,” I said.
The boat rocked beneath us.
His next question caught me off guard.
“Were you going to marry him?”
I snorted before I could stop myself.
“God, no.”
“No?”
“Honestly?” I said.
“Yeah.”
“I had plans to dump him that Wednesday.”
His arm tightened slightly.
“Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
I stared at the water for a long time. I took a breath and thought about my answer.
“Because I’d spent four years waiting to care about him the way I thought I should, and it never happened.”
Callan didn’t move.
“But it wasn’t just Peter—every relationship I’ve ever been in,” I said quietly, “it’s the same thing: no butterflies or the spark everyone talks about. Nothing that made me think—this is it. This is my person. This is different.”