"You're going to make me cry," she whispers.
"Please don't. I have no idea how to handle crying women."
"That's okay. I cry at commercials, so you'll get plenty of practice."
The casual way she talks about the future—about us having a future—makes something tight in my chest loosen. She's thinking beyond tonight, beyond this one dinner. She's imagining a world where we know each other well enough for her to cry at commercials while I watch helplessly from the sidelines.
I want that world more than I want my next breath.
"Ready?" I ask, finally stepping back so I can close her door.
"Ready," she says, but she's looking at me instead of the road ahead, and there's something in her expression that makes me think she's talking about more than just dinner.
I walk around to the driver's side, my heart hammering against my ribs like it's trying to escape. This is it. This is the beginning of everything—the first real step toward making her mine.
The bear settles contentedly as I start the engine, finally satisfied that we're taking action. It doesn't care about restaurants or proper courtship or the thousand ways this could go wrong. All it cares about is that our mate is here, within reach, wrapped in our scent and smiling like she wants to be nowhere else.
For once, the bear and I are in complete agreement.
"So," Christine says as I pull away from the curb, "tell me something about yourself that I wouldn't guess by looking at you."
I glance over at her, taking in the way my jacket has slipped off one shoulder, revealing the elegant line of her collarbone. "Like what?"
"I don't know. A secret talent? A weird hobby? Something that would surprise me."
A dozen possible answers run through my head, most of them involving the fact that I turn into a six-hundred-pound grizzly bear when the moon is right and my control slips. But obviously, that's not an option.
"I read poetry," I say finally.
Her eyebrows shoot up. "Really?"
"Really. Started during my second deployment. Someone left a book of Robert Frost in the barracks, and I picked it up one night when I couldn't sleep." I shrug, suddenly self-conscious. "Turns out, words can be weapons too. Just a different kind."
"What's your favorite poem?"
"'The Road Not Taken,'" I answer without hesitation. "Though I think most people misunderstand it."
"How so?"
"They think it's about taking the unconventional path, about being brave enough to choose differently. But it's really about regret. About looking back and wondering what would have happened if you'd made different choices."
"Is that what you do? Look back and wonder?"
The question is soft, careful, but it cuts straight to the heart of everything I've been running from. "Every day."
"Any regrets you'd undo if you could?"
I think about Jake, about the fight that tore us apart. About the choices that led me to the military, to Afghanistan, to the incidents that ended my career. About the years I've wasted hiding from what I am instead of learning to control it.
"Most of them," I admit. "But not tonight. Tonight feels like the first right choice I've made in a long time."
When I glance over at her, she's smiling.
"Good answer," she murmurs.
"What about you? Any deep, dark secrets I should know about?"
She laughs, and the sound fills the truck cab like music. "I'm an open book, remember? Small-town florist with simple dreams and absolutely no mystery whatsoever."
