Page 262 of Caterina
“You’re walking at my speed.”
“I like your speed.”
“My speed is currently somewhere between elderly turtle and decorative statue.”
“If I don’t walk at your speed, I’d be done with the walk by now.”
She shoots me a deadpan look. “You’re lucky I’m too pregnant to retaliate properly.”
“I am lucky,” I say and leave it at that.
Her thumb brushes over mine.
We reach the first section of new roses.
They catch the last of the light, soft and bright against the deep green leaves. When Caterina told me she wanted yellow roses planted here, I looked at her for a long time.
She had lifted her chin and told me Sofia and Charlotte still loved them. She refused to let one terrible night ruin something that made the girls happy.
So, we planted roses.
Now they line the path in clusters, not too formal, not too perfect. Caterina wanted them softened with white blooms, pale peach, greenery, texture. Nothing obvious. Nothing too sweet.
The result looks like her.
Elegant. Warm. Not as delicate as it first appears.
She stops and reaches out, touching one of the petals with the tip of her finger.
“They’re beautiful,” she says quietly.
“They are.”
She looks at me and narrows her eyes. “You’re not looking at the roses.”
“No.”
Her expression shifts, that soft, complicated look that still makes my chest ache.
“You’re very distracting when you’re pregnant,” I tell her.
“Only when pregnant?”
“You were distracting before. It’s how we got here.”
She laughs. “Good answer.”
“You were a liability before.”
She gasps, deeply offended. “Excuse me?”
“A tactical one.”
“That is not better.”
“It’s honest.”
She starts walking again, pulling me with her. “You know, most men would say something romantic in a garden full of roses.”
