“This was my idea, remember? If a year’s too soon, this is the time to say so.” He had adopted that gentle tone, the one that had become the default all those times in Mikino’s gardens. That memory itself was likely a mixture of reassurance and additional strain. He had stayed through that. He had never given any signs of even considering anything else. But maybe there was some magical “last straw”. Her natural instinct was to withdraw, and he understood the reasons for that but it only did so much to make it easier. There was always a moment of tension in him at such times where his own instinct was to reach for her, but his better judgment insisted he did not. “I waited two days for a ‘yes’,” a faint smile, as close to timid as Andrew Moreau could get, “This is less stressful than that.”
Bianca knew some of what Mel had gone through. The part that Andrew most blamed himself for was that month she’d faced in the hospital. What had happened in that cave, he may never have been able to stop, though certainly everything that could have been done plagued him. But a phone call could have spared her that month of thinking he had changed his mind then.
There was no taking it back. The most he could do was offer that reassurance when she needed it. “They’re honestly highly over-rated. You don’t need to have something that belongs in a movie. But you should have something, I think. I’ve been to some pretty low-key bachelor parties. Hell, I’ve been to a couple bachelorette parties where all anyone did was sit around and play stu—super fun games and give their unsolicited advice to the bride-to-be.” Not much of a save, but he didn’t seem flustered by that fact. “Maybe today we just need to set a day that we’ll set a date by. Is that fair enough?”