I had changed twice before settling on the emerald dress.
Not because the others were wrong, they weren't, but because something about tonight felt like it required a decision. Like what I wore would say something I wasn't ready to say out loud yet.
The emerald was the right choice. Deep and rich, it moved when I moved, and when I looked in the mirror I felt something I hadn't felt in a while.
Ready.
Joe texted at seven.
Outside.
I took one last breath, grabbed my clutch, and went downstairs.
He was leaning against the car in a dark suit, tie loosened just slightly at the collar, that particular kind of effortless that takes effort, and when he looked up and saw me coming through the lobby doors something shifted in his expression.
Not dramatically. Just, quietly. The way a room changes when the right light comes on.
He didn't say anything immediately. Just looked.
"You're staring," I said when I reached him.
"I know," he replied, completely unbothered. His eyes moved over me once more before settling on my face. "You look like something I wasn't prepared for."
I laughed softly, heat climbing my neck. "That's not a normal compliment."
"No," he agreed, opening the car door for me. "But it's an honest one."
The event was everything the invitation had promised, grand and glittering, the kind of room that hummed with intention.
Chandeliers threw warm light across a sea of elegant people.
A string quartet played in one corner, underneath the low sophisticated buzz of conversation. Waiters moved between guests like water finding its level, champagne appearing and disappearing from hands without anyone quite noticing how.
Joe stayed close without making a production of it.
He introduced me where it made sense, kept a steady hand at the small of my back when the crowd pressed in, and leaned down to murmur quiet observations in my ear that made me press my lips together to keep from laughing at entirely the wrong moments.
"The man by the pillar," he said at one point, voice low near my ear, "has been holding that same canapé for forty minutes. He's committed to the bit."
I turned just enough to look. He was right. I bit the inside of my cheek. "Stop."
"I'm just observing."
"You're making it impossible to be serious."
"You don't want to be serious," he said, and he wasn't wrong.
Being with Joe in a room full of strangers felt surprisingly easy. He made it easy, the way he moved through spaces, the way he made me feel like whatever corner we were standing in was exactly where we were supposed to be.
But underneath all of it, something else was running. Quieter. More insistent.
The memory of the kiss. The weeks of almost and not yet and careful steps forward.
And now this, him in a dark suit, his hand occasionally finding mine, the air between us thick with something neither of us was naming tonight.
I felt it every time he looked at me.
At some point the room grew loud and warm and I needed a breath.
"Balcony?" I said.
He was already moving.
Outside, the air was cooler and the city spread out below us in its quiet nighttime grammar, lights and movement and the distant sound of traffic that made everything feel both enormous and intimate at once.
I rested my hands on the railing and exhaled slowly.
He stood beside me, close enough that our arms brushed.
"Better?" he asked.
"Much."
We were quiet for a moment. The string quartet drifted faintly through the doors behind us.
"I wasn't sure how tonight would feel," I admitted. "After everything."
Joe turned to look at me. "And how does it feel?"
I considered the question honestly. "Like too much and exactly right at the same time."
He held my gaze. "Yeah," he said quietly. "That's exactly it."
I looked back out at the city. "You're not going to push tonight, are you."
"No," he said simply. "I just want to be here with you. That's enough."
Something caught in my throat. It was so entirely him, no pressure, no agenda, just presence. Just honesty.
"That's the part that gets me," I said softly. "Every time."
"What part?"
"That you mean it." I turned to face him. "You always just mean it."
Joe looked at me for a long moment, his expression open in that way he didn't bother hiding anymore.
Then he reached out and tucked a strand of hair from my face, his thumb grazing my cheekbone as he dropped his hand.
"I'm scared too," he said quietly. "In case you were wondering."
"You don't seem it."
"I hide it better than you." A small smile. "But this you, this scares me.
Because it matters. And the things that matter are the ones that can hurt."
I felt something shift quietly in my chest. Not cracking, settling. Like something finding its right place.
My hand found his on the railing. Our fingers threaded together without ceremony.
"Don't shut me out," he said. "That's all I ask."
"I won't," I said. And I meant it.
We stood there for a while longer, hand in hand, the city below us and the quiet between us full of everything we hadn't said yet and weren't rushing to.
They called everyone in for the dancing portion of the evening and Joe offered me his hand with a look that was half invitation, half dare.
"I should warn you," I said, taking it. "I'm not a dancer."
"Neither am I," he said. "We'll be terrible together."
We weren't terrible. We were slow and unhurried and slightly off the beat, and it didn't matter at all.
On the floor, his hand settled at my waist and mine rested on his shoulder and we moved in that particular way that has less to do with dancing and more to do with two people finding an excuse to be close. The room moved around us. I stopped noticing it.
"You're holding back," he said against my hair.
"Force of habit," I admitted.
He pulled me fractionally closer. "You don't have to. Not with me."
I exhaled slowly and let myself lean in, just slightly, just enough, and felt him respond in kind, his arm tightening gently, his cheek coming to rest against my temple.
We swayed.
And in the hush between one song ending and another beginning, he pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. No hunger. No urgency. Just warmth. Just tenderness.
Something inside me opened quietly, like a window that had been stuck finally giving way.
I don't want you to stop, I thought. I didn't say it. But I held on a little tighter.
And he noticed.
He drove me home through streets that had gone quiet with the late hour, our hands loosely linked across the centre console, conversation soft and unhurried.
At my door he waited while I found my keys, and when I turned back he was watching me with that expression, steady and warm and entirely present.
"Thank you for tonight," I said.
"Thank you for coming with me."
A beat of quiet. The kind that holds something.
"Joe," I started, then stopped. Then tried again. "I feel safe with you."
He went very still for a moment. Then something moved through his expression, slow and quiet, like weather changing.
"You always will," he said.
Three words. Simple and certain and entirely without performance.
I nodded, my throat tight in the best way. Then I went inside before the feeling got any bigger than I knew what to do with.
Upstairs, I sat by the window in the dark for a long time, the city lights soft below me, the emerald dress still on because I wasn't ready to let the night end yet.
My phone lit up.
Joe: I know it's late. But I just needed to hear your voice.
I smiled at the screen for a long moment.