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“El?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you calculating whether there’s enough time to plan a wedding in May?”

“Maybe?”

“I haven’t even asked you yet.”

Yet. That means he’s going to, right?

Right?

“I know.”

“It doesn’t have to be May.”

“Sure. Any month will do.”

“Hey, hey.” He puts his finger under my chin, lifting it. “You should know I think proposing at someone else’s wedding is tacky.”

I force a smile. “Especially when there might be a murderer on the loose.”

“Especially then.”

“So, no proposal this weekend is what you’re saying.”

“Don’t you want to be surprised?”

“Not sure. I’ve never been proposed to before.” I say this as gently as I can because even though we were together for fouryears last time, marriage never came up. Not this specifically, anyway, and that was a sore spot between us.

For me, anyway.

I don’t know how Oliver felt about it.

I never addressed it with him because I was young and stupid, and I thought if I told him what I wanted, then he’d never give it to me, which was unfair to him.

Because how can you give someone something you don’t know they want?

And also: He’s not Connor.

By which I mean, if I’d told him I wanted to get married, we could’ve had a normal conversation about it. Instead, I’d probably done something stupid like crap on everyone we knew who was getting married and talked about how it was a patriarchal institution that wasn’t good for women.51,52

And then I’d gone and done something extremely stupid that ended us.

So all this talk of weddings and wedding dates is scary and nerve-racking, and we should move on to other things.

Like preventing someone from dying atthiswedding.

That felt like a remote possibility as we wandered around Avalon after our encounter with José. It was a nice respite to take in some of the island’s history, hold Oliver’s hand, and forget about all the drama. The sun was shining, and the little shops on the main street were brightly painted in a rainbow of colors, and the air smelled like the ocean and flowers.

It was eerie, though. It feels like we’re the only people left on this island.

Because, of course, we are.

Hurricane Isabella is building steam in the Pacific off the coast of Baja California. If it makes landfall here, it will be only the second time that’s happened this century.

As the afternoon wound on, the wind picked up, making the ocean choppy as the palm trees rustled above us.