"Ask me again in six months," she said. "If you still mean it then, I'll say yes."
He asked her again in six months. In the same kitchen. On the same worn floor tile. This time, she said yes immediately.
They married quietly the following spring. Just family. No press. No audience beyond the people who actually mattered. Silas stood in as best man. Slightly awkward in a rented suit he clearly hadn't worn in years.
Renee stood beside Naomi instead of a traditional maid of honor, exactly as Naomi wanted. Caleb and Jonah, barely old enough to walk steadily, carried the rings down the aisle together. Jonah dropped his halfway and had to be scooped up laughing by his grandmother. No one minded. It felt, Everett said later, more like the wedding they should have had the first time. Simple. Honest. Nothing hidden behind it.
Silas gave a toast that evening, a little awkward in front of a crowd. "I've closed a lot of cases," he said, glass raised. "This is the first one I actually wanted to keep checking in on." Everett laughed and clinked his glass against Silas's. The closest thing to family Silas had left in town.
