a deep breath. “This fall I’m going to New York, to try to get work as a photographer.”
“This fall?” Garrett looked puzzled. “But the wedding’s next spring.”
Jordan made herself look up, meet his eyes squarely. “I’d like to put the wedding off for a while.”
She braced herself, but his face cleared. “It’s just nerves,” he reassured her. “My mother says bridal nerves are completely natural. She wants you to come over soon and choose flowers. She said something about petunias, or maybe it was phlox—”
“I’m not ready for phlox, Garrett. I’m not ready to set a date. I’m not ready.” What a relief to say the words, not be forever squashing them down out of sight and out of mind. “I don’t want to be married yet. I want to work. I want to be a photographer. I want to find out if I’m any good at all—”
Jordan ran out of breath before she ran out of all the things she had only realized this week that she wanted so badly. To go to France and snap the Eiffel Tower even if it was the most clichéd photograph in the world. To learn what it was like to work on a deadline over burning eyes and cold coffee, because some yet-to-be-found editor wanted something done by eight sharp. She wanted colleagues to bump around a darkroom with, sharing cigarettes and ideas. She wanted to see her name on a byline: J. Bryde.
Garrett was looking lost now. “We have so many plans . . .”
“Plans can change. Come with me,” she said, linking her fingers through his. “Come to New York, have an adventure. Work for TWA instead of—”
“Come on, quit kidding.”
“I’m not. Do you even want to work with your dad at the office? You’re bored stiff there.”
Garrett tugged his hand free, crossing his arms over his chest. “Are you calling this engagement off?”
“No. I am saying we should postpone—”
“We’ve been together five years. Mom’s going to be heartbroken if we postpone again.”
Jordan felt bad about that, she truly did, but she stamped the feeling down ruthlessly. She was not going to get pushed down the aisle because of guilt. “We’re the ones getting married. Don’t you want to be sure before we say I do?”
“I’m sure.”
“Really?” Jordan paused. “You’ve never told me I love you.”
He looked confused. “Yes, I have.”
“When was the last time you looked me in the eyes and said I love you when we weren’t in bed and in the middle of—”
“Lower your voice!”
“We’re partway underground, there’s no way Anna can hear us.”
“And what’s she have to say about this?” Scowling.
“Absolutely nothing.” And what a glorious feeling that was. To make her own decisions, no input from adults who were absolutely certain they knew better than she did what to do with her life. “I’m getting an allowance, the same I’d have gotten if I went to college. And I have my own savings. I’ll rent an apartment—” Jordan broke off. Too many details for Garrett, who was looking angry again.
“You know something?” He jabbed a finger at her. “You’ve never said I love you either.”
Jordan leaned against the darkroom table, tracing its edge. Her pear-shaped diamond sparkled under the harsh lighting. “Were you faithful to me, Garrett?” she asked. “When you went off to war, you gave me your high school ring and made me promise not to go out with anyone else. Did you?”
He started to say something. Jordan raised her eyebrows. He cleared his throat.
“I didn’t go on a date with anyone else,” he mumbled.
She waited.
“But some of the guys, they said those of us who had come straight out of high school deserved a good time. So we wouldn’t . . .”
Get shipped overseas and die without ever getting laid, Jordan supplied silently. “That’s about what I thought.”
“It was just the one time . . . Okay, it was twice. But I thought you’d be mad, so—”
“I’m not mad.” Jordan sighed.
He brightened. “Really?”
“Garrett,” Jordan said gently, “isn’t it a problem that I don’t mind? If I loved you madly, wouldn’t I be a tiny bit hurt, or jealous, or something?”
Silence stretched.
“You like me a lot,” Jordan went on. “I like baseball and we always had fun in the backseat of your car, and I didn’t push for a ring or tell you to stop flying. You liked that.” So many things had crystallized this week, down here in the red glare of the safelight as she worked. So many things. “I like