“What are you staring at, Mitch?” Keir asked him instead.

“At someone who I’m pretty certain wouldn’t have worn those shorts to a wedding when I first met him.”

Keir looked down, and then around him. “I suppose they are a bit casual. I could have shaved too.” Laughing at himself came easier than usual, no need for defensiveness while Mitch laughed with him, not at him. “To be fair, going to a wedding was the last thing I expected from today.”

They made their goodbyes and walked out into darkness that the moon lit on their way back, retracing the path between trees until they got to the Haven’s gardens. There, the high walls lent more shadows, the path to the annexe so dark that Keir didn’t notice a hosepipe strewn across it. He tripped, almost falling.

Mitch caught him, hauling him close; so close that not kissing him would have been a waste, given that time was short now.

Keir locked his arms around Mitch’s neck, pulling him down so their lips could meet, but Mitch ducked out of his hold. “What—?”

“Keir….” Mitch had sunk to one knee in the shadows. He held up cupped hands, offering something that glinted.

Keir followed Caroline’s if-he-asks instructions without thinking, drawn to this man who knelt as though about to make an offer, and he responded on pure instinct. “Yes.”

“Yes, what?” Mitch asked, getting up from his knee. “You dropped this. Almost lost it.” He held out Keir’s tie clip, which must have fallen from his pocket. “I know it must be special. You’re always fiddling with it.”

Keir cradled a sliver of platinum he put on without thinking every workday. An expensive engagement gift from the last man who’d proposed to him. Now he didn’t want it. Couldn’t bear to see it. He stuffed it into his pocket. “It’s not special.”

You are.

“But—”

Keir cut him off with the kiss he’d wanted—needed more than ever, now that they were on a countdown—not breaking off until he had to, breathless. Another kiss from Mitch was worth more. Far more. That clip had turned out to mean nothing.

This, though?

This meant….

“Take me to bed?” he asked.

One last time, he told himself as they approached the annexe, brushing past the same rosemary bush as he had that morning, its scent rich and heavy.

Once last time, and then I’ll get back to life as nor—

Before he could finish that thought, Mitch scooped him up and carried him across the threshold, kicking the door closed behind them.