Your imaginary boyfriend called.

He said he’s stuck in traffic with your non-existent career and your fictional apartment in Manhattan.

Britney McKinnon announced it like she’d just won a court case, holding my phone over her head in the middle of Aunt Martha’s backyard like it was evidence. The late-summer sun flashed off the screen. Forty-seven relatives turned in unison. Plastic lawn chairs creaked. Someone’s paper plate tilted, potato salad sliding toward the edge like it wanted to escape.

I felt the heat climb up my neck so fast it was almost dizzying.

“Give me that,” I snapped, reaching for my phone, but Britney leaned back out of my reach, grinning in the way only a cousin who has never had to rebuild her life from the ground up can grin.

“Oh, don’t be dramatic, Haley,” she said loudly, the way she always said things loudly when she wanted witnesses. “We’re just concerned. You’re thirty-two. Single. Working… whatever it is you do. And you keep telling everyone you have this—what—boyfriend who lives in another time zone and definitely exists, but somehow he’s never at Christmas or Easter or any of the cookouts.”

My stomach dropped, because she wasn’t wrong about the pattern. She was just wrong about why.

I wasn’t lying about having a boyfriend.

I was lying about who he was.

I could practically hear my mother’s voice in my head—Haley, just ignore her—except ignoring Britney at a family reunion was like ignoring a fire alarm. She’d follow you into every room. She’d hang the smoke in your hair and pretend she was helping.

Around me, the McKinnon family reunion kept humming like an engine. The smell of charcoal. The slap of flip-flops on concrete. My uncle’s classic rock playlist leaking from a Bluetooth speaker that had seen better days. A child shrieking near the sprinkler. A cooler packed with soda and cheap beer. A Costco sheet cake sweating in the heat on the picnic table.

Oak Park felt like Oak Park always did in late August—quiet streets, trimmed lawns, people who waved with the same hand they used to judge you.

And there I was, standing in the center of it all, being publicly humiliated by my cousin with a talent for cruelty dressed up as “concern.”

“Haley?” Aunt Patricia called, her voice syrupy. “Honey, are you okay? You’re turning red.”

“I’m fine,” I lied.

“Maybe she’s embarrassed,” Aunt Sarah offered to the crowd, like she was narrating a documentary. “You know, if she’s between jobs or doing… gig work. No shame in that. Some people just… struggle to launch.”

I clenched my jaw hard enough to make my molars ache.

I was not between jobs. I was not struggling to launch.

I was a high school drama teacher, which meant I spent my days turning chaos into something coherent and beautiful. I taught kids how to stand in front of a room full of strangers and speak like their hearts were unbreakable. I taught them to breathe through fear. To trust their voices. To be louder than the shame that tried to shrink them.

But to my family, my job wasn’t a “real” job because it wasn’t a six-figure salary with a title you could brag about at brunch.

My family loved measurable things: promotions, rings, square footage, zip codes they could drop casually. Drama didn’t translate. Art didn’t compute. Teaching teenagers didn’t earn applause unless it came with a viral headline or a fundraiser photo op.

So for three years, they’d treated my life like a sad little waiting room.

And today, Britney was determined to make sure everyone understood exactly how small she thought I was.

I reached again for my phone, and Britney held it higher, the gesture theatrical.

“Maybe you should just admit it,” she said, widening her eyes in mock sincerity. “You don’t have to invent a boyfriend to—”

The backyard gate clicked.

It was a small sound, the kind you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t already braced for impact. But the way my grandmother’s head snapped toward the noise made my skin prickle. The way the conversations faltered like someone had lowered the volume.

And then I saw them.

Two men in suits first, scanning, earpieces catching the sunlight. Another man, broader, moving with the smooth vigilance of someone who spent his life watching for danger. The whole backyard shifted in a single collective instinct, the way people do when something powerful enters their orbit.

The air changed.

The gate opened wider.

And Governor James Rothwell walked through like he belonged there.

My brain misfired.

For half a second, the image didn’t make sense. The setting didn’t match the person—like someone had dropped a headline into my aunt’s backyard.

James looked wrong against the plastic chairs and paper plates. Too polished. Too composed. Not in a stiff way—he was relaxed, smiling—but in a way that made everyone else in the yard suddenly aware of their posture.

He wore a dark jacket, open at the collar, the kind of casual that still cost more than my monthly grocery bill. His hair was slightly wind-tousled, which would have looked staged on anyone else, but on him it looked like reality. Like he’d actually been moving through a day that mattered.

And he was walking straight toward me.

Behind him, his detail spread subtly, eyes scanning. Someone near the grill sucked in a breath.

Britney’s mouth fell open. My uncle Ted’s beer slipped from his hand and shattered on the patio with a sharp crack that sounded like punctuation.

James didn’t flinch at the noise. He didn’t even glance toward it. His gaze stayed fixed on me, warm and steady, like I was the only person in the entire backyard.

He reached me and smiled the smile that had made Illinois voters forgive him for being young, ambitious, and terrifyingly competent.

“Actually,” he said, loud enough for all forty-seven relatives to hear, “I was stuck at the White House.”

The words landed like a dropped tray.

The world froze.

Aunt Martha’s potato salad did, in fact, slide off someone’s plate and splat onto the grass. Uncle Ted stared at the broken glass like he couldn’t remember what a bottle was. Britney stood frozen, still holding my phone in the air, her mouth opening and closing like a fish who had realized the water was gone.

“The president wanted to discuss the education bill before I flew out to meet my girlfriend’s family,” James continued, like this was the most normal sentence in the world.

My heart stuttered.

Because this was the nightmare scenario. The one we had been avoiding for eight months.

My secret boyfriend had just detonated our entire arrangement in front of my entire extended family.

And he did it with a smile.

“Jamie,” I hissed, leaning in just enough to keep my voice low. Only I was allowed to call him that in public. It was our small rebellion against the world that called him Governor. “What are you doing?”

His eyes flicked down to me, and there was something unapologetic there. Protective. Determined.

Then he turned to my family as if he’d been campaigning in McKinnon territory his whole life.

“Mrs. McKinnon,” he said, addressing my mother with a warmth that made her look like she might faint. “I’m so sorry we’re late. I promised Haley we’d be here by two, but the president can be persistent when he wants to talk policy.”

My mother’s voice came out as a squeak. “The president?”

James nodded gravely, like they were discussing something small and neighborly. “The actual president, ma’am.”

My grandmother, who hadn’t moved from her lawn chair in three hours, suddenly discovered her mobility and leaned forward like her spine had been waiting for this.

“The president?” she repeated, as if she needed to hear it twice to believe it.

“Yes,” James said, then lowered his voice conspiratorially, making my ninety-three-year-old grandmother beam. “Though between you and me, your granddaughter is much better at negotiations.”

I made a strangled sound, but he squeezed my hand, and the warmth of him grounded me.

“She once talked me out of vetoing arts education funding,” he continued, “by threatening to make me sleep on the couch. Very effective political strategy.”

“You two live together?” my mother whispered, scandalized and hopeful in the same breath.

“No!” I blurted.

James didn’t miss a beat. “Not yet,” he said, smiling brightly, and my soul briefly left my body.

The backyard seemed to inhale as one organism.

Somewhere behind us, a neighbor’s lawn mower droned on, oblivious, like it belonged to another universe.

Davidson—James’s lead agent, the one who looked like he had been born in a suit—stepped forward.

“Governor,” he said quietly, “we need to sweep the perimeter. Standard protocol for unscheduled stops.”

“Of course,” James said smoothly. Then, with a grin, he gestured around the yard. “Though I should mention this is the McKinnon family reunion. They’re about as dangerous as a basket of puppies.”

He tilted his head as if considering. “Well, except for Haley when she hasn’t had her coffee.”

“That’s true,” I muttered, because my brain had short-circuited and my mouth apparently decided honesty was the only thing left.

Davidson’s face didn’t change, but his eyes flicked to me like I’d been added to the threat assessment.

Britney finally found her voice.

“Wait, wait, wait,” she sputtered, lowering my phone slowly like it weighed a hundred pounds. “You’re saying you’re actually dating Governor Rothwell? The same Governor Rothwell who’s getting a Kennedy Center honor next month for his arts advocacy? The one who speaks five languages and graduated Harvard at twenty?”

“Six languages, actually,” James corrected, the modesty in his tone almost convincing. “I picked up Mandarin during trade negotiations.”

He squeezed my hand again, like he was anchoring me to reality. “Haley’s been helping me with my Spanish. She’s an excellent teacher.”

“I teach high school drama,” I said flatly.

James turned that gentle smile on me, the one that always made me want to throw something at him and kiss him at the same time. “You teach everything,” he said. “Confidence. Creativity. Courage.”

I stared at him. My throat tightened.

“Do you know,” he said to my relatives, voice rising just enough to carry, “she directed a production of Hamilton with a budget of three hundred dollars and somehow made it magical? I’ve seen Broadway shows with less heart.”

My aunt Sarah made a noise like she’d swallowed her tongue.

“He came to my school play three times,” I blurted, because apparently we were living in the truth now. “Sat in the back. Bought a terrible video from the A.V. club.”

James grinned. “Your principal almost had me escorted out the third time,” he admitted. “Apparently governors aren’t supposed to lurk in high school auditoriums.”

“Oh my God,” my sister Emma whispered, and I saw her phone come up. If she wasn’t already texting, she was about to set the entire state of Illinois on fire. “This is real. This is actually real.”

“As real as the tax reform I’m pushing through next month,” James confirmed, then made a face. “Though significantly more enjoyable than fiscal policy discussions.”

It was spiraling.

The McKinnons were not built to handle spiraling. They were built for control. For predictable narratives. For neat little boxes.

And James had just bulldozed through every box they’d tried to put me in.

My uncle Robert stepped forward. He was the family’s self-appointed patriarch since my grandfather passed. A man who believed his opinions were a public service.

“Now hold on just a minute,” he said, squinting at James like he was trying to find the trick. “How do we know you’re really… dating our Haley?”

He glanced at me with the same condescension he’d used last Christmas when he told me I was “too picky” and needed to be realistic.

“No offense, sweetheart,” he added, as if that made it kinder, “but you’re a high school teacher from Oak Park. He’s… well, he’s him.”

The old humiliation flared in my chest. The familiar sting of being treated like my life was a consolation prize.

I opened my mouth to defend myself—

But James went very still.

I’d seen him in debates on TV. I’d watched him go from charming to lethal in half a breath, not with cruelty, but with precision. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. He just spoke like the truth was a hammer.

He turned to Uncle Robert.

“I’m sorry,” James said, and his tone was polite enough to be dangerous, “are you questioning whether I’m good enough for Haley?”

Uncle Robert blinked. “That’s not what—”

“Because let me be clear,” James continued, and the backyard seemed to tilt toward him, “Haley McKinnon is the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met.”

The air held.

“She turns teenagers who hate Shakespeare into kids who quote Hamlet for fun,” he said, voice carrying. “She spends her spring break building sets instead of going to Cabo because her kids deserve something special. She volunteers at the literacy center every Saturday teaching adults to read without ever making them feel small.”

My vision blurred slightly.

“so no, sir,” James said, and there was steel under the warmth now, “the question isn’t whether she’s good enough for me.”

He paused.

“The question is whether I’m worthy of her.”

Silence.

Even the kids near the sprinkler seemed to hush, like the universe had decided to listen.

In the distance, the lawn mower finally stopped.

Davidson, utterly unhelpful, chose that moment to add, “She’s also the only person who’s ever beaten the governor at Scrabble six times.”

“Seven,” I corrected automatically, because my personality is apparently a reflex. “That last game where he claimed ‘Qi’ isn’t a real word counts.”

“It is a real word,” James protested, the tension cracking as he turned to the crowd with exasperation. “It’s the Chinese concept of life force. Perfectly legitimate Scrabble word.”

“She’s ruthless,” he told my family, and the admiration in his voice made my stomach flip. “Beautiful, brilliant, and ruthless.”

Emma’s eyes were shining. “How did you even meet?” she demanded, because she could not hold a secret if her life depended on it. “Governors don’t usually hang out in high school drama departments.”

James and I exchanged a look.

The real story was messy. Complicated. And the kind of story that sounded like fiction even when it was true.

A charity gala in Chicago where I’d been working as a cater-waiter to make extra money because teacher salaries don’t come with magical abundance. A spilled tray of champagne. Chocolate sauce. A five-thousand-dollar tuxedo that met its tragic end because I turned too fast.

And a man who, instead of getting angry, crouched beside me on a kitchen floor and made me laugh so hard I forgot to be mortified.

“She threw wine on me,” James announced casually.

“It was champagne,” I corrected. “And it was an accident.”

“You were holding the tray like a weapon,” he countered. “I’ve seen less aggressive defensive lines in the NFL.”

“You walked backward into me,” I shot back. “I was trying to escape Mayor Henderson’s wife. She was describing her Maltipoo’s digestive issues in vivid detail.”

James shuddered theatrically. “Anyway,” he continued, “Haley apologized by quoting Shakespeare at me.”

I glared at him. “That is not—”

He lifted a hand to stop me, eyes gleaming. “The quality of mercy is not strained,” he recited, voice softening. “And I knew I was gone. Completely, utterly gone.”

My aunt Sarah made a sound like she might need a chair.

“It took me three weeks to track her down,” James added, shaking his head as if I’d been an international fugitive.

“You had your chief of staff call every catering company in Chicago,” I reminded him, mortified.

“I had to find you,” he said simply. “You vanished like Cinderella.”

“If Cinderella quoted Shakespeare and had strong opinions about Stephen Sondheim,” he told my relatives. “Which she does.”

“Everyone should have strong opinions about Stephen Sondheim,” I muttered.

James turned to the crowd, smiling broadly. “See? Perfect woman.”

Britney, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet, finally spoke again, and her voice sounded like it had been scraped raw.

“So for the past eight months,” she said slowly, “while we’ve all been trying to set Haley up with every single man in the greater Chicago area, she’s been secretly dating the governor.”

“In her defense,” James said, and there it was again—that sincere tone he used when he was about to tell the truth in a way that made you feel it, “I asked her to keep it quiet.”

My stomach tightened.

“My position makes relationships complicated,” James said, and his gaze found mine, steady. “The press can be invasive. I wanted to protect what we had. Build something real without cameras and commentary.”

Uncle Robert’s face twitched. “Then why now?” he demanded. “Why show up here?”

James’s expression softened as he looked at me.

“Because she called me crying last week,” he said.

My chest went hot.

I hadn’t wanted anyone to know that. I hadn’t even wanted to admit it to myself.

I’d called him after one too many “helpful” comments. After my mother casually asked if I’d “thought about freezing my eggs” at the grocery store checkout. After Britney sent me a link to a dating coach. After Uncle Robert told me at dinner that teaching drama was “cute” but maybe I should “think bigger.”

And I’d cried, quietly, on my couch, surrounded by stacks of scripts and set designs, feeling like no matter how hard I worked, my family would always see me as unfinished.

“She said she was dreading this reunion,” James continued, voice carrying, “because everyone would spend the day reminding her she’s thirty-two and single, that she’s wasting her life teaching, that she should be more like Britney.”

He glanced at Britney. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Britney said faintly, like she was witnessing her own downfall in real time.

“And I realized I was being selfish,” James said. “I was so busy protecting our privacy that I was letting the woman I love feel diminished by people who should be celebrating her.”

He paused. The word hung there.

Love.

He’d said it before. To me. In private. In the quiet moments when the world wasn’t watching.

But he’d never said it like this.

Not publicly. Not with witnesses. Not with forty-seven McKinnons, two Secret Service agents, and at least three neighbors who had wandered over to see why there were suits in the backyard.

“That ends today,” James finished.

My face burned.

Britney’s phone—because of course she had it up—tilted slightly, as if she was framing the shot.

I leaned in, voice low. “Did you just say—”

“Yes,” James said, not bothering to lower his voice. Then he turned slightly, addressing the yard like he was making a statement at a press podium. “Governor James Rothwell loves high school drama teacher Haley McKinnon.”

My heart hammered.

“Print it,” he said brightly. “Tweet it. Put it on billboards. I don’t care anymore.”

“The press team is going to end you,” I whispered through clenched teeth.

“They’ll adjust,” he said lightly. “They managed when I accidentally adopted three cats during a shelter visit. They can handle me being in love.”

I glared. “You did not ‘accidentally’ adopt three cats.”

He pointed at me like I’d been caught in a scandal. “For the record, the cats were Haley’s idea. She volunteers at the animal shelter too. Because of course she does.”

“Those cats needed homes,” I protested.

“And you love Mr. Whiskers,” he added, smiling.

“Mr. Whiskers is running a hostile takeover,” I said, because I was not going to say anything that sounded like violence in front of the internet. “I can see it in his eyes.”

“That’s just his face,” James argued. “He put a dead—”

I cut him off instantly. “Stop. We’re keeping this family-friendly.”

James blinked, then laughed, surrendering. “Fine. He left me a… strongly worded gift.”

My grandmother, watching this exchange with increasing delight, suddenly burst into laughter.

“Oh,” she said, fanning herself with a paper napkin. “You two are real.”

She pointed a finger at my mother, who looked like she was about to short-circuit. “Nobody could fake this level of comfortable bickering.”

“We’re not bickering,” James and I said in unison.

Then we glared at each other.

“We’re debating,” I clarified.

“Discussing,” he corrected.

“Exchanging perspectives,” I countered.

“Jesus,” Uncle Ted muttered, and for the first time all day I heard something like affection in his voice. “They’re perfect for each other. They’re both insane.”

James’s eyes gleamed.

“Speaking of perfect,” he said, and his hand slipped into his jacket pocket.

My heart stopped.

Actually stopped.

Because I knew that pocket. I knew the shape of his hand when he reached for something hidden. I’d seen it a dozen times, in private, in moments when he was about to reveal a surprise or a plan.

And now his fingers emerged holding a small velvet box.

The backyard blurred at the edges.

“No,” I breathed, barely audible.

James dropped to one knee on Aunt Martha’s grass like it was a stage and he had been waiting his whole life for this cue.

“Jamie,” I whispered, panic and emotion colliding. “No, not like this.”

“Exactly like this,” he said firmly.

His voice wasn’t polished now. It wasn’t campaign charm. It was the voice he used when he meant every syllable.

“Because this is your family,” he said. “These people who drive you crazy and make you feel small sometimes, but who you love anyway. Who you protect and defend even when they hurt you.”

My throat tightened painfully.

“And I want them all to witness this,” he said, and he opened the box.

The ring wasn’t flashy. It was simple, elegant, the kind of piece you could wear for decades and never get tired of looking at. Vintage Art Deco—clean lines, delicate detail, something that looked like it carried history without shouting about it.

It took me a second to recognize it, and then my breath caught.

Months ago, on one of our rare weekends where he could be “Jamie” and not Governor, we’d ducked into a little antique shop in Chicago—just to look, just to kill time, just to pretend the world wasn’t waiting outside. I’d paused at a window display and admired an Art Deco ring with a soft sigh.

I hadn’t even said I wanted it. I’d just looked.

He remembered.

“You remembered,” I whispered, and my eyes burned.

“I remember everything about you,” he said.

And the way he said it made my chest ache.

“How you take your coffee,” he continued, and his smile softened. “Oat milk latte with an embarrassing amount of cinnamon.”

“That’s not embarrassing,” I whispered, tears slipping before I could stop them.

“How you cry at the end of every performance,” he said, voice thickening slightly, “even the terrible ones, because you’re proud of your kids.”

My family was silent now. Even Britney.

“How you leave me voice messages at two a.m. when you can’t sleep,” he said, “usually about whatever book you’re reading.”

I made a shaky sound that might have been a laugh.

“How you make me laugh when the job gets heavy,” he said, and his eyes—those impossible eyes that looked like they were built for hope—held mine. “How you remind me why I got into politics in the first place.”

He took a breath.

And I saw the polished politician fall away completely.

This was just Jamie—vulnerable, real, mine.

“To help people,” he said softly. “To make things better. To serve.”

He swallowed, then lifted his chin like he was bracing for impact.

“Haley McKinnon,” he said, “you magnificent, maddening, magical woman.”

My grandmother made a tiny satisfied noise, like she’d been waiting ninety-three years to hear someone speak about me like that.

“You, who quotes Shakespeare at inappropriate times,” he said, and I made a wet laugh through my tears, “and can’t cook anything but pasta.”

“That’s not true,” I whispered. “I can make—”

He cut me off with a grin. “Pasta and… more pasta.”

I sniffed. “Rude.”

“You, who somehow convinced the governor of Illinois to adopt three cats who think they run the house,” he continued, and the backyard made a few shaky laughs.

“Will you marry me?” he asked.

The question hit like a wave.

“Will you let me spend the rest of my life trying to deserve you?”

I pressed my hand to my mouth because if I didn’t, I would either sob or say something wildly inappropriate.

“Will you be First Lady of Illinois,” he added, eyes bright, “and probably tell the entire state legislature they’re pronouncing Macbeth wrong?”

“They are pronouncing it wrong,” I protested automatically, because my brain was chaos.

“I know,” James said, smiling like he loved every ridiculous piece of me. “We’ll fix it. We’ll fix everything together, if you say yes.”

I looked around.

At Britney, standing frozen with her phone lowered, her face stripped of its smugness for the first time in my adult life.

At Uncle Robert, whose face had turned an interesting shade of purple.

At my mother, openly sobbing like she’d been waiting for proof that I wasn’t falling behind.

At Emma, whose mouth was open in delighted disbelief.

At my grandmother, giving me the smallest nod, approval and warning wrapped into one: Don’t you dare let fear make your decisions.

Then I looked back at James.

At the man who could have anyone, who had spent eight months sneaking into the quiet corners of my life—high school auditoriums, late-night diners, my couch on Sundays—because he wanted me without the world’s noise.

At the man who had just stormed into my family reunion like a one-man cavalry because he couldn’t stand the idea of me feeling small.

“The president is going to be so mad at you,” I whispered, because my mouth was trying to cope.

“The president will get over it,” James said, utterly unbothered. “Answer the question, Haley.”

“The press will be a nightmare,” I tried.

“I have an excellent press team,” he said. “They live for nightmares. Answer the question.”

“I can’t cook,” I blurted.

“We’ll hire someone or live on pasta,” he said cheerfully. “I like pasta. Haley—”

I laughed through my tears, shaking my head. “You are impossible.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “Now answer.”

I took a breath. The ring box gleamed in the sun. My heartbeat was loud in my ears.

“Yes,” I said, and it came out like a sob and a laugh at the same time. “Yes, obviously. Yes.”

The backyard exploded.

My mother made a sound that can only be described as a joyful wail. Emma screamed. Aunt Martha clapped so hard she nearly dropped the serving spoon. Uncle Ted yelled something incoherent. Even the neighbors cheered, as if proposals from governors happened on this block every weekend.

James stood, slipped the ring onto my finger with hands that were steady even though his eyes were shining.

Then he kissed me.

Not a polite, camera-friendly peck.

A real kiss.

The kind that made the world tilt.

The kind that was going to be tomorrow’s headlines if Britney posted the video, which she absolutely did.

When we finally broke apart, Davidson was already on his phone, his face calm but his posture tense in the way of a man who knew his day had just become a series of emergency meetings.

“Governor,” he murmured, “communications will—”

“They’ll survive,” James said, still holding my hand like he didn’t plan to let go. “Let them panic. Today is ours.”

The yard was chaos now—questions flying like confetti, relatives calling other relatives who hadn’t made it, Emma shouting into her phone, “IT’S REAL, I SWEAR, HE’S HERE,” as if she needed to convince someone the laws of reality had shifted.

Britney approached me cautiously, like she was nearing a wild animal.

“So,” she said, swallowing. “I… maybe owe you an apology.”

I stared at her. The old part of me wanted to savor it—the moment she had to taste her own cruelty.

But something in me had shifted.

Because the truth was, Britney was only a symptom. The disease was the way my family measured worth.

“It’s fine,” I said, surprising myself.

Britney’s eyes widened. “It’s not fine,” she insisted, voice cracking. “I’ve been awful. We all have.”

She glanced at my ring like it might bite. “You’re out there changing kids’ lives and we act like it doesn’t matter because you’re not making six figures or married to some investment banker.”

James leaned in like he couldn’t help himself. “She could have married an investment banker,” he said lightly. “I introduced her to several.”

I shot him a look. “You did not.”

He grinned. “They were boring,” he added. “And then she made me sit through a three-hour experimental theater piece about the dangers of capitalism.”

“It was important theater,” I protested.

“It was three hours of interpretive dance and yelling,” James said, deadpan. “It was art. It was torture.”

“Meaningful torture,” I corrected, because if I was going to be First Lady of Illinois, I was going to do it with accuracy.

Emma laughed, wiping her eyes. “Oh my God. You two really are perfect for each other. You’re both completely ridiculous.”

My mother finally found her voice and launched straight into logistics, because that was how she handled emotions—by organizing them.

“A spring wedding,” she said, then changed her mind mid-sentence. “No, fall. I’ll need to coordinate with your… your press team.”

“Mom,” I warned, because I could already see her trying to schedule my life like a school calendar.

“What?” she demanded, tears on her cheeks but her tone fierce. “If my daughter is going to be First Lady, we’re doing this properly. No eloping.”

James looked intrigued. “Vegas sounds—”

“You elope to Vegas and I will disown you both,” my grandmother announced, voice sharp as a gavel.

James snapped his mouth shut.

Then, like a seasoned politician, he pivoted flawlessly.

“A proper wedding,” he said, nodding respectfully at my grandmother. “With the whole circus.”

“I’m ninety-three,” she said, satisfied. “I’ve earned a show.”

“A show it is,” James agreed instantly.

My grandmother patted his cheek like she was knighting him. “Smart man.”

Then her eyes pinned him with the kind of warning that could stop a charging bull.

“Just remember,” she said, “our Haley’s special. Not because she’s marrying a fancy governor, but because she’s Haley.”

James didn’t blink. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You forget that,” my grandmother continued, voice gentle but lethal, “and I don’t care how many agents you have. I’ll find you.”

Davidson’s eyes flicked up like he was adding “elderly matriarch” to the threat assessment.

“Noted and understood,” James said solemnly.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur that felt like someone had turned my life into a live broadcast.

James charmed every relative, even Uncle Robert, who eventually muttered something about how maybe a governor wasn’t the worst thing I could “drag home,” as if I’d found him on the side of the road like a stray.

James flipped burgers with my dad like he’d grown up doing it. He debated education reform with my retired teacher aunts with genuine interest, not political performance. He listened to my artsy cousin Miguel talk about contemporary theater as if Miguel’s opinions mattered, which instantly made Miguel fall a little in love with him.

And through it all, James kept finding me.

A hand at the small of my back when the crowd pressed in.

A glance across the yard like a private promise.

A quiet “You okay?” murmured into my hair when Emma’s phone camera got too close.

Little moments of connection that reminded me this wasn’t a stunt.

This was real.

We were real.

Even if the whole thing had begun in secrecy, in stolen weekends and quiet dinners and careful avoidance of cameras.

Even if the world was about to swallow us whole.

As the sun set and relatives began to leave—each one extracting promises about wedding invitations and exclusive details—James and I finally found ourselves alone near the back porch for the first time all day.

I leaned into him, exhausted.

“So,” I said, voice rough. “That went… well.”

James laughed, pressing a kiss to my temple. “Your uncle Robert asked if I can get his parking tickets dismissed.”

“Of course he did.”

“And your aunt Patricia wants to know if I can get her grandson an internship.”

“Naturally.”

“And Miguel invited us to his experimental theater collective’s newest piece,” James continued, sighing dramatically. “It’s four hours long and performed entirely in the dark.”

“We’re going,” I said immediately.

James stared at me. “You are cruel.”

“You love me,” I reminded him.

He groaned. “I do.”

The word felt easier now that it had been said out loud in front of witnesses. Like the air had changed and there was no going back.

“I love you,” I said softly, and it didn’t feel like a secret anymore. “Even if you completely ambushed me with a proposal at a family barbecue.”

“I love you too,” James said, and his voice was quiet now, not for the crowd, just for me. “And I’d do it again. Bigger.”

“Jamie,” I warned, laughing.

“Maybe at the next state dinner,” he teased.

I kissed him to shut him up.

It worked, like it always did.

Eventually Davidson appeared, clearing his throat in the way of a man who had been trained to interrupt romance with professionalism.

“Governor,” he said, “you have a security briefing in two hours. We should head back to Springfield.”

James made a face like a teenager being told to do homework.

“This is my life now,” I said, staring at my ring. “Security briefings and state dinners and people caring about what I wear.”

“You can handle it,” James said confidently. “You handle teenagers.”

“Teenagers don’t have nuclear-level egos,” I muttered.

James tilted his head. “Have you met the state legislature?”

I laughed, then sobered, because the gratitude in my chest was too big for humor alone.

“Jamie,” I said, voice catching. “Thank you. For today. For showing up. For… fighting for me.”

His eyes softened.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he said simply.

And I believed him.

Because he’d come here. Into my family’s messy judgment and my cousin’s performative cruelty and my mother’s anxious love. He’d stepped into the place I’d been made to feel small and refused to let me shrink.

He’d made them see me in a language they understood—certainty, confidence, undeniable presence—but he’d also spoken the truth they should have been able to see without a governor standing beside me.

That my life mattered.

That my work mattered.

That I mattered.

Britney appeared at my elbow again, quieter now, the sharp edges of her usual energy sanded down by shock.

“For what it’s worth,” she said, voice subdued, “I’m happy for you. Really happy.”

I studied her for a moment, then nodded. “Thanks, Brit.”

She hesitated, then grinned weakly. “Also… being cousins with the First Lady of Illinois is not going to hurt my social media presence.”

I snorted despite myself. “There’s the Britney I know.”

She laughed, relief loosening her shoulders. “Someone’s got to be consistent in this family.”

Then she leaned closer, whispering like it was gossip. “By the way, Miguel’s already written a one-man show about today.”

I closed my eyes. “Of course he has.”

“He’s calling it The Governor Wore Gucci: A Family Reunion Romance.”

“Of course he is,” I repeated, and this time I was smiling.

As James finally extracted himself from my family—promising my grandmother prime seats at the inauguration, assuring my mother she’d have wedding-planning input, politely dodging Uncle Robert’s parking-ticket hints—Davidson guided us toward the waiting SUV.

The vehicle looked absurd on my aunt’s street, black and glossy among minivans and sedans, like a piece of someone else’s life parked in front of mine.

James opened the door for me, because he was maddeningly old-fashioned about certain things, and I slid inside with my heart still racing.

As we pulled away, I looked back at the McKinnon family reunion.

The place of a thousand small humiliations over the years.

Now transformed into the place where Governor James Rothwell had proposed to me in front of God, family, and Britney’s Instagram followers.

James glanced at me. “No regrets?”

“No regrets,” I said, and it was true.

He smiled, then leaned in, voice low. “First Lady Haley McKinnon.”

“It has a nice ring to it,” I admitted.

“It does,” he said, pleased.

“But,” I added, holding up a finger, “I’m keeping my job.”

James didn’t even hesitate. “Of course you are,” he said, like he’d never expected anything else. “Those kids need you.”

My throat tightened again, because he understood the part of me my family had treated like a hobby.

Outside the window, Chicago blurred past in streaks of streetlights and summer dusk. The city looked like possibility. Like noise. Like a thousand stories stacked on top of each other.

“Let tomorrow’s headlines come,” I said quietly, surprising myself with the calm in my own voice.

James turned toward me, curious.

“Let the press speculate,” I continued, and my fingers found the ring on my hand, grounding. “Let people judge.”

He watched me with that steady, warm focus that always felt like home.

“I have my kids,” I said. “My art. My deeply dramatic cats. And a fiancé who loves me enough to walk into my family reunion and set the whole thing on fire.”

James laughed softly. “That’s one way to describe it.”

“It’s accurate,” I insisted.

He reached over and laced his fingers through mine. His thumb brushed the ring.

“Life is going to be complicated,” he said.

“It already is,” I replied.

“And insane,” he added.

“Also already true.”

“And good,” he finished, voice softer.

I looked at him—Governor James Rothwell, the future of American politics, the man Time called the Bachelor Governor, the man who could stand in a room full of powerful people and bend it with his smile—and felt something settle inside me.

Good.

Complicated, insane, but good.

As the city lights slid past, I let myself smile.

“Okay,” I said suddenly, practical even through the emotional storm. “We really do need to make cat identification flashcards.”

James groaned. “I knew that was coming.”

“It’s non-negotiable,” I said firmly. “If I’m going to marry you, you need to know which one is Duchess.”

“They’re all orange,” he protested.

“Mr. Whiskers has white paws.”

“They all have white paws,” he argued, and I laughed, and the sound felt new—lighter than it had all day.

James squeezed my hand, and for a moment, the future didn’t feel like something to dread.

It felt like a story I actually wanted to live.