I stared at the sparkling rock on my finger and sighed again. It wasn’t the airy sigh a young, newly engaged girl might make while staring at her rather large diamond. It was full of thought. A heavy, thoughtful thought that made me think heavier, thoughtful thoughts. But not second thoughts. We couldn’t stay away from each other. What we were about to do was inevitable, and Kwon Jiyong loved me in a way most people dreamed about. The sigh was filled with worry and hope for my stupid plan. I wanted Jiyong to be okay so much that it was nearly tangible.

“Stop that, Butterfly,” Jiyongsaid. “You’re making me nervous.”

“It’s just . . . too big.”

“It fits just fine,” he said, sitting back. We were wedged between a businessman talking softly on his cell phone and an elderly couple. An airline employee was standing behind the gate desk, talking into what looked like a CB radio. I wondered why they didn’t just use a regular microphone. She announced a few names, and then hooked the device somewhere on the back of her desk.

“Must be a full flight,” Jiyong said. His left arm was settled on the back of my chair, his thumb gently rubbing my shoulder. He was trying to pretend to be relaxed, but his bobbing knee gave him away.

“The diamond is excessive. I feel like I’m going to get mugged at any moment,” I said.

Jiyong laughed. “First of all, no one is going to ing touch you. Second, that ring was made to be on your finger. I knew when I saw it—”

“Attention passengers of Incheon flight 2477 to Las Vegas, we are looking for three volunteers to take a later flight. We’re offering travel vouchers good for one year from your departure.”

Jiyong looked at me.

“No.”

“You in a hurry?” he asked, a smug smile on his face.

I leaned in and kissed him. “Actually, I am.” I reached up with my finger and wiped away the smudge of soot under his nose that he’d missed in the shower.

“Thanks, babe,” he said, squeezing me against his side. He looked around, his chin lifted, his eyes bright. He was in the best mood I’d seen him in since the night he’d won our bet. It made me smile. Sensible or not, it felt good to be loved so much, and I decided right then and there I would stop apologizing for it. There were worse things than finding your soulmate too early in life, and what was too early, anyway?

“I had a discussion about you with my mom, once,” Jiyong said, looking out the wall of windows to our left. It was still dark. Whatever he saw wasn’t on the other side.

“About me? Isn’t that kind of . . . impossible?”

“Not really. It was the day she died.”

Adrenaline burst from where adrenaline bursts from and sped through my body, pooling in my fingers and toes. Jiyong had never spoken about his mother to me. I often wanted to ask him about her, but then I thought about the sickening feeling that came over me when someone asked me about my mother, so I never did.

He continued, “She told me to find a girl worth fighting for. The one that doesn’t come easy.”

I felt a little embarrassed, wondering if that meant I was a huge pain in the . Truthfully, I was, but that wasn’t the point.

“She said to never stop fighting, and I didn’t. She was right.” He took a deep breath, seeming to let that thought settle into his bones.

The idea that Jiyong believed I was the woman who his mother was talking about, that she would approve of me, made me feel an acceptance I’d never felt before. Eunju, who had passed away almost seventeen years before, now made me feel more loved than my own mother.

“I love your mom,” I said, leaning against Jiyong’s chest.

He looked down at me, and after a short pause, kissed my hair. I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear in his voice how much he was affected. “She would have loved you, too. No doubt in my mind.”

The woman spoke into her CB again. “Attention passengers of Incheon flight 2477 to Las Vegas: We will begin boarding soon. We’ll start with anyone needing boarding assistance, and those with young children, and then we’ll begin boarding first class and business class.”

“How about exceptionally tired?” Jiyong said, standing. “I need a in’ Red Bull. Maybe we should have kept our tickets for tomorrow like we’d planned?”

I raised an eyebrow. “You have a problem with me being in a hurry to be Mrs. Kwon?”

He shook his head, helping me to my feet. “Hell no. I’m still in shock, if you wanna know the truth. I just don’t want you to be rushing because you’re afraid you’ll change your mind.”

“Maybe I’m afraid you’ll change your mind.”

Jiyong’s eyebrows pulled in, and he wrapped his arms around me. “You can’t really think that. You gotta know there’s nothing I want more.”

I rose up on the balls of my feet and pecked his lips. “I think we’re getting ready to board a plane for Vegas so we can get married, that’s what I think.”

Jiyong squeezed me against him, and then kissed me excitedly from cheek to collarbone. I giggled as he tickled my neck, and laughed even louder when he lifted me off the ground. He kissed me one last time before taking my bag off the floor, lowered me to the ground, and then led me by the hand to the line.

We showed our boarding passes and walked down the Jetway hand in hand. The flight attendants took one look at us and offered a knowing smile. Jiyong passed our seats to let me by, placed our carry-on bags in the overhead bin, and collapsed next to me. “We should probably try to sleep on the way, but I’m not sure I can. I’m too ing amped.”

“You just said you needed a Red Bull.”

His dimple caved as he smiled. “Stop listening to everything I say. I’m probably not going to make sense for the next six months while I try to process the fact that I’ve gotten everything I’ve ever wanted.”

I leaned back to meet his eyes. “Ji, if you wonder why I’m in such a hurry to marry you . . . what you just said is one of the many reasons why.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He scooted down in his seat, and then laid his head on my shoulder, nuzzling my neck a few times before relaxing. I touched my lips to his forehead, and then looked out the window, waiting as the other passengers passed by and silently prayi