The seventeenth birthday Reuben Vance spent with me, we spent at a bar, watching a game.

Before kickoff, he held the engagement ring up in front of me.

"If Team A wins, we'll get married."

I froze, staring at him, not quite believing it.

The whistle blew.

He turned away, didn't wait for my answer, didn't look at me again.

By the end of the first half, Team A was ahead.

Fiona Fox, the waitress standing beside Reuben, came over to me.

Red jersey, short little shorts, a cold beer dangling from her hand that she held out to me.

"Let's make a bet too. If Team B comes back in the second half, you hand your boyfriend over to me!"

"Fiona. Stop messing around." Reuben cut her off.

The steady, even-tempered man who never wavered had a tremor in his voice when he said her name.

Fiona took a hard swig of the beer, her eyes going red.

"You're really going to marry her? Then what about us?"

Silence.

The two of them looked at each other like no one else was in the room.

"Reuben."

I said his name. He heard it. He wanted to look away and couldn't make himself do it.

I sat there like an outsider, watching this scene I already knew by heart.

That same look, passing between them. The first time was seven days ago.

They'd known each other for seven days.

But in that moment, I understood.

My seventeen years had lost to those seven days.

…

A customer at the next table waved an empty bottle and shouted at Fiona.

"Hey, waitress, quit flirting with your boyfriend and bring me a bottle!"

Fiona didn't hear him.

In the blurred light, she and Reuben only had eyes for each other.

Every other sound had faded into the background.

I sat quietly in the shadows, my gaze going blank for a second, and still I saw it clearly: in Reuben's eyes, a tenderness churning that I had never once seen.

"Waitress! The drink! You hear me?" The man at the next table shoved his chair back, impatient, and roared, "Flirting on the clock. You want me to file a complaint with your boss?"

The shout snapped Fiona out of it, and she frowned.

She pushed up her sleeve and started toward him, ready to have it out, careless and loud.

Reuben caught her hand at once, grabbed the unopened bottle off our table, and carried it over to the next table himself.

"Your drinks are on me. Don't call her over again tonight."

The man slapped the table, then caught sight of the seventy-thousand-dollar Hennessy Richard set in front of him, and the curse already on his lips went straight back down his throat.

Fiona turned around, pouting, not satisfied.

"That bottle's so expensive. Why give it to a guy like that?"

Reuben smiled at her, indulgent, his voice gentle.

"For you, it's nothing."

I looked at that bottle, quiet.

A few days ago it had been sitting in the most prominent spot in the house.

The vintage was the exact year I was born. Production had been small that year, which made it especially hard to come by.

Reuben knew what I liked. He'd brought home that hard-won bottle and set it down.

"Haven't you always wanted to try this Richard? I got it specially for your birthday."

Today was my birthday. He'd brought the bottle along, just like he'd said. And then, for Fiona, he gave it away without a second thought.

"You gave that to me." Even as I said it, my eyes stayed on the bottle.

Reuben lit a cigarette, irritated, his voice flat.

"It's just a bottle. Can't you drink a little less?"

I turned my eyes back to him.

I used to never touch a drop. It was only from years of helping Reuben entertain clients, tasting day after day, that I'd slowly gotten used to it.

Unlike Reuben, whose tastes ran wide, I only ever drank Hennessy. Loyal. Stubborn.

The game whistle blew, and he turned back toward the screen.

"Just watch the game. As long as Team A wins, you're Mrs. Vance. Why fuss over one bottle?"

The smoke from his cigarette stung my eyes red. "What's that supposed to mean? You're calling that a proposal?"

"Didn't you always want to get married? Grandma's been hoping for it too."

Seventeen years together, and I'd always been so certain that one day Reuben would propose to me.

Maybe there'd be no romance, no flowers, but at least a gentle question,

a solemn moment that belonged to the two of us alone.

Instead he'd thrown it down like a bet on a game, and from start to finish he hadn't glanced at me once, hadn't asked what I wanted.

From the next table came idle chatter. "Team A's always been pretty weak. Didn't expect them to play out of their skin in the first half."

Reuben was a die-hard fan. He knew every team's strength better than anyone.

So when he staked Team A against me, was he betting they couldn't win?

"Go, Team B! Shoot! Goal!"

Fiona had wedged herself between me and Reuben, cheering at the screen. She turned back to remind me.

"Macy, you haven't forgotten our little bet? If Team B comes from behind, you hand Reuben over to me!"

"Not interested." My voice was flat.

She turned around and held out the beer she'd been drinking.

"Macy, don't be so rigid. Nobody likes a woman who's no fun."

I said nothing, and didn't take it.

"Right, Macy only drinks Hennessy. So my beer's beneath you, is that it?"

I looked at her coldly. "Yes. It's beneath me."

Fiona froze for a second, then stamped her foot, all wounded.

Without hesitation Reuben took the bottle from her hand and drank straight from it.

"Tastes good."

I gave a small shudder, something wrenching tight in my chest.

Reuben was a germophobe. He never touched anything someone else had drunk from.

Even when I accidentally drank from his glass, he'd swap it for a new one at once.

The two of them passed the bottle back and forth, finishing most of it between them.

Fiona's cheeks flushed with the drink, and she asked him in a soft, wheedling voice,

"Reuben, that bet I just made with Macy. What do you think of it?"

When Reuben looked at me, something like a struggle flickered in his eyes, then vanished back into his usual calm.

"Fine by me. Then neither of us has to decide. We leave it to the game."

"If we lose, we just weren't meant to be."

The bitter liquor went down.

It struck me then that I'd met Reuben because of a game too.

That year he was ten, and his mother had, for once, taken him to the park.

"Reuben, let's play hide-and-seek. You and your little brother go hide separately, and Mommy will come find you. Whoever stays hidden longest gets ice cream."

Reuben wanted to give the ice cream to his brother, so he hid on purpose in the most obvious spot.

But darkness fell, and his mother never came looking.

In the end, it was me who found Reuben curled up under a big tree, and brought him home.

His stepfather refused to take him back. Reuben had nowhere to go, and that was how Grandma took him in.

I had no parents either. It had always been just me and Grandma, leaning on each other.

We'd gotten by well enough on her pension before.

After Reuben came, Grandma was up before dawn and out till dark, running a market stall and collecting scrap.

Before long, the boy who'd been all skin and bones grew tall and solid.

When it was time for Reuben to start college, Grandma sold the only house she owned back home to scrape together his tuition.

Reuben held the cash, wrapped in an old cloth she'd folded around it, heavy in his hands, and his eyes went red all at once.

"Grandma, how can I ever repay you?"

Grandma smiled at him, tender. "If the day comes when I'm not around anymore, you take good care of Macy for me."

Reuben nodded hard. "Don't you worry. I'll be good to Macy for the rest of my life."

Just as he'd promised, he'd been good to me all these years. He gave in to everything, the perfect boyfriend in everyone else's eyes.

After his company took off, the first thing he did was buy a big house and move Grandma in with us.

Grandma hadn't been well lately, and she kept saying the same thing:

"Macy, sweetheart, when does Grandma get to drink at your wedding?"

Reuben used to agree without hesitation, every time.

But seven days ago, something changed. Her nudging started to wear on him.

My phone buzzed. I slipped quickly into the restroom to take the call.

"Macy, did Reuben propose to you today?"

"He did…"

"Good, good." Grandma's laugh on the other end broke into coughing. "All Grandma wants is to see you settled. The thought of leaving you on your own, I just can't rest easy…"

My eyes stung. "Grandma…"

My throat closed up. I couldn't get a word out.

Couldn't tell her Reuben had proposed by betting on a soccer match.

Couldn't tell her there was someone else in his eyes now.

"Grandma, don't worry."

I hung up in a hurry.

Back at the table, I grabbed my bag and turned to leave.

Reuben caught my wrist and stopped me.

"The match isn't over. Where are you going?"

"Home, to be with Grandma."

He forced down his irritation. "What's wrong now? Every time you're upset you use Grandma as an excuse?"

"You asked first. I only answered."

"Today's your birthday. We're all here for you. How does it look, you walking out now?"

"Grandma's home alone. I don't feel right about it."

"This match decides whether we get married, and you couldn't care less, is that it?"

I didn't dare watch the game anymore, didn't dare know the result.

In that moment I hated myself, because some part of me still quietly hoped Team A would win.

And yet I was terrified they actually would.

Seventeen years, side by side every day. I couldn't understand it. Seven days, and it was as if everything between us had changed.

I didn't dare stay any longer.

"Just tell me the result later."

I shook off his hand, picked up my bag, and turned to go.

Behind me, Fiona's voice carried over.

"Macy's leaving, just like that? Is it her bedtime or something? She really is like an old woman."

Reuben said flatly, "Leave her be."

A cheer went up across the bar, and I looked back without thinking.

Team A missed the goal. The score was tied, 1–1.

My gaze cut through the crowd to Reuben.

I saw it plainly. He let out a breath of relief.

So he was afraid Team A would win.

And he didn't want to marry me.

Outside the bar, there was a pastry shop not far off. Grandma loved their mung-bean cake.

I walked over to buy some.

The owner chatted while he boxed it up.

"Miss, that handsome young man who's always with you, he didn't come along today?"

I kept my voice even, answered politely.

"He's with someone else."

His hands paused, as if he wanted to comfort me but couldn't find the right words.

When he passed the bag into my hands, he couldn't help saying:

"No love is ever smooth sailing. Roots have to weather the storms to grow deep, and it's the same with feelings."

I gave a small nod.

I couldn't tell anymore whether what was coming at me was a storm, or just love already gone bad.

The moon above was dull and gray, more than half of it missing.

Nothing like seven days ago.

That night the moon had been full, its soft light falling across Reuben's face.

In one hand he carried the mung-bean cake we'd just bought, and with the other he held mine.

We strolled under the moonlight and passed this same bar.