At sev­en o’clock, Lucia served an elab­o­rate meal, pre­sent­ing var­i­ous cours­es that high­light­ed veg­eta­bles, as Mag­gie and Aidan were on a veg­an diet. The meal fea­tured unique fla­vors from mush­rooms, egg­plants, and roast­ed squash, which sur­pris­ing­ly filled me up after sev­er­al cours­es. I com­pli­ment­ed Lucia on her cook­ing abil­i­ties, express­ing that I could eas­i­ly become a veg­an if she cooked for me reg­u­lar­ly. Mag­gie dom­i­nat­ed the con­ver­sa­tion, show­cas­ing her impres­sive engage­ment ring, a pear-cut dia­mond that was a fam­i­ly heir­loom from Aidan’s grand­moth­er. She enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly described their wed­ding plans, empha­siz­ing a rus­tic and coun­try-style recep­tion. Through­out this, Aidan remained most­ly silent, a demeanor I not­ed as he seemed con­tent to let Mag­gie take the lead.

When I inquired about their hon­ey­moon plans, Aidan men­tioned they were unde­cid­ed. I shared fond mem­o­ries of my own hon­ey­moon cruise, but real­ized I had lost Maggie’s atten­tion as she checked her Apple Watch, which kept ping­ing. She abrupt­ly excused her­self to take a call for work, a moment that show­cased her com­mit­ment to her job. Though I tried to engage Aidan fur­ther about his life, his answers remained brief, lead­ing to an awk­ward silence between us.

Upon Maggie’s return, I sensed unease when I urged her to share some “good news,” but she hes­i­tat­ed. It soon became clear that her big announce­ment involved a sig­nif­i­cant pro­mo­tion relat­ed to a new divi­sion at her com­pa­ny, Capac­i­ti, which aimed to advance all-elec­tric air trav­el. The prospect of work­ing with high-pro­file fig­ures like Arman­do Cas­ta­do from UPS amazed me. Mag­gie shared that the dis­cus­sions were promis­ing, indi­cat­ing a bright future ahead. Over­come with emo­tion, I hugged her while pro­cess­ing this life-chang­ing news at the table.

As the evening end­ed, Mag­gie offered to box left­overs while I head­ed to the bath­room. There, I encoun­tered an over­sized set­up filled with lux­u­ri­ous beau­ty prod­ucts. After wash­ing my hands, I noticed a run­ning toi­let, prompt­ing me to inves­ti­gate. I quick­ly iden­ti­fied and fixed the issue, only to dis­cov­er a black plas­tic bag taped beneath the toi­let lid, which piqued my curios­i­ty just as Mag­gie came knock­ing, inquir­ing about my well-being.