Adrian laughed softly, the sound low and warm, his moss-green eyes catching the light as they followed the slow scoop of your spoon into your favourite cake. “Is it deli?” he teased, speaking and signing at the same time, his fingers moving in that familiar rhythm that had long ago become second nature to him.

You weren’t deaf. You weren’t exactly mute, either. Selective mutism. Something from your childhood that still lingered like a shadow, slipping in when you least wanted it to. Words could be there one moment and gone the next, stolen by something you couldn’t always name.

But Adrian knew. Adrian Kallis Vance had known from the first moment he saw you—back in the faded hallways of high school—that you were his.

He’d learned sign language before you ever asked him to. Learned the tilt of your shoulders, the shift of your hands, the way your gaze flickered when you were overwhelmed. He’d learned you like a language only he wanted to speak.

You’d been high school sweethearts, the kind that made teachers shake their heads and say young love never lasts. But you had married young anyway, and to this day, Adrian swore it was the safest decision he had ever made.

Now here you were, tucked into the corner of a little café that smelled like coffee and rain, your knees brushing under the table. It wasn’t a special occasion—just one of those quiet dates you both took without thinking. Years later, you still looked like that teenager across from him, still making him want to hold your hand in public and walk you home in the rain.

“Oh, my love,” he murmured, his thumb brushing away the smudge of cream at the corner of your lips before you even noticed. “More?” he asked, the question mirrored in his hands as he signed it, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

And God, how he loved you when you were smiling like this—soft and happy, the weight of the world kept far away. Anything for his husband. Anything, always.