“Yikes. Did the cheeseball factory pay you to take that line from them?”

“You don’t like it then?” I half-smile.

“Plus which, what’s that gonna do? Leave me to spend my last day mourning you, planning your funeral -.”

“OK, OK,” I hold up my hands in mock surrender. I really just say these things because I like the look on her face. “I suppose I should’ve said I hope we each live till we can take our last, dying breaths -.”

“Quit while you’re ahead.”

“I’m ahead?” I ask.

“Not really,” she laughs, brown hair shimmering down her shoulders, “but quit anyway.”

“I can’t. I need you to save me from myself.”

“Fine,” she rolls her eyes in mock-frustration, and then crosses the short distance to me, where she wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me in for a long kiss.

“My hero,” I murmur.

Her response is to blush, smiling slightly as she closes her eyes. And maybe that look doesn’t make everything right in the world, but it makes everything right inside me.

And that’s close enough.