It was 6:30 in the morning, and Melissa was nervously heading to a big executive meeting at UC Davis Health. Hari had been called in early for a potential surgery. We found ourselves in the same elevator — a brief ride filled with polite small talk — until, just as Melissa was about to step off, Hari surprised her with, “You look beautiful today.” Twelve hours later, fate (and a busy hospital) brought us together again in the lobby, and this time we started talking for real. That conversation led to our first official date on July 11, 2022 — a date so good we decided to make it a forever thing. There was one twist: just a couple of weeks after that first date, Melissa learned that Hari was moving to Houston for a new job as an attending physician. While we made the most of our time before he left, Melissa assumed the story would end there. But two hours into his drive, Hari picked up the phone just to chat — and we’ve never stopped talking since.