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“I am.”
“I would take care of you in the ways I know how, regardless. My music has always been yours. By a miracle, it could support you if you wished to remain in your world, or have homes in both. We don’t have to do this right now. I can face my brothers on my own and find a place for you to stay somewhere far from them during their visit. Everything I have to offer is yours, with or without this.”
“Without this,” I whisper, “everything I have to offer won’t be yours. And you deserve to be loved in the ways you love others, too, Ollie. I’m ready now. I have no regrets now. You don’t need to spend another moment thinking you aren’t good enough to be wanted beyond what you are able to offer. I choose you.”
A tear slips down his cheek. “Brittny Selene Page, I promise to love you with all of my broken pieces, through every step forward and every slip back, in light and in darkness. I swear to be yours as long as there is breath in me. I promise to treasure you and protect you to the extent of my abilities. Each morning, you will be the sunshine that wakes me. Each evening, your side is the only one I will ever seek again. You are my everything, so I promise that all I am, all I have left to give, belongs to you.”
My lips part, soundless moments passing between us.
Of all the things Ollie’s taught me over these past few weeks, these moments have remained a mystery. I feel his words echoing in my soul, like magic and power radiating in my chest. “Do I have to repeat that?” I whisper. “I’m not unwilling. It’s just my memory won’t let me unless you give me two words at a time.”
He chuckles. “No, sunshine. You can say whatever you want.”
“Should you make me fae first?”
“I trust your word without magic.”
“You trust my word without magic, or you’re worried what I might promise myself into?”
“I assure you. I am filled with so much anxiety right now it might be a miracle I haven’t collapsed.”
I bite my lip to mute my smile. “Doliver Talon, I loved you from the first note I heard. Your heart is a symphony of beautiful things that has left me enamored before I so much as knew who you were to me. You are everything I have dreamed of and everything I have wanted. I’m not afraid because you have given me nothing to fear. I’m not anxious because I know whatever happens next I will not face it alone. This is nothing like what I thought my wedding day would look like, but because I’m promising myself to you, it is more than anything I could have imagined.”
Smiling, Ollie touches his forehead to mine and whispers, “Cael got you something.”
“Cael?”
“Yeah. It’s a ‘wedding gift’ of sorts.” Ollie reaches into his pocket and takes out…my phone.
I blink at the device. “You know. I thought I lost that last night.”
“I found it in the dishwasher. Thankfully before I washed the dishes.” Ollie’s eyes roll as he offers it to me. “Cael created an enchantment for the speaker.”
My heart skips a beat, and I whip my attention up to his face. “What?”
“You’ll still be able to call your sister with it.”
A shudder goes through me as I clasp the phone with both hands. “You…you’re serious?”
“I may or may not have been lamenting in front of him about my numerous concerns and waxed on for ages in regard to how often you call her.” Ollie clears his throat. “I think he spun the enchantment right behind me. Which is a lengthy and supposedly exhausting process. Which displays both how long I was talking and how powerful he is. He hardly looked put out when he handed me the charm and told me how to apply it.”
“We should invite him to a reception. On Thursday. At Willow’s. Or something. I…I don’t know. Our nice little faerie house hasn’t been built yet, but is it okay to invite him over there? Their policy has felt extremely open door.”
“He usually comes to movie nights, but I suppose he’s been busy recently.”
I hold my phone to my chest. “I have to thank him without thanking him somehow.”
“A human concept of give and take. He did not act in order to gain something in return because the fae do not deal in unspoken obligations.”
I love this world more and more.
I can hardly believe I’ll be part of it before tomorrow arrives.
Ollie manages a fortifying breath as he takes a step back. “You can still say no.”
My heart skips a beat. “Is it time for me to become fae?”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
