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“Yes,” I tell him. “For real this time.”
“Ha,” Magnus says, patting me on the back. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Come on, that took a little longer than I thought. We better get back home so you can catch your other flight. Hopefully you don’t jump out of that one.”
Other than deciding that I want Laila to marry me, a lot of other things have changed over the year.
We still work together at Skaugum Estate. We’re obviously a couple, though our work doesn’t always have us interacting all day long, especially as Magnus gets more and more involved with the king and queen, a transition that will happen sooner rather than later with the king’s health in decline. I spend a lot of time in Oslo, but when I come home each night, we’re at least sharing the same bedroom now. No more whispering—and, erm, other stuff—through the walls.
Laila has really found her groove as the nanny. Bjorn is on medication for ADHD, which helps with his impulsivity, and Laila does a lot of focus work with him. It takes patience, but she’s more than up for it, and as a result she and Bjorn have grown a lot closer. Tor too has become a great kid, more sensitive than we thought he’d be, but he’s a good foil to Bjorn.
Then there’s everyone else at the estate: Ottar, Lady Jane, Einar, Olaf, Sigrid. After Laila lost her grandmother they really stepped up in giving her a sense of community, and in the end, they did the same for me. Though both Laila and I may not have any close relatives left, we’ve learned not only to become each other’s family but also that found family is as valid and as important. It just happens to be that our family is now a royal one (and a bunch of zany motherfuckers at that).
That said, we don’t spend all our time there anymore. No, we spend our weekends at the house in Todalen.
Every Friday night, unless there is an event, we fly in the royal private jet up to Todalen and stay the weekend. We have a car we leave at the airstrip, and then we just drive down and have a real, proper weekend together. Just the two of us. Most of the time we don’t even leave the bedroom, let alone the house (Skaugum Estate still lacks a certain amount of privacy). But some days we have coffee with the neighbors, or we go kayaking on the fjord, or we go hiking. Just spending the time with each other doing the simple things.
It’s my favorite part of my life at the moment. And I can only hope and pray that it’s a part of our life that will grow. I want these quiet days with her forever.
It’s May, so the sun is out late these days, but even so, we want to get up to Todalen before dinner. The drive back to Skaugum from the skydiving place is about an hour, and I’m a nervous wreck. I was nervous before, but now that the adrenaline from jumping out of the plane is running through my veins, I’m nearly bouncing in my seat. I can kind of understand why Magnus is addicted to doing this kind of wild shit.
Then again, I’ve been nervous every Friday for the last six weeks, since I first bought the ring, wondering when I’d find the right moment on the weekend to pop the question. I’ve been trying to think of something romantic, and elaborate, and memorable, but I’m not that good at that sort of thing, and I’m definitely not the type of guy who would do the kind of proposal that people film or tell stories about.
But while I’ve been waiting for the right moment, the right moment hasn’t really come. I’m starting to think I need to borrow a page from Magnus’s rule book and just do it on pure impulse. The proposal itself isn’t going to get Laila to say yes. She already knows her answer.
We get back to the estate in just enough time, and Laila is already waiting on the steps with our bags. Magnus and Ottar get out of the car, both of them giving me knowing looks that I hope Laila doesn’t pick up on, and then we’re being taken to the airfield.
“I’d ask you to tell me all about your adventure,” Laila says to me as we wave goodbye to Einar and board the narrow steps onto the plane, “but I think I’d rather wait until the plane has landed.”
“Fair enough,” I tell her.
She looks me up and down. “But I can definitely tell you that you’re buzzing pretty good. You better keep that energy up for later,” she adds with a wink.
Oh, she has no idea.
The plane ride is quick as always, which helps with the guilt. Magnus and his family have been more than generous in providing transportation for us like this when it’s available. We have no illusions of who we are on the social ladder. They’re the royals upstairs; we’re the staff downstairs. But because we’ve been folded in like family, and because the royals go out of their way to help us, we really do live this strange life of being normal commoners with a lot of special perks. I don’t think Laila and I will ever get used to having a private jet at our disposal, and the moment we do, then we need to reevaluate who we are. We’re both very adamant about not losing touch with where we came from, even all the ugly bits.
For Laila, though, as the plane touches down, as we drive through the winding roads toward the long, dark slice of water that is Todalsfjorden, every weekend reminds her where she comes from and why it’s so important to her. Now she has a sense of home in two places—one being here, the physical house where her soul feels most at peace, and the other at Skaugum, not quite within the physical walls, but with the actual people.
I’m starting to feel the same way.
And that’s when it hits me.
I yank the car over onto the tiny pullout on the side of the road, right along the fjord.
“What happened?” Laila asks, looking up from her phone in surprise. “Did we run out of gas?”
I shake my head, my hands trembling as I turn off the ignition. “No,” I say. “There’s something…I need to show you.”
I mean, I can’t propose to her in the car—not when there’s this lovely, deep fjord beside us, the water calm, reflecting the towering, craggy mountains on the other side. Suddenly it all seems so perfect.
I unbuckle my seat belt and get out of the car, walking to the water’s edge. There are two large rocks there, artfully balancing against each other.
“What are you doing?” Laila asks, walking over to me.
I’m not sure. Suddenly I have the notion that maybe I am one of those people who would film a proposal.
“Uh, go stand on that rock over there,” I say to her. “I want to pose for a picture.”
“Okay,” she says warily, but she still walks over. “Which rock?”
