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I move away from the railing and pull her into my arms. “Always.” Then, just for her ears, I whisper, “I will still slap the fuck out of her. Just blink twice.”
Mom bursts out laughing as I pull back. “No, please don’t.”
I shrug. “Well, the offer stands.”
Rhys gives her a tight hug next. Whatever he murmurs to her has tears glistening in her eyes when they separate. She touches his cheek warmly. “I am so lucky to have you both in my life.”
With a teary wave, she lets Oz guide her back to the dance floor and I’m turning to face Rhys.
“I’ll tell you what I said if you tell me what you said.”
Rhys only grins and starts to reach for me but stops himself. “Come on a walk with me.”
I raise an eyebrow but let him guide me down the steps onto the lawn. I pause at the bottom to struggle with the strap at my ankle. The tiny buckle is impossible to make out in the dark and I’m not breaking an ankle trying to walk across soft grass in heels.
Rhys bends at the knees and brushes my hands aside. His large, warm ones replace mine and he nimbly threads the strap through the loops. Each shoe is peeled off gingerly and placed next to the stairs. He straightens and I smile up at him.
“Come on, dimples. I need you to myself,” he says, placing the full weight of his palm against the small of my back and guiding me along the familiar path down towards the lake.
His touch never lifts and I let my body tip into his as we move further away from the crowd. My head finds his shoulder and I breathe in the heavy musk of wet sand and pine. It’s the smell of home. The smell I have missed. Not to mention the security. I can completely let my guard down without the stress of being attacked by a mugger. A terrible habit I took with me to the city; it’s a miracle I survived as long as I did.
“Addie?”
Basking in the familiar tickle of grass beneath my bare feet, the humming silence of endless nature, I keep my eyes closed when giving a quiet, “Hm?”
“Move back with me.”
My lids open slowly to the rolling darkness tinted with edges of navy. “What?”
Rhys stops walking and turns to face me. I can barely make out his shape, but I can feel his heat inches away.
“Will you move back with me?”
Yes!My brain screams. My heart screams. My very soul screams.
“I told you, I’ll go anywhere with you, Rhys.” I touch the hard muscles of his chest through the cotton of his top. “But if we move back, we’d have to live in constant fear of getting caught. We’d have to watch how we look at each other, careful not to touch too long. I hate the city, but no one there will judge us. I can kiss you in public. I can go to any restaurant with you and hold your hand. I can only pretend I have a masked weirdo waiting for me for so long before people start thinking I’m making him up, and you, you can’t be a bachelor living with your sister forever.”
His hands find my waist in the darkness, and he pulls me flush into his chest. “I already told you, sweetheart, I don’t give a shit who knows I love you. I’m going to marry you, baby. I’m going to start a whole life with you next to me. I just need you to say yes.”
My heart is hammering in my chest with a vengeance that’s making it impossible to breathe. “Are ... are you asking me to marry you?”
His fingers touch my cheek, slide down to my chin and tip my face up. “Are you surprised?” He kisses me so softly that whatever little air I had in my lungs vanishes. “We’ve known each other for ten years, Addie. We’ve been best friends for eight. Been together for two. You’re it for me. I want my name officially at the end of yours. I want my ring on your finger and my baby inside you. I want to build you a home and sit on the porch with you and watch our kids play in the same lake we grew up in. I want to stand right here on our ten-year anniversary and make plans for the next sixty.”
He brushes away the tears running down my face with his fingers, then his lips. He scatters tiny kisses all across my upturned face, my damp cheeks to settle over my lips again.
“I don’t have a ring, not yet, but I have the land. I have the tools, and I’ll get the ring.”
Sniffling, I pull back just enough to try and squint at our surroundings. Mom’s place is the only glowing beacon for miles, a glistening shimmer across the rippling lake.
“It’s a fifteen minute walk to see your mom,” he murmurs into my ear. “Close enough that you’ll never be too far from her, but far enough that she can’t hear you scream when I chase you naked through the woods.”
I feel his grin against my jaw when I burst out laughing.
“Are you serious about this?” I croak.
“Baby, this is all I’ve thought about since that night in the parlor. I already talked to my dad. The land is ours. I can break ground as soon as we plan the layout. It’s a bit backwards, I know, but I want to give you a home, Addie. A home with me. Want to be the place you come to every night and—”
I kiss him. I wind my arms around his neck and squeeze him hard as I grind our mouths together like I can’t exist without him. I’m sobbing and I can’t stop, but I try to speak.
