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My heart is slamming so violently against my ribs it hurts. Her eyes are already glassy, tears clinging to her lashes, and the sight nearly undoes me.
“You’ve been the best part of my life since the day I met you. I still don’t understand how I got lucky enough to be loved by someone like you. You gave me patience when I didn’t deserve it. Kindness when I pushed it away. Forgiveness when I kept breaking your heart. I fucked this up so badly. This ring should have been on your finger years ago. Every morning I opened that drawer and saw it sitting there instead of where it belonged, it felt like I was losing you all over again.”
My hands are shaking now. I can feel the tremor in my voice, the burn behind my eyes.
“I want to wake up beside you and spend the rest of my life trying to be the man you saw in me when I couldn’t see him myself. I want to spend every day proving that your love wasn’t wasted on me, that staying right where I left you all those years ago wasn't for nothing.”
I take a ragged breath, eyes locked on hers like she’s the only thing keeping me upright.
“Blaire Thomas… will you marry me?”
She launches herself at me so fast I nearly topple backward, her arms locking around my neck like she’s afraid I’ll disappear again. Her mouth finds mine in a clumsy, desperate kiss, and I feel her laughing and crying at the same time, her tears slipping between our lips.
“YES!” she sobs against my mouth, the word breaking on a laugh that sounds like relief and joy and every year we lost. “Yes, Simon. God, yes!”
Her family erupts around us—cheers, whistles, someone crying, Chance’s unmistakable voice cutting through it all: “About damn time, you idiot!”
But it all fades into background noise the second I take her shaking hand and slide the ring onto her finger. It fits like it was always meant to be there. Like we were always meant to be here.
I stand, pulling her flush against me, her hands fist in my shirt, anchoring me, and I pour every unsaid word, every regret, every promise into a kiss.
When we finally break apart, foreheads pressed together, I whisper it against her lips like a vow I’ll never break:
“My wife.”
Chapter thirty-eight
Blaire
My sisters are practically vibrating with excitement, directing Simon and me like it’s a Vogue cover shoot while my brothers heckle him from behind the camera.
“Smile, Simon! Christ, you look like you’re being held hostage!” Chance yells.
“I am!” Simon shouts back, laughing. “By Pinterest and your terrifying sisters!”
I bury my face into his chest to hide my laughter, breathing in the familiar scent of him—pine and sweat and something that’s always just been Simon. After about a hundred different poses Brittney and Sophia saved on Pinterest for us, they finally call it on the photos of just the two of us.
Now we need approximately a hundred more that include Theo. But I can’t complain, because I’m just so fucking happy. We’re finally engaged. He actually proposed. It still doesn’t feel real. I don’t remember a single word that came out of his mouth when he was on one knee—all I heard was the blood pounding in my ears. I caught one bit about how he’d had the ring for years, though. I fully plan to question him about that later, after I suck the soul out of his body through his perfectly sculpted, thick, heavy—
“Theo! Theo, look over here!” Carter shouts, jumping around like a lunatic to get Theo’s attention and cutting off my very inappropriate train of thought.
Right.
Family photos.
Focus.
The whole hike had been a carefully constructed lie. Everyone had told me we were just doing a big family photo session at the overlook because the light was supposed to be perfect today. I’d shown up in my favorite sweater, expecting nothing more than a few dozen pictures and some sandwiches. I had no idea Simon had spent five years planning this moment.
Theo is over the whole ordeal and refusing to look at the camera. He’s starting to phase out of his afternoon nap, worn out from the hike and all the excitement. He hides his face in Simon’s neck, little fists clutching his shirt. We give our cranky boy a break so we can actually get some family photos of everyone together.
I’m helping Chance and Sophia wrangle their three boys when I see Dad approach Simon off to the side. Simon stiffens, and if he wasn’t holding Theo I know he’d have his hands clasped behind his back the way he always does when he’s nervous. Then Dad puts a hand on Simon’s shoulder, pulls him in for a hug, and I can just barely catch his words over the chaos.
“I’m happy I can finally call you son,” Dad says, voice thick. “And have it mean something.”
For a moment I can’t breathe, because I know how much that will mean to Simon. For a long time when we were split up, I thought the sadness in his eyes was more about losing the only family he’d ever really had than it was about losing me.
I don’t get to hear the rest of their conversation because Sophia and Chance need my help with their middle two, and Brittney is barely managing her twins even with Mom’s help.
