Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 61723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 309(@200wpm)___ 247(@250wpm)___ 206(@300wpm)
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. I keep going.
“But that life’s not the one I want anymore.” My voice roughens a little. I let it. “I want shoes by my front door that don’t belong to me. I want Quinn’s drawings on my fridge. I want your coffee mug in my sink and your books on my nightstand and your laugh in every room of this place.”
A tear slips free down her cheek.
I step closer, close enough that I can catch it with my thumb.
“I built that playground because I need you to understand something.” My chest feels too tight around the words, but I make them anyway. “This isn’t me asking you to visit. This is me asking you to stay.”
Her lips part.
No sound comes out.
I smile a little because I know exactly what I’m doing to her and because I’m barely keeping it together myself.
“I want this house to be your home,” I state. “Both of yours. She deserves the best I can give her day in and out. I want to give her a playground, a life, and be by your side as she grows up. I want to hold your hand now and forever.”
And then I finally go down on one knee. The grass is cool through my jeans. The ring box sits steady in my hand even though my pulse is trying to kick through my ribs.
Lucy makes this tiny, broken sound like her heart just cracked wide open.
“I love you,” I tell her. “I love Quinn. I love the life we’ve built and the one we haven’t even started yet.” I glance toward the playset where Quinn is currently shouting at a squirrel to respect fort rules, then back to the woman I’m already halfway married to in every way that counts. “So make it official for me, baby.”
Her hand covers her mouth. She is crying now. Actually crying. And smiling through it. I think that sight will live in my chest forever.
“Lucy,” I begin, because I need her in this moment with me. “Will you make this house our home? Will you marry me?”
For one impossible second, the whole world waits. Then she laughs through her tears—a wild, disbelieving little laugh that sounds like joy after too much fear.
“Yes.” My own breath leaves me in a rush. She nods hard, tears falling freely now. “Yes. Oh my God, yes.”
I’m on my feet before she can finish the sentence, pulling her into me, kissing her with all the relief and love and sheer gratitude in my body.
She kisses me back just as hard.
Hands in my hair.
Laughing and crying all at once. I slide the ring onto her finger when we finally break apart, and her hand shakes so badly I have to steady it.
It fits perfectly. Of course it does. She stares at it like she can’t quite believe it’s real.
Then she looks up at me. “I can’t believe this,” she whispers. “I can’t believe I found you.”
I cup her face in both hands. “No, baby. You found real love. That’s what matters.”
Her eyes close for one second as she leans into my hands. When she opens them again, there’s no fear there. None.
Just love. Clear and sure and all mine.
“I didn’t know it could be like this,” she says softly.
“Neither did I.”
Quinn chooses that exact moment to realize something huge is happening and comes sprinting across the yard.
“Mama? Why are you crying? Mellow, did you break something?”
Lucy laughs so hard she nearly folds in half. I crouch and scoop Quinn up.
“Nope. Didn’t break anything.”
She looks from me to Lucy to the ring and gasps. “Is that a princess ring?” Lucy holds out her hand.
“A little.”
Quinn’s eyes go so wide I’m surprised they stay in her head. “Does this mean we can stay forever?”
I look at Lucy. Lucy looks at me. And the answer comes easy.
Yes,” she says, her voice shaking in the best possible way. “I think it does.”
Quinn throws both arms around my neck and nearly strangles me with excitement. “Yes!”
I laugh and hold onto her while Lucy steps into us, wrapping one arm around my waist and the other around Quinn’s back.
And there we are. The three of us. Standing in the backyard of a house that doesn’t feel like mine anymore. It feels like ours.
The kind of life I never thought I wanted is right here in my arms—messy, loud, full of love and future and women who leave hair ties all over my bathroom sink.