She doesn’t say it like it’s an epiphany; she just says it like it’s a fact, something we’ve all always known about Olive, a core quality. And it’s true, of course, but these little truths, finally being spoken aloud, are tiny, perfect revelations, dropped like jewels in Olive’s palm.
So even though Olive didn’t hear this, it’s still awesome to see Ami looking after her twin in wonder like this, like she’s still figuring things out about this person she knows as well as she knows her own heart.
• • •
THE LAST LINE OF THE day is one of the biggest in Hawaii—nearly 2800 feet from platform to platform. The best part is there are two parallel lines; we can ride it in tandem. As we make our way to the top, I remind her where to keep
her hands and to angle her wrists the opposite direction that she wants to turn.
“And remember, even though we’re starting side by side, I’ll probably make it there faster because I weigh more.”
She stops, looking up at me. “Okay, Sir Isaac Newton, I don’t need a lesson.”
“A what? I wasn’t giving one.”
“You were mansplaining how gravity works.”
I go to argue but her brows go up as in Think before you speak, and it makes me laugh. She’s not wrong.
Leaning in, I press a kiss to the top of her yellow helmet. “I’m sorry.”
She scrunches her nose and my eyes follow the movement. Her freckles were the first thing I noticed about her. Ami has a few, but Olive has twelve, scattered just across the bridge of her nose and over her cheeks. I had an idea of what she looked like before we met—obviously I knew she was Dane’s girlfriend’s twin—but I wasn’t prepared for the freckles and how they moved with her smile, or the way adrenaline dumped into my veins when she pointed that smile at me and introduced herself.
She didn’t smile like that at me again for years.
Her hair is curly from the humidity and coming loose from her ponytail and even dressed like Bob the Builder, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Beautiful, but also very suspicious. “That apology was easier to extract than I expected.”
I run my thumb over a strand of her rebellious hair and push it back from her face. She has no idea how good my mood is right now. I’m struggling to find the right moment to propose, but I’m enjoying every second more than the one that came before it; it makes it hard to choose how and when to do this. “Sorry to disappoint,” I say. “You and your arguing kink.”
With a blushing eye roll, she turns back toward the group. “Shut up.”
I bite back my smile.
“Stop making that face.”
I laugh. “How do you know I’m making a face? You’re not even looking at me.”
“I don’t have to look at you to know you’re doing that derpy heart-eyes thing.”
I bend to whisper in her ear. “Maybe I’m making a face because I love you, and I like when you’re argumentative. I can show you just how much I like it when we get back to the hotel.”
“Get a room.” Ami shares a commiserating look with Lucas as he’s strapped into the pulley.
But then she turns and meets Olive’s gaze across the platform. I don’t need to understand secret twin telepathy to know that Ami isn’t just happy for her sister, she’s elated. Ami isn’t the only one who believes Olive deserves every bit of bliss this world has to offer. Seeing that tiny, salty woman crack up or melt or light up like a constellation gives me life.
Now I just have to get her to agree to marry me.
• • •
I THINK I’VE FOUND MY moment when four nights in, we’re given a sunset that’s so surreal it feels computer generated. The sky is this layered parfait of pastels; the sun seems reluctant to disappear entirely, and it’s one of those perfect progressions where we can watch it slowly diminish in size until it’s nothing but a tiny dot of light and then—poof. It’s gone.
It’s right then that I hold my phone up, snapping a selfie of Olive and me on the beach. The sky is a calming purple-blue. Her hair is blowing across her face, we’re both a little tipsy. Our feet are bare, toes digging in the warm sand, and the happiness in our expressions is palpable. It’s a great fucking photo.
I stare down at it, spinning a little inside. I’m so used to seeing our faces together, so used to how she fits against my shoulder. I love her eyes and her skin and her smile. I love our wild moments and our quiet ones. Love fighting and fucking and laughing with her. I love how easy we look side by side. I’ve spent the last few days agonizing over when to propose, but it occurs to me that this is when I do it: in this quiet space, where we’re just us, having a perfect night. Ami and Lucas are down the beach a ways, walking in the lapping waves, and so it feels like we have this little stretch of sand entirely to ourselves.
I turn to her; my heart is a thunder inside me. “Hey, you.”