“What about Clara?” I ask.
I have to ask.
Rhys’s features shift and he knits his brow deep in thought.
“I’ll talk to her—” he says, but before he can finish, Clara bursts back into the room, still not done with venting her emotions.
We all take it. Me first, then Piper again, and finally Rhys gets a serving too before she seems to have emptied every round she had left into all three of us.
But we’re still alive.
We’re all still here. And if this is gonna work, like a proper family, not just mine and Piper’s. I have something I need to do.
It’s not for Clara’s benefit, not even for my oldest friend Rhys either.
What I have to say and do is for Piper.
For us. For the future life and family I know we both want.
Reaching for the little velvet box from the jeweler, I shift myself onto one knee, making Piper gasp in a different way this time.
I feel Rhys shift a little in his seat as well as his mindset.
And Clara?
Well. She must feel like her whole day is just going from bad to worse.
Taking Piper’s hand in mine, and thumbing open the box, I almost gasp myself as the light of the diamond catches in her eyes.
It fills the whole room with a magical light that’s the nearest thing to how I feel about her.
How much I love her.
“It doesn’t have to be today, but Piper? I’ve loved you like nothing else since seeing you again. And I won’t, I can’t go on unless I know you’ll be more than just my friend and lover. I want you to be my wife. Mother to our kids, grandmother to their babies…”
The silence in the room is deafening.
“Marry me, Piper. Just say yes. We can fill in the details as we go, but I want you here as well as here,” I explain, squeezing her hand before touching my heart.
I’m speechless myself when she slips the ring onto her finger with my hand.
“You know I will, Reeve. Of course, I will, yes, yes. Yes!” she says breathlessly, both of us tangled together in an instant.
Kissing as though it’s the first time.
Knowing each time, every time we touch, that it’s only gonna get better from this moment on.
Forever.
Epilogue
Three Months Later
Piper
“I can’t believe that’s the thing you had over those people at the bridal store,” I say again, still shaking my head. “There I was, thinking you were threatening them with violence if they didn’t do what you said, fixing my bridesmaid dress on time for mom’s wedding.”
The corners of Reeve’s lips stretch into a smile as he pulls me close, pecking my lips.
“I only explained to them they’d have a wedding ten times bigger, and worth a truckload more than your mom’s and Rhys’s if they did what I asked,” he explains to me again.
“I can’t believe your mom didn’t kill us all on the spot that day,” he reflects, neither of us laughing at that particular memory.
Mom eventually settled down. Accepting Reeve’s promise he originally made, to us all. That he’d take care of me.
For good. And he’s certainly kept that promise. On every front.
But she did insist we wait, “At least three months” before tying the knot ourselves.
It was a small price to pay, and once it hit home with mom I didn’t have to live with her and Rhys as originally planned?
Well, she was a lot more understanding of the situation, especially when she found out just how well Reeve can and does look after me now.
Reeve even helped arrange and paid for the wedding out of his own pocket.
It was more like a military parade, but certainly the wedding of the year for the city.
The group of Marines turning out in full dress uniform was something to witness.
He even arranged to have some of his and Rhys’s oldest buddies still serving in active duty fly in for our day.
“I can’t believe how much she likes you now,” I add, reminding him how she’s telling everyone now that the only man good enough for her daughter was another Marine.
“Real men are Marines,” she’ll tell anyone who’ll listen. Using Rhys as her primary example, and never hesitating to show off Reeve as her daughter’s man either.
Reeve only grunts, never admitting openly how much he and my mom have become friends now.
She’s way less uptight now that she’s married, and her future’s as golden as our own.
I’m assuming too that Rhys is no slouch in the sack either. I’ve never seen mom so happy and never known her to ‘sleep in’ so often, nor be so eager to get to bed or even have a ‘nap’ during the day whenever Rhys is about.
“It was worth the wait,” Reeve admits, linking his huge fingers in mine and clasping our hands together.
The yacht he’s chartered for our honeymoon is captained by a local, with some of the islanders as crew and staff.