CHAPTERELEVEN
“How’s it going?” Benji asks.
“Good.” I don’t answer like it’s a passing thought. I hold his gaze and nod while folding my hand into Dee’s once again. “Really good.” -Me to Nate’s brother, Benji (Charmed by the Billionaire)
Walt
It’s never been easy for Dee and me. Two addicts crossing paths in rehab isn’t the stuff Hallmark is churning out Christmas movies about. We have hit rough patches more than once. I nearly lost her. As in permanently. As in RIP. There was no darker day than that one, but her walking out on me last Christmas was a close second place.
I told Viv one time that you can’t choose who you love. If we could, I imagine she wouldn’t have married Nathaniel Owen. Vivian was not looking for a billionaire husband. But like she couldn’t help falling for Nate—and honestly, who the hell could?—I was a goner for Dee the first time she blinked those baby blues at me.
Dee is wild and temperamental. Her sister is a pain in the ass. I guess so is mine, so that makes us even. Dee’s parents are alive and well, though I have yet to meet them. The idea of having parents again, even if they are my wife’s parents, is a good thing to look forward to.
Wife. Damn.
From now on we’ll always be an us.
If she says yes.
“Dammit,” she swears again, wiping away more tears with the heels of her hands. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. This is the best reaction ever.”
Her eyes are on the ring resting on the tip of my finger. Her ring. The engagement ring I bought two months after receiving my first bonus check from Owen Construction. I knew I was going to win Dee back. I just hadn’t worked out how.
“I don’t know how to plan a future,” she confesses.
“I don’t either,” I confess right back. “We’ll figure it out together.”
“Isn’t that like the blind eating the blind?”
I laugh.
She sniffles again. “What?”
“The blind leading the blind.” I cup the back of her head and kiss her, breathing her in. “I’m going to start my own Post-It note list, and your misuse of common clichés is going to be at the top of it.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“A little.” I steal another kiss. “But I won’t start the notes with ‘I miss’ because I won’t have to miss you. You’re going to be here. Living in this house. Sleeping in this bed.”
“Wearing these Christmas lights?” She moves the sheet to flash me. Literally, in this case.
“Fuck yeah,” I say.
Her laugh surprises her. She cups her hand over her mouth.
“My notes will start with I love. I love the way you misuse clichés. I love your tattoos. I love the piercing in your nose that never closed up. I love your breasts and your nipples. I love your pussy. My God, how I love—”
Her hand moves from her mouth to mine. “I get the point.”
“Do you?” I ask from beneath her palm. I hold up the ring, still balanced on the tip of my finger. “Marry me,” I mumble.
She moves her hand. Takes the ring from my finger, studies it in the glow of the blue lights wrapped around her body. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s yours. I’m yours. For Christmas. Forever. All you have to do is say yes.”
“And then what? Where will I work?” Her smile is crooked, unsure.