In his hand rested a small, brown paper bag.
He gave me a half-smile. “This feels like a ridiculous idea now.”
“I think it’s the best idea you’ve had in a while.”
“You’re saying I lack good ideas, Della?” He narrowed his eyes, but behind his fake annoyance, laugher bubbled.
“Well, you have to admit the best idea we’ve ever had was sleeping together—and that was mine, so you’re welcome. You can thank me later, but right now, you’re handing over my present.”
“You’re saying all of this, our relationship, the fact that I told you to call me my wife, was your idea?” He put the shopping bags on the ground, delaying giving me the gift just like he had when he’d presented me with that tea-towel wrapped horse.
Delay tactics were Ren’s way of pretending he wasn’t nervous by covering it up with bluster and brawn.
“Yes, all mine. Been my idea for years.” Shooting my hand out, I held up my own paper bag. “Stop changing the subject and swap.”
He huffed dramatically, playing along with the familiar way we joked and ribbed. “I don’t know why I put up with you most of the time.”
“Too late now. You married me.”
His face lost its joviality, slipping straight into steely sternness. “Not yet I haven’t. But I’m working on it.”
My tummy let loose a torrent of floating balloons, filling my insides with helium.
“Here.” He passed me the gift, taking his in return. “It’s not much. But it’s a promise of more.”
I don’t mind telling you—mainly because you’ll have figured it out for yourself—but I wasn’t good at delayed gratification. I should’ve clutched that paper bag and paused in that moment. That delicious, perfect moment where the happiest future I could’ve ever imagined teased.
But I didn’t.
I was too impatient.
I ripped at the bag and tears instantly appeared as I tipped out a ring with a blue gemstone dancing in the sun.
It wasn’t real.
It wasn’t silver or gold or sapphire.
But it was the best thing I’d ever received.
Ren’s shadow fell over me as I swiped at the tears trickling down my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, Della Ribbon.”
“I know. Sorry.” I looked up with a watery smile. “I just…Ren, I—” I shook my head, grasping for words on just how perfect he truly was. How grateful I was that I had his heart. How I’d never take him or his thoughtfulness for granted. Ever. “I just…I love you so much.”
He smiled, tilting his head like an eagle would while pitying a poor mouse for falling in love with him. An eagle who could soar away at any moment and kill that little mouse with just one talon. “I know.”
Taking my hand and the ring, he slipped it onto the finger where engagement rings belong. “This is exactly what it implies. We’ve messed up the usual steps of a relationship. We met young. We loved each other in so many different ways before the one that truly mattered. But now that I have you, this is the only way forward. If it’s too soon, tell me. If you’re having second thoughts, better put me out of my misery now. But if you want me as much as I want you, then you don’t even have to give me an answer because I’ve already made it for you.”
Tugging me into his arms, he kissed me sweet. “Will you marry me, Della Wild?”
I shuddered in his embrace, more tears falling. “I gave you my answer the day I was born, Ren Wild.” Standing on tiptoes, I met his second kiss, deepening it until the street vanished, leaving only silky tongues, hitched breaths, and hands straining to touch secret places. “Yes. A thousand times yes.”
I could finish this chapter on that line. It holds quite a punch, and you all know how much Ren’s random proposal meant to me. But I want to tell you what I got Ren.
Pulling back from his arms, I was the one to open his bag and pull out the baby blue leather band with nine diamante letters threaded onto it—letters I’d chosen from tiny boxes full to the brim with alphabets and shapes, painstakingly deciding the best, simplest message for him to wear. For everyone to see.
He burst out laughing as I opened the clasp and hoped it would fit his large wrist.
It did.
Barely.
Stroking the glittery word-charms, he gave me a look so completely humble and awed I felt as if I’d given him the keys to my forever rather than a simple gimmicky bracelet.
And in a way, I had.
Because forever would never be enough. Not with Ren. Not with my soulmate.
Cupping his wrist, I kissed the springy hairs of his skin right above the bracelet. The charms blinded me with their crystal glitter as I breathed, “Della Wild Loves Ren Wild Forever.”
DW RW4EVA