31. Delaney
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
delaney
A FEW DAYS LATER, I learned that for once in his life, my dad stood up to my mom on my behalf. It was not something I’d expected, and I was sure it hadn’t gone over well.
My grandparents made the inheritance decision contingent upon my parents’ approval, but knowing what a pushover my dad had always been when it came to matters involving my mother’s wishes, especially regarding their children, I never thought his opinion would be the important one.
But it was his parents’ will. And apparently, he’d told my mom that enough was enough.
I could have my inheritance.
My dad called to deliver the good news, which was doubly shocking. I’d expected an email. But he said something that made me think he’d been a little hurt by the notion that he hadn’t been there for my wedding, even if it was an elopement.
He said he didn’t want to miss anything else.
He knew if they denied me this, he’d miss everything.
I wanted to ask where he’d been when I had my college graduation or when I’d celebrated getting my first job but held my tongue. I knew it was because my ambitions didn’t align with the ones he’d arbitrarily created for me, but marriage was something that had traditional value to him. And so that was what he cared about.
He also admitted to liking Blake. He appreciated his honesty at dinner and said that his job was respectable.
Which I found ironic.
Respectable for a man , I suppose.
He wanted us to come to dinner more often, which surprised me the most out of everything.
I said I’d think about it.
I wasn’t sure I was ready for that kind of commitment, considering how the last one had gone and the odd, resentful heartache of simply visiting home, but I’d think about it.
Blake and I went out to dinner to celebrate the news—our first official date, outside of the evening in Amsterdam. Because Blake had since made it clear that that had been a date.
He decided on the black dress, saying he’d already gotten a chance to peel the red one off my body, and now he wanted to do the same with the black one.
I couldn’t argue with that logic.
On our second official date, Blake surprised me by booking us dancing lessons. He claimed they were mostly for his benefit; he wanted to be able to keep up with me on the dance floor.
I cried when he told me.
Maybe a little dramatic, but he’d broken through a dam. He’d found the parts of me that I’d walled off because I didn’t think I wanted them. But I did. I just wanted to experience them on my own terms, in my own way, with people who didn’t pressure me and fought for me instead.
For our third date, I asked Blake to teach me how to box. I thought it was only fair. And the smirk that had slipped onto his face in response had made my request worth it, even if I soon learned my punching aim was awful.
“Do you know why I got into boxing?” he asked me as we walked out of the gym afterward and onto the Boston streets, where brick buildings lined the cobblestone. Humidity soaked the midsummer night air, making me stickier than when we’d been working up a sweat with the bags.
I shook my head, and Blake sighed.
“I needed a distraction,” he admitted. “Needed something to obsess over that wasn’t you.”
My steps faltered; my breathing hitched. Everything about my existence seemed to skip a beat. It was painful knowing that Blake had gone through that. That I’d put him through that unknowingly. I suspected I’d always feel guilty about what I hadn’t known, what I probably should have figured out years ago.
“Did it work?” I asked.
He responded with a low, rumbling chuckle. “I’m always going to be obsessed with you, Lane.”
My stomach betrayed me, flipping and turning.
“But it did help me channel some of my…frustrations,” he added carefully.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He glanced down at me. “Which was especially helpful once you moved in with me. Sometimes you walked around in your fucking towel, Lane. Christ, it was like you were trying to kill me.”
I bit down on a guilty grin.
“I realized I liked it more than just being a distraction, though,” Blake went on. “It was good for my body, good for my mind. I needed that. Something I could do for me, to be better. I spent a lot of time visualizing what my perfect future might look like without doing the work to create it for myself. I needed to try something new, push myself a bit and live outside my carefully constructed patterns.”
“So you decided you wanted to punch people?”
Blake’s lips twitched. “It’s not about punching but learning to take calculated risks. Sometimes it’s okay to let things get a little messy. Coloring inside the lines doesn’t always create a pretty picture.”
“Calculated risks, huh?”
“Yeah.” Blake’s eyes wandered my face. “Calculated risks.”
“Would you consider asking your best friend to marry you a calculated risk?”
“It was definitely a risk.” Blake nodded. “Not sure how much time I really spent calculating it, though. I was too worried you’d end up engaged to someone else again if I didn’t get that ring on your finger as fast as possible.”
“I’m glad you took the risk,” I said, meaning it with every ounce of my being. “Even if our relationship did get a little…messy there for a bit.”
“I was scared of that,” Blake confessed. “For so many years, I’d been scared of blurring the line of our friendship. And that was exactly where we ended up anyway. For a terrifying few hours, I thought I ruined everything.”
“I think we’ve always been a little blurry, Blake. Has it ever really been clear?”
He shook his head. “No, not before now. But I think I wanted clear. Watching my parents’ divorce scared me away from the messy bits of a relationship. I hated the thought of getting messy with you and losing you. God, losing you was all I was ever worried about. Even if that meant I only got to have you as a friend.”
“I get it,” I assured him. “But I don’t think you realize, Blake.”
He paused on the street corner, giving me his full attention. The streetlamp behind him created a halo around his frame, making him glow. “What?”
“If you want to get rid of me, you’re going to have to cut me loose,” I warned. But it wasn’t really a warning—more like an attempt to dispel any remaining fears he might have about us. “I’m too tied up in you to break free, even if we get pulled in different directions again.”
Blake’s gaze warmed. He stepped forward, backing me against a brick wall and bracing his hand against it so he could lean in, showering me with his stomach-flipping intensity. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
I blinked up at him, feeling my throat tighten. “Just don’t let go, okay?”
“Never, Lane.” He rested his forehead against mine. “Fucking never.”
“Things might get messy every now and again, Blake.” This time, it really was a warning. “I’m not as perfect as you. And?—”
“Shut up,” he grunted, shaking his head.
“I mean it. If you’re still scared of what might happen?—”
He pressed a finger to my lips. “I’m not scared anymore.”
“No?”
“No,” he said firmly. “Because getting messy with you was the best thing that ever happened to me, Delaney. And I’m never going to let my hesitation and fears get in the way of us again.”
“Me either,” I whispered against his touch.
Blake replaced his finger with his lips, and I silently vowed to myself that I’d never let my own fears hold me back, either. From Blake or anything.
Blake and I celebrated our first anniversary by driving to a very important plot of land.
It wasn’t much to look at right now, but someday, it would be a clinic. Our clinic.
There was a lot of hard work ahead of us, a lot of preparation and long hours. The groundwork itself was daunting. But exhilarating at the same time. And the most exciting part was getting to have Blake by my side.
He’d assured me that he hadn’t been lying the day he’d proposed at Giovanni’s; he wanted to expand the medical community and work together to do it. He wanted to surround himself with the best of the best and then create a place of hope for patients. He wanted to save lives; I knew he did.
And this was where we were going to do it—in the outskirts of Boston, settled not too far from the bay.
I stared at the water, watching it lap against the shore, our feet grounded in soil where one day our front entrance might be.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
I didn’t have to explain my thinking. Blake stood beside me, staring just as intently at the ocean. But his expression was calm, his body relaxed. Stoic, despite the energy that hummed between us. I wasn’t really sure what it meant, but it felt good.
“I’m sure,” he said simply.
“You’ll have to see it every day,” I pointed out, even though we’d had a conversation like this before.
I just needed him to be sure.
Nothing was more important than this.
Than Blake.
“I know.” He cocked his head to the side, considering the water. “I like to think it’s honoring her. It’s honoring how many people who will be helped or saved because of her and the path she inspired me to take. Because of her and because of Bryan.”
Warmth filled me.
“Do you still dream of her?”
“Sometimes,” he admitted, which surprised me.
He’d never told me. And I’d never woken up to find him like I had that night on our honeymoon.
But then Blake added, “It doesn’t always end the same way, though. Sometimes taking a risk and jumping into the water to try to save her…it works. It’s a bit cruel because when I wake up, I’m reminded of reality. That she’s gone, and I failed. But I also think it’s a reminder that sometimes the risk of doing something is better than the risk of doing nothing. In the end, I’m still glad that I jumped into the water. That risk was still worth it, and in another scenario, taking that risk might have changed everything.”
“I like that.” I surveyed the land around us. “We’re definitely doing something here, Blake.”
“We sure are.” Blake cleared his throat. “Hey, Lane?”
Something about the emotion in his voice made me spin toward him, a swiftness in my bones. And a second later, I knew why.
Blake was on his knees.
“What—what are you doing?” I choked, the wind knocked out of me.
His grin had a softness to it. “You wouldn’t let me do this the first time around, so I had to sneak down here before you stopped me.”
“The first time around?” I repeated.
Finding new words? Impossible.
“Proposing, Delaney.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “I’m proposing.”
All I could do was stare at him. “But we’re already married.”
He sighed. “I was really hoping that there’d be less arguing if I did this properly.”
“I’m not—” I hiccupped into a laugh and then covered my hand over my mouth, sealing my lips shut.
Blake’s lips curved into a full-fledged smile. And then he readjusted himself a little bit, leaning one of his elbows on his knees and piercing me with a gaze that took my breath clean away.
“This all started so that we could get here,” he said. “To this day, to this point. But now that we’re here, I need to make it clear right now that this is not the end. This is just the very beginning, baby.”
I swallowed and managed to whisper, “I like the sound of that.”
He closed his eyes momentarily, like he was savoring my response. “You don’t know how fucking happy it makes me to hear that.”
“Yes,” I blurted, wanting to skip to the part where I got to say that.
“I’m not done,” Blake said, giving me a look that seemed to be a warning. “There’s more.”
“More than getting to stay married to you?” I countered, clutching a hand to my chest. “That’s already a lot. That’s already perfect.”
“Yeah, Lane,” he insisted. “Because I don’t just want to stay married to you. I want to remarry you.”
“You…what?”
“I want to remarry you,” he repeated firmly. “I don’t care where or when or who comes. I don’t care if it’s in the same courthouse or at a vineyard with endless bottles of your favorite white wine. I don’t care if our whole family comes or if we don’t invite anyone at all. I don’t care if it’s tomorrow or in a year. But I want it to be on our terms. I want to buy you a wedding dress that you love , Lane. I want to take you on a honeymoon that isn’t a single bit fake. I want to say ‘I do’ and then fuck you in a bridal suite like it’s our first time. I know you’ve never wanted to get married, but goddamn, marrying you is all I’ve ever dreamed of. I chose to go on this wild ride with you because I wanted to, so fucking much. You did it because you felt like you had to. I want you to get a chance to choose this time. I want you to decide if marrying me is really what you want, and then I want to do it the right way if it is.”
He’d rendered me powerless to my own body, his words breaking down functions inside me. My heart roared, my breathing stuttered, my vision blurred. He’d said so many things, and I couldn’t think of one coherent thought, one single thing that could even begin to convey how he made me feel.
“Delaney, I love you,” he said in a final sort of way.
I dropped to my knees, meeting him on the ground. On our ground. “I love you, too. I love you so much, Blake.”
“And that’s all I really need, sweetheart.” He cupped my face between his hands. “Your love. But if you want more than that…”
I nodded aggressively. “I do.”
“Stop skipping ahead,” he said cheekily, giving me a wink. Then he released my face and fished in his pocket for something, pulling out a small jewelry box.
“Blake…” I shook my head. Because he’d already given me the most gorgeous ring in the world. “What’s that?”
“It’s a wedding band. But if you want to put it on now, you can put it on now. You’re already my wife. But I’m still going to ask.” He popped the box open to reveal a perfect single band. “Will you marry me? Marry me again, Lane.”
“Yes,” I breathed as tears filled my lash line.
“Yes, what, Lane?” he pressed gently. “I need to hear more.”
“Yes, I want to marry you, Blake.” The tears had broken free, streaming down my face. I wiped at them, but it was no use. “Again and a million times over. I’ll choose you every single time you ask, okay?”
He was smiling at me. It was my smile. “More than fucking okay.”
I watched as Blake lifted the ring, holding it out to me as if checking whether I wanted to wear it now. And fuck yes, I wanted to wear it now. At the very least, try it on. I held out my hand for him, and he slid it onto my finger.
Unsurprisingly, it was a perfect fit.
My mind reeled as I thought back through everything he had said, imagining a wedding. A full-blown wedding where I got to marry Blake. Re marry Blake.
“I get to pick out my own wedding dress?” I asked, still processing this reality.
He nodded. “I thought that might make you happy.”
“ You make me happy, Blake.”
It wasn’t about the dress. It was about the choices. And I knew he understood that.
“I know, baby,” he reassured. “But it’s okay to want the whole experience, too. To want more for yourself and for us.”
I worried my bottom lip as my brain continued to race through the future, thinking about the things that lay ahead for me and Blake. I loved every bit of it. And I just wanted to make sure he loved every bit of it, too. He was letting me choose. I knew in my bones he deserved that same right.
“What?” he probed, studying my expression carefully.
“What about…kids?” I ventured, sitting back on my heels and considering him. “I know you want them, and I—I’m still thinking.”
“I want a family,” he said like it was a correction. “Delaney, it’s only ever been you. I only want kids if it’s with you. And if that’s not what you want, then we’ll create our own family. Our family is us. It’s me and you and Bryan and all my siblings and all the kids they’re going to have. Our family can be whatever we want it to be.”
I stared at him, in awe of who he was and how much he meant to me. And not for the first time, I saw myself thinking that it would be a damn shame if I didn’t let this man give me the kind of family I always wanted to have myself but never dared to dream about because I didn’t trust anyone enough to give it to me. But after everything we’d been through, and especially recently, I trusted Blake. With my life, with all of it. That much I knew.
“You’d be a really good dad, Blake.” The words carried in the wind. “Sometimes I think you were born to be a dad.”
“You’d be an amazing mom, Lane.” He swallowed, and I saw something shine in his gaze. “And I know I was born to love you. And every part of you. Maybe that includes your kids. Maybe not.”
“Our kids,” I amended. I wouldn’t be having my kids; I’d be having our kids.
“Our kids,” Blake repeated, looking like he was struggling to contain himself at the thought.
My heart damn near exploded.
“I have so much I want to do.” I stared at the empty plot of land, letting my eyes trace every rock, every pebble that lay upon it. “This clinic might be my baby for a while, but then…”
“Babies grow up,” Blake said softly, finishing my thought.
“Become self-functioning,” I added. “And then maybe…” A smile lit up my face.
“Maybe,” Blake agreed, matching my grin. He looked at me like maybe was just fine with him. Like he was content with imagining possibilities and getting to explore all of them with me, even if some were just ideas. “You can have it all if you want it all, Delaney. You don’t have to pick, sweetheart. We’ll just take on one dream at a time, okay?”
A dream.
Having a family with Blake really was something out of a dream, something I didn’t think was possible. I grew up thinking I could never be a mom when the only example I had of motherhood was a painful one.
But that day with Blake’s family, when I’d walked into Natalie’s home and saw how love could be shaped differently, changed things. When I’d held Delilah and seen the way Gemma looked at her, like she’d do anything for her. When I’d experienced how Blake and his brothers had rallied for Natalie and Chloe in the last year. That was family, that was parenthood, that was a redefinition of my upbringing.
I took a deep breath. “Okay.”
“You have time to think about it.” Blake spoke the words I needed to hear. “Just let me know when the puzzle comes together for you.”
I nodded, knowing I had all the pieces. He’d given me all of them. I just needed to line them up in a way they fit. And I knew they would soon.
“Have you thought of a name for your baby yet?” He changed the subject, pointing to the ground beneath us.
I cocked my head to the side. “I like to think that this one is our baby, too.”
“Yeah?”
Blake’s brows raised. He hadn’t expected that.
“Yeah, Blake.” I nodded, feeling sure that this was the right move. I had for a while. “That’s why I was thinking that The London Cardiac Center sounded like a pretty perfect name.”
Blake’s lips parted, a suspended moment of awe until he leaned forward and pressed those lips to mine. He’d run out of words, and since I knew the feeling, I didn’t press him for any. He’d already given me so many today. And all I needed now was him. So I returned the kiss eagerly, tangling my fingers in his hair and dragging him closer. Our knees banged against each other as rocks dug into our skin, a branded reminder of what this soil would grow. And how we would nurture life together.
“Perfect,” he whispered against my mouth.
And it really, really was.