Chapter 53
Sophia
The Pavilion restaurant at the Datai may just be the most incredible dining venue I’ve ever encountered, and I’ve dined in some pretty fabulous locations.
It’s basically this huge pavilion (oddly enough) that floats off the edge of the terrace into the rainforest while being held up by thirty-metre-high stilts.
It’s open-sided and dotted with candlelit tables, with beautiful views out to the canopy of treetops that surround it.
The scent of the warm evening air mingles with the fragrant cooking smells courtesy of the restaurant’s Thai chef.
A friendly server leads the three of us to a table at the far end of the restaurant.
It’s quiet and is perfectly positioned for us to enjoy this panorama, especially because Ethan insists I sit facing the rainforest. He and I are both still punch-drunk from this afternoon’s orgasms—we went another round in our bed—and Jamie is on good form.
Apparently, his golf lesson went great and his chipping is improving.
He also told me on the way over that he’s pleased I’m here to keep his dad company so he can spend some overdue time with his Nintendo Switch.
I let out a slow exhale as we await our drinks.
This place is magical. I mainly travel in Europe.
I’ve hit up Singapore and Hong Kong a few times, but being here, perched high above the soft earth of the rainforest with the man I love and the son he’s forged such a strong, loving relationship with is the best kind of suspension from reality.
London, and its bustle and noise and pollution, suddenly feels like a wholly unappealing prospect.
Our drinks arrive—champagne for Ethan and me and fresh lemonade for Jamie—and Jamie nudges him. ‘Dad,’ he hisses.
‘Okay.’ Ethan clears his throat. ‘We’ve, uh, we’ve made you something. We’ve been working on it on and off for most of the trip, haven’t we, mate?’
Jamie nods. His smile is wider than I’ve ever seen it, and I sit up straighter.
‘Really? How cool!’ I have a sudden vision of the boys working away on some old-time handicrafts together.
You know, whittling me a homemade recorder out of bamboo, or something folksy like that.
Stranger things have happened. So I’m extremely confused when Ethan hands me his phone.
‘Check out the app at the very bottom.’
I glance down. There’s an app called Lynx, its thumbnail a graphic of a metal link. ‘Lynx?’
‘Yeah,’ Ethan says as Jamie says, ‘Say it out loud again!’
‘Lynx. Lynx. Oh.’ I look at the graphic again. ‘Links! It’s a homophone!’
‘Yes.’ Jamie smacks the table in satisfaction, and Ethan nods. He seems quiet. Watchful.
‘Open it.’
‘Links. I love it.’ I click on the app and it opens up. There are two grey bars across the screen. One says GAME and one DICTIONARY. Ethan cranes his head to see it.
‘Okay. Click on DICTIONARY.’
I click, feeling some sort of nervous butterflies, though I’m not sure why.
‘Can I tell her, Dad?’ Jamie asks, and I look up to see Ethan nodding.
‘Go for it.’
I click in, and a list of words comes up with the alphabet hyperlinked down the left-hand side.
‘We’ve made you a game,’ Jamie explains. ‘Like Connections, because you’re so obsessed with it. But Dad said you always wanted to see all the category tags, so we built them.’
I stare dumbly at him. ‘What?’
He points. ‘Click on any word and you’ll see.’
‘Oh my god,’ I mutter, the butterflies turning to flutters of real excitement. ‘Are you for real? You’ve built me a Connections game with a back end?’
‘Yeah!’ Jamie nods excitedly. ‘Well, I built the code for it and Dad built the words part.’
‘Because I’m illiterate at coding and you’re illiterate at the English language,’ Ethan supplies.
‘That’s rude.’
Ethan raises an eyebrow at him. ‘Pillow sheets? Need I say more?’
They both collapse into laughter, and I smile. Must be some insider joke. They’re fucking adorable. I scroll through the As.
‘Okay, I’m clicking on arm. Oh my god!’
When I click into the word, various tags come up.
> Body part (v)
> —chair (n)
> Weapon (n)
> Weaponise (v)
> Division (n)
‘Holy shit!’ I look up at them. ‘This is amazing! Are you kidding me right now?’
They glance at each other again and smile. There’s definitely something I’m not getting here—they’re being cagey as fuck. Jamie pushes Ethan on his shoulder. ‘Tell her to play the game. We set one up for you.’
‘Why don’t you give the game a go, sweetheart?’ Ethan says in a sexy, sugared tone.
‘Alright. But I want to play with the dictionary for a lot longer afterwards.’ I click through to the GAME tab, and up comes a four-by-four grid, just like in Connections.
There are sixteen words locked and ready to go.
Below them, like in Connections, is a Shuffle button. I press it. ‘Should I do it now?’
‘Yes!’ Jamie practically shouts. ‘It’s a special one, just for you.’
I shimmy in my seat and straighten my shoulders. ‘Bring it. You with me on this, babe?’
‘No.’ He smiles at me and shakes his head. ‘You’re on your own for this one.’
I focus on the letters, reading them aloud to the boys so I can pick up any homophones. Once I’ve run through them once, I see a couple of potential patterns. Saying ewe aloud made the first one click for me.
‘Ewe, ya, thou, U.’ I hit them all and press Select. ‘You. Bingo! One down.’
‘Nice one,’ Ethan says.
‘She’s guessing them in the wrong order,’ Jamie stage-whispers, and I look up.
‘Am I? Oh, sorry.’
‘No, you’re good,’ Ethan tells me. ‘Keep going.’
‘This is so clever. I can’t believe you guys built this for me. Okay, let’s see.’
I squint at the puzzle. Mi is probably the musical note—thank you, The Sound of Music. ‘Anyone know what the abbreviation for Methyl is?’ I ask them. I have my suspicions, but I’m not so hot on the periodic table these days.
‘M-E,’ Jamie says, drumming his fingers on the table.
I select Myself, Methyl, Ego and Mi and the answer comes up correct. Me. ‘Yay! Go me!’
My eyes latch onto testament. ‘Old Testament? New Testament? Last will and testament?’ I muse aloud. Jamie’s sharp intake of breath has me snagging on that one. Will. Ah, yes. Bequeath. Determination. Testament, and… Volition. Triumphantly, I hit Select. ‘Will. Three down, one to go.’
I highlight the four remaining words: Hitch, join, espouse, wed. No guessing required. ‘Marry. I did it! That was so clever, guys.’
Ethan licks his lips, his expression tense and watchful. He glances at Jamie like he’s unsure of something.
‘Read the answers out loud!’ Jamie sing-songs, and I chuckle. He’s ridiculously sweet.
‘You. Me. Will. Marry.’ I stop and freeze. Jamie said I was guessing them in the wrong order, didn’t he?
You. Me. Will. Marry.
I look up from the screen.
Ethan is smiling at me. He’s a handsome man, a beautiful man, but I’ve never seen his face so radiant with love, with a bright hopefulness.
‘Will you marry me?’ he whispers, and the world stands still.
My entire body begins to shake. Tears spring from nowhere and tremble on my lash line. ‘What?’ I’m officially a dumbass. ‘Are you serious?’
He reaches across the table with both hands and sandwiches my hand between them, his touch warm and sure. ‘I’ve never been more serious in my life.’
The words tumble from my lips. ‘Well, yes! Of course I will! Oh my god! Oh my god!’ I’m weeping, shivering, as feelings hit me like an emotional hailstorm.
He wants to marry me.
We’re going to get married.
I’ll be his wife.
He’s out of his seat and rounding the table, kneeling beside me and covering my face with kisses as I laugh and cry and grab his head in my hands.
‘You’re going to be my husband,’ I say, like a fool, and he rubs my nose with his.
‘That’s the plan. You’re going to be my wife. God, I like the sound of that.’
‘And you’re going to be my stepmother,’ Jamie pipes up from across the table, and we both burst out laughing as I glance up at him. He’s wriggling, looking a combination of mortified and tickled pink.
‘Oh, shit! Can I be a very wicked one?’
‘No way,’ Jamie says, just as his dad adds, ‘Be my guest, sweetheart.’
Later, I lie in the huge bed with my fiancé, two commas curled inwards as we gaze at each other from inches apart.
‘I railroaded you, didn’t I?’ he asks, dragging a hand down his face.
I circle his wrist, pulling it away. ‘No! You surprised the hell out of me, but you didn’t railroad me.’
He groans. ‘I wasn’t sure about whether I should spring it on you so soon, and I definitely wasn’t sure about doing it in front of Jamie in a public place.
The Lynx app was just supposed to be a present for you.
It started out as a fun project for the two of us, and it spiralled from there.
And then Jamie had the idea of proposing to you via the clues, so I had to include him. ’
‘Wait—it was Jamie’s idea?’
He nods, bashful.
‘That’s amazing!’ My heart swells. The sweet little guy.
‘To be honest, that was what spurred me on. I was nervous about how he’d react to my remarrying, especially since the past year has been so tough on him.
I didn’t want to undo all the work we’d done on our relationship, but he was all for it.
He likes you. And he likes how happy you make me.
So that was him taken care of, and then I just needed to worry about you running for the hills. ’
I smirk. ‘So you proposed on a small, remote island?’
‘Yeah. Exactly.’
I snuggle in closer. ‘I’m not going anywhere. And, while I didn’t expect to leave Malaysia as your future wife’—saying it aloud again has me suddenly feeling shy—‘I’m ready, babe. I’m more than ready. Bring it on.’
He kisses me, and I lose myself to the moment. Kissing him when I know he’ll be my husband is a whole other level of intoxicating. Everything is a whole other level of intoxicating, even being in bed with him. This is how it’ll be, forever and ever.
He pulls away from the kiss but leaves his hands on me. ‘I haven’t even got you a ring—I didn’t want to rush it and grab something I wasn’t sure about.’
‘Hey. You built me a semantic database to make my weird little brain happy. Nothing says everlasting love like that. Who needs a ring?’
‘I love your weird little brain. It’s incredible.’ He kisses my nose. ‘And you’ll get a ring. A very big one. For now, maybe you can wear your stack on your left hand.’
I look down as he eases my gorgeous, shiny stack off my right hand and slides it reverently onto my left. Our eyes lock.
‘You’re seriously good at choosing rings. I have high expectations.’
‘I wouldn’t expect anything less.’ He clears his throat.
‘There was one more thing I wanted to say. I—we can have a long engagement, if you like. I walked away from you for months, and you’ve been amazing about it.
I didn’t want you trekking out here to meet us and then leaving not knowing that I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
’ His grey eyes are so soft, so loving. ‘But I also know… that I’m still a work in progress.
You’re in such great shape, mentally. I’ve made strides, but I might not be husband material just yet. We can wait if—’
I put a hand over his mouth. ‘No. Stop it right there. We’ve had this conversation, remember?
You’re not broken, you’re not damaged. You are whole and perfect and wonderful, and it will be the privilege of my life to marry you.
The second you threw away everything for Jamie, I knew you were it for me.
Understand?’ I remove my finger and smile at him.
He nods, his eyes growing wet. ‘I’m going to keep working on myself.’
‘Fine. But do it for yourself, not for me.’
‘I will. I’ve grown to enjoy it, actually. It feels like I finally have some control over myself.’
I grin at the C-word. ‘The right kind of control. The good kind.’
‘Yeah.’ He hooks a hairy leg over me and tugs me right against him, yawning. Poor guy with his young, insatiable fiancée. I’ve exhausted him. We lie like that, in each other’s arms, and I feel an overwhelming sense of peace. I’ve finally found my forever place in the world, and it’s beautiful.
When I’m almost asleep, he speaks, his voice slurred with tiredness. ‘I meant to say, I’ve been reading one of those Enneagram books you gave me for Christmas. It’s good stuff. I think I might be an Eight? What do you think?’