47. Ellie #2
I glanced up in time to see Sully freeze on the sidewalk. His gaze found mine again, and the rotation of the Earth slowed, just a little bit. The wind chimes softened, the crickets stopped chirping, and the hiss of the sprinkler Sully had fixed faded into the background.
“What?” he breathed.
“Their last name,” I clarified, taking a careful step toward him. “I think I would have wanted it to be London.”
Sully’s mouth opened, but no words came out. He turned fully to face me, his expression unreadable.
My heart hammered in my throat, my palms all of a sudden sweaty, as though I were revealing some grand secret, when it was, in fact, just the truth of my heart.
“I know I’d asked about Summers, but I’ve always felt more of a London myself,” I confessed. “I mean, I did for a long time, anyway. From the summer I moved in across the street to…well, you know. And today, it felt a bit like I was again. A London.”
Sully began closing the distance between us like he couldn’t get to me fast enough. “Baby, you are.”
I just smiled at him. I knew he believed that, but there was still some lingering newness to being back in his world.
Sully took one look at my expression, and determination surged into his. “If you want to be a London, we can definitely make that happen, Eleanor. In a permanent, official sort of way.”
My stomach flipped, but I rolled my eyes at him. “Stop, I’m serious.”
“And you think I’m not?”
I didn’t have time to answer him before he abruptly turned on his heel, walking away from me—toward the house.
“What are you doing?” I called.
“I’m making you a London.”
Each word was like a little punch in the night air.
“You’re…what?”
I watched as Sully began what looked like attacking the rosebushes, plucking at the stems with an aggression that made no real sense.
He spun back toward me with several in his hand, sucking on a knuckle that, if I had to guess, had been nicked in the process.
His hair looked windswept, as if he’d just endured a hurricane while in the rosebushes, and his hoodie was askew on his torso.
And I wasn’t sure why I found the whole thing so attractive, but my pulse intensified as he struggled to pull his wallet out of his jeans’ pocket, fishing for something with his available hand.
What was he doing?
And then my jaw dropped. Because a second later, Sully had a glittering ring between his lips.
He held it between his teeth while pocketing his wallet again, and I…
couldn’t breathe. He walked toward me with purpose before dropping into the soft grass beside the sidewalk I stood frozen on, looking up at me with a love I couldn’t quite put into words.
“I know, I know,” he said, his words coming out in a rush. “I know I just told you a couple weeks ago I wasn’t going to rush you. So maybe I should actually just—” He swallowed hard and pushed back to his feet. “—stand while I say this instead. So you know that it’s not—fuck.”
He blew out a breath, his body vibrating.
“Sawyer,” I whispered, reaching out with a shaking hand, needing to touch him.
But he put the roses in my outstretched fingers instead.
“Those are for you, El,” he said. “Because they’ve always been for you.”
I attempted to swallow past the lump in my throat as I took them from him. “Thank you.”
“Yeah.” He ran his hand through his hair, pushing it out of his face. My eyes tracked his fingers. Mostly because there was still a ring between them. “I just—I’m so in love with you.”
His eyes sought mine, and I brought the roses closer to my chest while fighting the urge to launch myself at him, knowing he wasn’t done with what he was doing.
And I badly wanted him to finish what he was doing.
Which was maybe exactly what he needed to know.
“Sawyer.” His name barely escaped my emotion-filled throat.
“Yeah, El?”
“You…can kneel.”
His eyes grew rounder. “What?”
“You don’t have to stand,” I said carefully. “You can kneel.”
That seemed to settle something inside him, a half-smile tugging at his face.
“Yeah, El?” he repeated, cocking his head ever so slightly to the side. He inched closer to me, eyes never leaving my face, searching it. “One knee or two?”
“One,” I whispered.
“One?” he rasped, tone lingering somewhere in the intersection of euphoria and disbelief.
Sully held my gaze as he lowered back to one knee, and then he propped his elbow on it, looking a hell of a lot more steady than he had a minute ago. He held his hand up, and between his thumb and his pointer finger was the ring.
“Eleanor.” I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard his voice sound so low, so deep.
As though I were tangled in a part of him that wasn’t available to anyone else, and he’d reached inside to find me, my name.
“This has been burning a hole in my wallet for six years.” He held the ring higher, and my breath caught in my throat.
“There’s an imprint of it in the leather, baby.
” Sully shook his head, and I wasn’t actually sure if I could do this—if I could stand here with him on his knee like that without devolving into a mess again.
Without dropping onto the sidewalk to be on the ground with him, feel the roots of our beginnings beneath me.
“But that’s not where it’s meant to be.”
All I could do was release a shaky breath. “It’s not?”
“No.” He smiled crookedly. “Not at all. It’s meant to be on your finger.
I’ve wanted it on your finger for so fucking long, and I don’t care what it stands for outside of the fact that you’re mine.
” His eyes pleaded with me as much as his words.
“God, I want to ask if you’ll marry me, El.
Someday, whenever you’re ready. But mostly I just want to ask if you’ll be mine. ”
I could barely even hear him; the roar of my pulse was deafening in my ears. But I saw his mouth form words I’d only ever imagined, and they rendered me speechless. “Sul…”
“I don’t care where we live,” he continued, readjusting on his knee a little. Moving closer. Leaning forward. “I don’t care if it’s in Boston or California or halfway around the globe. I don’t care if it’s in the stars. As long as it’s you and me, darling.”
“Sawyer.” I clutched the roses tighter, ignoring the prick of the thorns against my palm. “That’s all I want.”
“Thank fucking God,” he exhaled, a whoosh of air.
And then his voice began wobbling, and so did my knees.
“You came home this summer, but so did I. Because as important as this house is to me…” He flung his free arm back, gesturing at the large renovated farmhouse.
“It’s nothing without the people in it. Without you.
Without you, it’s just walls and windows and doors.
” Tears welled in my lash line, blurring my vision as he added softly, “For the past thirteen years, you’ve been the only home I’ve ever known. ”
All I could do for a second was nod. Because he couldn’t have picked more perfect words for how I felt about him.
“You said you wanted to ask me something?” I questioned, blinking away tears, and Sully gave an eager little nod that had laughter and joy tingling my throat, bursting to get out. But first, I needed to say, “I think you should ask me, Sawyer.”
He rotated the ring between his fingers, unable to hold it still. Like it was ready to jump out of his hand and onto mine. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I swallowed hard, holding his gaze.
“Because I really do want to be a London. But mostly, I want to be your wife. Someday, Sul. Maybe even someday soon. Ask me.” At this point, he was just a blur in front of me.
A blur of blond hair, blue eyes, and a smile that could cure the worst heartache.
But at the same time, I’d never known a clearer picture. “Please?”
“Oh, baby.” His soft chuckle threatened to undo me. “You don’t need to say please to get me to ask to marry you. I’ve been dreaming of this my whole fucking life.” Sully’s gaze shone, the starlight reflecting there.
A carefree laugh slipped through my lips. “I think we should make it a reality, then.”
I blinked, and all I saw was him.
“I love you more than anything, Eleanor.” He positioned the ring carefully between two fingers, holding it out for me to take. Begging for me to take it. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes.” I nodded. And nodded and nodded, not being able to stop. “A million times yes. I love you.” I pressed fingers to my lips, barely holding in a hiccupping sob, not for the first time tonight. “So much.”
“Then give me that hand, baby.” His smile threatened to explode off his face. “Let’s put this ring where it was always meant to be.”
Clutching the roses in one hand, I stuck out the other one, and then I decided that maybe it was okay to cry.
That maybe sometimes crying was good, and so was being messy.
Maybe there was a reason that the only thing I knew to be clear in life was him.
That when I pictured the future, he was in every frame.
I watched with unsteady breaths as Sully slid the beautiful band, with its sparkling solitaire diamond, onto my finger.
And it fit perfectly.