Chapter 32 #3
Across the waiting room, Tristan’s legs went out from under him, and he folded into the chair, head buried in trembling hands.
Emmanuelle lowered down beside him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.
As soon as she held him, he collapsed sideways into the comfort of her embrace, clutching her like a man who’d just been rescued from drowning in a riptide.
Everyone in the waiting area—the twins, Yaya, even Zion—let out a collective sigh that seemed to exorcise every ounce of the panic and anxiety that had been polluting the air for hours.
The nurse at the front desk who had approached Liam when they arrived, blinked back tears and pretended to fix something on her computer, but Frankie saw her mouth the words “Thank God” to herself.
Frankie thought she’d seen every possible side of her mother, but nothing compared to the way she looked now, utterly wrecked and simultaneously radiant with joy.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she was a broken record, voice growing hoarser with every iteration.
It took a full minute for her to finally release her iron hold on Liam, at which point she switched targets and started hugging AJ and Niko at the same time, like she needed her arms around all her children at once to convince herself that they were really here and really safe.
Liam, for his part, endured the onslaught like a veteran field medic, stiff at first, then softening as if realizing that, for once, it was okay to be held, to be fully embraced. When Frankie’s mom finally released him, he pivoted to face Tristan, who had gotten to his feet, still looking wrecked.
“Thanks,” Tristan managed, voice cracking. “Really. Thank you.”
Liam gave a small shrug, deflecting and minimizing the praise. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t operate on him. I just waited, like you.”
“It does matter. You stayed.” Tristan shook his head, at a loss for words. “After all the shit I gave you…”
“Stop, don’t.” Liam cut him off.
For a second, everything went still—no one spoke, no one even breathed. You could literally hear a pin drop, and one did. The nurse at the station dropped her pen and picked it up, cursing beneath her breath, then mouthed, “Sorry.”
“I just want you to know, what’s about to happen doesn’t have anything to do with you,” Liam stated so calmly both his tone and words drew everyone’s attention even closer. “I know we’ve never been close, but you are my brother, always, and I do love you.”
A dozen subtexts collided in the air at once.
Frankie felt it, and so did everyone else, the way her family held their collective breath, waiting for Tristan to either demand Liam tell him what he was talking about or storm out.
Even Emmanuelle, who was still clutching Tristan, looked up as if she’d just realized she was in the blast radius of an emotional splash zone.
Tristan stared at Liam, the emotions on his face impossible to separate. Frankie saw confusion, fear, anger, pride, sadness, and maybe even regret in and out like lights short-circuiting during a storm. When she saw her ex’s fingers curl in a fist, she thought Tristan might hit him.
She lunged forward, instincts screaming, telling her she needed to intervene and diffuse the situation before it escalated into full-blown family World War III.
Zee’s hand shot out, catching her by the elbow. “Leave it,” he whispered, voice so low it was almost a growl.
Frankie hesitated, but she trusted Zee’s judgment, even as the tension in the room ratcheted up another twenty notches.
After a long, silent standoff, Tristan finally blinked. “I love you, too,” he said, hesitant at first, then a little clearer as the words found their footing. “You’re my brother. Always.”
Then, astonishingly, Liam reached out and enveloped Tristan in a hug that was rough and awkward but undeniably real. Tristan stood there for a heartbeat, arms dangling, before he slowly returned the embrace.
Nobody said a word. Yaya’s knitting needles stilled, and even AJ glanced up from his phone with genuine shock. The hug lasted three seconds, maybe four. But when they broke apart, something in the air felt different. Lighter, somehow.
Then Liam turned to face Frankie and Zee, and that’s when all the oxygen seemed to get sucked out of the room, at least for her.
She didn’t know what to expect. Liam was always so careful about boundaries, so private.
But now, every molecule of his intent and energy was aimed directly at her.
He stalked toward her, holding her captive with his stare, and for a second, she thought her heart was going to burst out of her chest and spatter onto the floor, that’s how hard it was pounding.
The look in his eye was…feral. Not the calculating, measured intensity she’d grown used to, but a kind of reckless, all-or-nothing desperation that scared the hell out of her.
She heard Zee mutter, “Oh, shit,” under his breath as he took an instinctive step to the side, putting a literal arm’s length between himself and the emotional cluster bomb that was about to detonate.
Liam came to a stop about a foot in front of her, close enough that she could see the flecks of green and gold in his irises and the barely perceptible tremor in his jaw. He opened his mouth, then closed it, like he was struggling to find the words.
“Are you—” Frankie started, voice so soft it was practically a whisper.
Liam didn’t let her finish. “Frankie, I love you,” he said, and his voice was gritty and unfiltered, like he’d ripped the words from his vocal cords to make sure she heard it.
Frankie had never been more bewildered in her life.
She stood frozen, heart flapping against her ribcage like a caged animal.
He’d just said he loved her, on the heels of one of the most emotional days of their lives, and he’d done it with a kind of stark, primitive honesty that made her want to both swoon and throw up in equal measure.
Her mind was still grappling with the reality of that when Liam pressed on, as if he was determined to wring every secret from his soul before anyone—maybe even himself—could stop him.
“I’ve loved you forever,” he said, voice steady despite the storm in his eyes. His statement cut through the air like a bell tolling at midnight, impossible to miss, impossible to ignore.
She took in a shaky breath, barely able to stand on her noodle legs.
“That love changed,” Liam continued, a faint tremor lacing his words.
Oh, wow. He wasn’t done. Of course he wasn’t.
Frankie tried not to look around at the audience they'd amassed, but she could feel every pair of eyes in the room glued to them, Tristan, Emmanuelle, her mother, her brothers, Yaya, Zee, Poppy had shown up at some point and it looked like some other hospital personnel had paused at the periphery to watch the drama unfold. Frankie didn’t mind attention, but not like this.
Not with her internal organs melting into a puddle and her soul on display for everyone to see.
“That love evolved, basically overnight.”
She felt her cheeks flush at the memory of the night it changed.
“I didn’t know how to handle that, so I didn’t handle it. I ran away, and I’m sorry. You deserved better than that.”
“It’s fine,” she managed, the words coming out thin and papery. “It’s okay.”
This seemed like a private conversation, so she didn’t have a clue why Liam, who had built his entire personality on privacy and self-restraint, was going full-throttle public with this.
Frankie felt like she was on the Truman Show, and her own internal monologue was a nervous laugh track on repeat.
She glanced at Zee, hoping for a lifeline. He was filming.
For the love of Pacey Witter! she thought as he held up his phone like a proud dad at a spelling bee, his expression a mix of “I knew this was coming” and “this is the best thing I’ve ever seen.” Frankie wanted to strangle him and hug him at the same time.
When she looked back at Liam, hoping to telepathically communicate that they could talk about this another time, he dropped to his knee, and her entire universe seemed to collapse into a single, blinding moment.
She gasped so loudly several people jumped. Her hands flew to her mouth, eyes wide as saucers. Liam looked up at her, the vulnerability in his face almost breaking her in half.
“I don’t have a ring,” Liam said, and she could hear the apology in his voice.
Before she could even process that, Yaya—never one to miss an opportunity for drama—shouted, “Here! Here! Here!” and produced a ring out of nowhere.
It was a stunning vintage solitaire diamond set in a delicate band, and the sight of it triggered a hazy memory from Frankie’s childhood, a thing of beauty she’d once admired but forgotten.
When she handed it to Liam, and Frankie got a closer look, she remembered it being in her jewelry box when she was little. She also remembered her plan to plant it on Mr. Santino.
She turned to look at Yaya, part incredulous, part amused. “Seriously?”
“I keep for you!” Yaya waved at Liam. “Keep going! Go! Go! Go!”
Liam, who now held the ring with a trembling hand, looked up at her with the kind of earnestness that made it impossible to remember anything but this moment.
He smiled, and it was the rare, full-strength, unguarded version that she’d only glimpsed a handful of times in her life.
“I know that this might seem impulsive, or out of the blue, or crazy,” he stated, voice thick with emotion, “but the truth is it’s none of those things.
It’s the most sane, rational, premeditated thing I’ve ever done. ”
Frankie blinked back tears, her grasp of reality feeling like it was slipping further by the second.
“All my life you’ve been my home, Frankie,” Liam said, and the words landed with a solid, comforting weight.
“If this day has taught me anything, it’s that you never know what’s going to happen, and I can’t go another day without you being my wife.
” He took a steadying breath, then continued, “Six months ago, I bought a house without seeing it because it had the art room you said you’d have in your home, and I knew if I had a chance, any chance, of ever having a place that felt like it was home, it had to be with you. ”
Liam turned for a moment, looking over his shoulder at Tristan. “Sorry, man.”
Frankie glanced over to find Emmanuelle resting her head on Tristan’s shoulder, crying, clearly swept up in the romance of it all. Beside her Tristan was grinning from ear to ear, clearly happy for his brother, and maybe even for Frankie. “You’re good. It’s all good.”
Liam turned back to Frankie, determination etched in every line of his ruggedly handsome face. “I hadn’t even spoken to you in over a decade, but I knew that. So, this isn’t impulsive or crazy. Buying the house might have been.”
There was a quiet rumbling of laughter as Frankie smiled, and two tears spilled over her bottom lid then fell down her cheeks.
“You are my home, Frankie. You always have been. You have my heart.” He pressed his hand over the spot where his Mighty Mouse tattoo was.
She nodded in understanding. “You own it. It’s yours.
I’d like it if I got to live with it, so that’s why I’m asking, Francesca Lydia Costas, will you make me the happiest, luckiest man in the world and marry me? ”
Time stopped. The air shimmered with electricity and anticipation. Frankie willed herself to breathe, to speak, to do anything but stand there like a glitching robot. And then, before she could let logic or fear jump in, the answer burst out of her like a shooting star across the sky.
“Yes, yes, yes! Yes I will marry you.”
Liam didn’t hesitate, he slid the ring onto her finger, stood up, scooped her into his arms, and swung her around in a move so cinematic she almost laughed.
The entire waiting room erupted into applause, a sound so loud and joyful it drowned out the beeping monitors and intercom buzzers and even the distant yelling of a security guard somewhere down the hall.
Frankie caught a glimpse of her mom, who had both hands clapped over her mouth, but she could see her smile from behind her palms. Niko and AJ high-fived, while Yaya grinned like the Cheshire Cat, already plotting the wedding feast in her head.
She felt herself spinning, literally and figuratively, Liam was holding her so tight.
She could barely breathe and she realized, in the wildest, most unexpected way, that this was exactly how it was supposed to be.
That all the heartbreak and chaos and awkward conversations were worth it because they led to this—her, in his arms, grinning like an idiot in front of her entire family and half the hospital staff.
Frankie tipped her head back so she could Liam’s face, every ounce of her trying to memorize this moment. “I can’t believe you did this,” she whispered.
He pressed his forehead to hers. “I can’t believe it took me this long,” he murmured, then kissed her in front of everyone—softly at first, then with a gathering urgency that would have made her knees weak if she was standing and that had at least three nurses fanning themselves with clipboards.
And she knew then and there that the curse was officially broken. She had her family, she had her best friend, and the only man she ever loved just asked her to be his wife. Frankie Costas was the luckiest girl in the world.
THE END