Chapter 50 #3
He’ll never have to feel that way again, if I can help it.
“For my entire adult life, I’ve been running,” he continues.
“I’ve never stayed in one place long enough for it to feel like home, and I’ve never found anywhere – or anybody – who could change that.
” He sweeps a thumb across my cheek and smiles, that sweet, soft grin he reserves just for me. “Until you.”
“Why me?” I whisper. I know it’s an unfair, needy question, but I can’t help it.
“You feel like home,” he says simply. “I don’t know if this town would have felt like such a soft place to land if you weren’t here.
But for the first time, I’m actually working on building a life somewhere.
Planting roots. I have my job, my best friend.
My mom isn’t too far away. You’re not the only thing tethering me to this town, but Elsie,” he says, leaning his forehead against mine, “you’re the thing that matters most. I’d walk away from all of it if you decided you wanted to leave. Wherever you go, I go.”
Declan surprises me then by stepping back and tugging down the neckline of his T-shirt.
The splash of color on the skin right above his heart is so unexpected, it takes me a second to process what I’m looking at: a bundle of lavender in full color, the vibrant purple and green a stark contrast against the rest of his black and gray tattoos.
“What is this?” I itch to run my fingers across the fresh ink, but the skin there is shiny with whatever he applies to aid in the healing process. I lean closer for a better look, noting the way the lavender snakes up his chest toward his collarbone.
“I wanted to have a piece of you wherever I go,” Declan says casually, as if it’s not singlehandedly the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.
“To remind me of you. Remind me of home. Something I never thought I’d have, but instead found in a beautiful, hazel-eyed florist with wild hair and a laugh that almost knocked me on my ass the first time I heard it. ”
“Are you trying to make me cry?” I laugh, but it’s a watery, garbled sound.
“You’re the girl with the flowers,” he says softly, and for the very first time, the nickname makes my heart swell.
“Always spreading happiness and smelling just a little bit like lavender everywhere you go. When I went to your house after our first date, I thought, of course she lives here. I haven’t been able to look at lavender the same way since.
” Declan smiles and shakes his head, maybe a little bit embarrassed by the way he’s laying his heart bare for me.
“That time you brought flowers over to the shop,” he continues, “they were –”
“Lavender and baby’s breath. I remember.”
“I was so happy,” he laughs. “It felt like you were giving me a little piece of yourself. Since we met, all I’ve wanted is to collect as many pieces of you as I can manage. I’ve always been greedy when it comes to you.”
You can have every single piece of me, I want to tell him. Instead, I say stupidly, “You got a color tattoo.”
He tucks a stray lock of hair behind my ear and lets his hand linger, cradling my cheek once again.
“My life didn’t have much color until you came along,” he says seriously. “You brought all the color into my life, with your flowers and your sundresses and your kind smiles. The way you live your life in full bloom.”
God, this man. I lean my cheek into his palm and close my eyes for a moment, just taking in everything he said and everything it means for us.
He’s here to stay. He loves me.
He would go anywhere I go, though I have no intentions of leaving Port Myles. It’s exactly what I’ve always wanted – for someone to choose me. To prove that sometimes, love really is enough.
I pull back and look into the eyes I hope to see staring back at me for the rest of our lives.
I want to see his handsome face in every iteration, as it matures with age and wrinkles settle at the corners of his eyes, and the crease by his mouth deepens from decades of laughing together.
I want to see his tattooed hands cradling our newborn baby someday, and reaching for mine as we weather all of life’s storms together.
When he drops his hand from my face, I grab it and twine our fingers together. Before I can say any of the thousand things I probably should right now, something occurs to me.
“Wait – when did you get that tattoo?”
Declan shrugs. “Couple days ago. Tuesday, I think?”
I blink several times, hoping to ward off the tears that are threatening to spill over.
“Even after everything that happened at the wedding, you were that confident in us – in me – to get a permanent reminder inked onto your chest?” If I sound incredulous, it’s only because I am.
Declan shrugs with a sheepish grin and runs a hand over the back of his head. “Just had a hunch things would work out,” he admits. “I was willing to wait however long that took.”
“I love you,” I tell him, because he deserves to hear those words again and again. I might not be able to erase the memory of all the years he went without hearing them, but I can try.
“Fuck,” Declan mutters. His eyes flutter closed, and when they pop back open, they’re filled with a mix of hope and fear and anguish and love, so much love I could swim in the depths of it. “Gonna take me a bit to get used to hearing that.”
“You will,” I assure him. “I meant everything I said before. I’m going to start seeing a therapist and work through the anxiety that’s been holding me back. I’m done letting my fears control me.”
I take a deep breath for courage. If Declan can lay all his cards out on the table, along with his bruised and beating heart, then so can I.
“I want to be with you,” I promise him. “I want to walk hand-in-hand down Main Street without worrying who’s watching, or what they’re thinking.
I want to officially introduce you to my family, this time as my boyfriend.
” I swallow past the lump in my throat, wondering exactly how many cards is too many to lay on the proverbial table.
“I want you today, tomorrow and seventy years from now, if you’ll still have me then.
I want to get you the dog you’ve always wanted, and I want to create a tiny person who’s half me, and half you.
If that’s something you want,” I hastily add, realizing we’ve never discussed children before now.
“I do,” Declan assures me. “God, Elsie, I want that so badly.”
I smile at the eager, earnest way he loves me.
“When we’re old and wrinkled and gray, sitting in our matching rocking chairs on a front porch somewhere in this town, I want to look back on all of the years between then and right now, and know that I didn’t waste a single minute that I could have spent with you. ”
Declan snakes an arm around my waist and tugs me close, kissing me deeply. I can’t help the way I sigh happily against his lips when his tongue meets mine.
When he pulls back slightly, he’s grinning.
“I’m not going to ask you to marry me right now, because you’re in the middle of your work day, and we have an audience, and we’ve only been an official couple for about five minutes, and that would be insane,” Declan says, though he raises his eyebrows like he’s challenging me to disagree. “Right?”
“Absolutely certifiable,” I agree, ignoring the fleeting, foolish pang of disappointment.
“I am going to marry you so hard someday, Elsie Carmichael,” he vows.
Our audience has apparently grown tired of being silent observers, because they all start to clap and cheer.
It’s not until I glance over Declan’s shoulder and take a good look around us that I realize our audience has quadrupled in size.
At some point, the tattoo and piercing crew slipped through the door along with their customers, and several people out on the sidewalk are peering curiously through the front windows.
Noah holds his phone out in front of him, where four little squares on his screen show Ty, Grace, Olivia and Cam on Facetime.
I can’t make out what they’re saying, but I hear a screech that’s unmistakably Grace.
“Bet you never pictured this when I was cursing you out for stealing my parking spot,” I joke.
Declan’s mouth quirks up into my favorite cocky smirk.
“Honey, I’ve been picturing you being mine since exactly that moment.
” He leans close, his lips hovering near my ear as if he’s about to tell me a secret.
“Even when you called me motherfucker with your window rolled down and probably thought I couldn’t hear. ”
My cheeks heat at the memory. I most definitely did not realize he could hear that.
“And yet, you still fell in love with me anyway,” I muse.
Declan rakes his eyes over me from the top of my messy-haired head to the tips of my sneakered toes, the same way he did that first time we met – though there’s an undeniable softness in his gaze now. When he leans in again and places his lips to my forehead, I nearly melt to the tiled floor.
“I never stood a chance.”