Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ten months later
Mardi Gras hit a little different the following year. Dylan wasn’t there. Emmeline would have murdered him if he so much as thought about leaving her alone with an infant.
André had taken the entire week off of work and got us a five-star suite on Bourbon Street, only blocks away from Mama’s place. It was a big trip for us. It was the first time I felt well enough to stay away from home.
The trial ended the week before Thanksgiving, and Regan was sentenced to thirty years, and immediately transferred to a high-security federal facility in Atlanta. He took his own life a month later, naming me as the reason why.
We spent Christmas in Georgia with my family, and my Dad passed soon after from complications of his Parkinson’s.
Although he was pretty advanced, I was glad that André got the chance to meet him.
When Dylan and Emmeline found out they were having a boy, then named him after both me and our dad—Harrison.
The visit helped me tie up all my loose ends in Georgia and with that, I made the permanent move to New Orleans—into the house that André had bought for us.
I found a job that I loved teaching an art class at a local community center.
André turned one of the empty bedrooms in the house into my studio and filled it with the best supplies I could possibly ask for.
He also surprised me with the week away for Mardi Gras.
After everything, we needed something that was just for us.
We didn’t have Regan to worry about anymore, but looking over my shoulder at every turn was a hard habit to break.
André, however, took it in stride. He’d been my world over the last year, and now I could finally love him the way he deserved. He had become everything to me.
I could enjoy Mardi Gras this year. André showed me off with pride.
He caught strands of beads, looping them around my neck and punctuating his claim with a kiss.
He took me back to Mama’s restaurant, and the food tasted better now—brighter.
As we left, she whispered a quiet, “Good luck” to André that they likely thought I didn’t hear.
That night, I was the one to pull André out of the booth and out into the streets.
I wanted that magic back. But this time, I wouldn’t just be pretending.
I wouldn’t be escaping from something. I could run toward something new.
I was finally free to figure out who I was behind the timid little boy who was simply fighting to stay alive.
About a block away from Mama’s restaurant, I looked over my shoulder—André had stopped walking. He’d paused about a foot behind me and was just staring at me. He’d been acting strange the entire night… the entire week for that matter.
“What’s going on?” I shouted over the music.
His answer was instant. “You scare me.”
Confused, I closed the distance between us. “Come again?”
“You scare me,” he repeated after a deep, shaky breath.
Taking his hand, I tugged him to the side of the road where there were less people. “Care to elaborate on that?”
André shoved his hands in his pockets, looking everywhere but at me. Green eyes sparkled beneath the lamplight.
“I wasn’t rich growing up, but I always had everything I needed.
I wasn’t spoiled, but I learned to work for what I wanted.
Now, I could get my hands on anything. Money isn’t an object to me.
I’ve spent ten years making a name for myself so that I could have that.
If my loved ones need something, it’s theirs.
I could literally walk out and buy anything, and be perfectly happy, and for the last decade, that’s been enough.
The nice apartment, the fancy car, the expensive suits…
I’ve never had to accept not having something that I wanted. ”
André paused, inhaling deeply. My heart thundered in my chest. What was he getting at?
“I can’t do that with you. I’ve never had someone in my life that I couldn’t see myself living without. I can’t spend a determined amount of money and keep you. I know that. I can’t make you stay if you don’t want to.”
The music, the crowd faded away. Only André and I existed in that moment. He stepped forward.
“I have to ask for you, and that scares the shit out of me, because it means that you can say no. I don’t know if I could handle that.”
“Ask for me? André what are you talking—”
My words hitched in my throat. André pulled a small velvet box from his pocket and sank onto one knee.
The box shook in his hand, but André pulled it open. A silver wedding band glittered, flecks of light bouncing off the tiny diamonds that rimmed the edges.
“I don’t know much about what it means to be in a serious relationship.
” His voice was starting to crack—and my vision blurred.
“But I do know that I love you. I know that I want to have you around for as long as I can, and if that means getting down on one knee and professing my biggest fear to you, then so be it. David Harrison Fischer, will you marry me?”
My eyes burned. Tears fell down both cheeks, splashing onto my shirt. I wanted to speak, I wanted to tell him that this wasn’t the only way to keep me around. Most importantly, I wanted to answer him.
If I was still adjusting to calling André my boyfriend, then the word “fiancé” would be one hell of a wakeup call.
When I spoke, my voice was barely a whisper.
“Yes.”