Chapter 23
Scottie
“We’re about to close;hope you don’t need much,” I say to the customer who has the nerve to walk through the door two minutes before eight.
“I only need the girl behind the counter.” He shuts off the Open sign.
I toss him the key to lock the door.
As soon as he steps behind the counter, I grab his shirt and pull him to me. “If you think I’m going to change my mind, you’re?—”
“What do you want, Scottie?” Koen asks.
I release him, eyes narrowed. It’s not what he said; it’s how he said it. “Sexually?”
He smirks. “No. Well, maybe we’ll discuss that later. What do you want out of life? Do you want to get married? Do you want a family?”
“Are you proposing?” I ask with a laugh.
He twists his lips, sliding his hands into his back pockets. “I don’t know yet.”
My heart skips more than one beat. Is he serious?
Before I lose all composure, I clear my throat and find a good answer to his question. “I …” I shrug as if he asked me about going for ice cream. “Yes. I mean, I’m not opposed to marriage or a family. We discussed this on Valentine’s Day.”
“What does that look like for you?” Koen keeps a serious face.
After another nervous laugh, I lean against the counter, hugging myself. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Do you want to be home with your kids? Do you imagine working full-time and sending kids to daycare? Do you imagine your husband staying home?”
Jesus. This is a deep conversation.
“I’m not sure my income would support a family if my husband wanted to stay home. Are you looking for a sugar mama?”
His lips quirk into a tiny grin. “No.”
“Koen, I …” I shake my head. “I don’t know how you want me to answer you.”
“Honestly.”
I frown. “I don’t know the answer. I’m not a planner. I live in the moment. I figure things out when the time comes.”
“Okay. Then marry me. And let’s figure it out as we go.”
Something between a laugh and a cough escapes my chest. “I don’t know my timeline for accepting wedding proposals, but I’m pretty sure it’s longer than two months.”
He sighs. “At the risk of sounding like I’m making a case for you to be with Price, I have to say that it’s possible he was pursuing you for that whole summer twelve years ago, but you were too caught up in your young mind to see it. Maybe you were too ‘in the moment’ to imagine a future. He probably wanted to love you the way I want to love you.”
Rubbing my lips together, I sort through his words. Does he have a point?
“Marriage has nothing to do with love.”
Koen narrows his eyes. “I’ll concede that you don’t have to love someone to marry them, and you don’t have to marry someone to prove that you love them. But I’m not sure it’s one hundred percent accurate to say marriage has nothing to do with love.”
“So why do you want to marry me if you don’t have to marry someone to prove that you love them?”
“I was raised to buy the cow before taking the milk.”
“Stop it.” I brush past him to the back room to hide my grin and retrieve the broom.
“Can I be honest with you?” he asks when I return.
I laugh. “When have you not been?”
“If I don’t factor in my life going off the rails— sending me spiraling downward with addiction for a good year—I’m a traditionalist at heart. I’m a descendant of Herb Sikes. I’m not a purist, but I’ve spent many Sundays in church with my mom and grandfather. I want a wife who wants to have children. I want us to raise our children—to witness their first steps and words. And I’m willing to work as hard as necessary to provide for my family and to be a good husband and father. I want sleepless nights and a minivan with sticky seats and snacks littering the floor. I want handprints on the windows and markers on the walls. I want to bust my ass to get my kids into bed before my wife falls asleep so that we can have time alone every day. I want to have the family stickers on our minivan’s window, the one with lots of kids. The one where the people in the vehicle behind us count the number of kid stickers and conclude that I need to stay the fuck off my wife for a while.
“And saying all of this to you scares the life out of me because I’m afraid it will suffocate every last ounce of your feminism. And that’s not what I want to do at all. We wouldn’t be equals. Nope. You would be the harder worker. You would be the one deserving the praise. Your part of this would be much harder than mine, but I want to believe it would be more rewarding, too. My mom stayed home with me and my brother until we were in school. And I can go weeks without thinking about my father, but I love my mom. I call her every day. And I want to be a great dad, unlike my father. But more than anything, I want my kids to love their mother to the ends of the earth.”
Whoa … just … whoa …
If he told me he lived on another planet and recently descended upon Earth, I would not be more shocked than I am right now. The look on his face is the epitome of honesty and raw vulnerability. He put it all out there.
“We’re over. Aren’t we?” He cringes.
It takes me a few more seconds to piece together my thoughts. Koen has dreamed of his future. I have not, at least not to this level of detail.
I slowly shake my head. “No. Uh … we’re not over. I’m just …” I continue to shake my head. “I’m trying to imagine it. What if I can’t have children?”
“Would you adopt?” he asks.
I don’t know, even though I’ve considered the possibility that I can’t have children. But I’ve never considered the part that comes after that. I’ve never had a reason to consider it.
“Scottie, say something.”
My gaze flits to his. Do I want to marry Koen and have a family with him?
“You want me to be a stay-at-home mom?”
He presses his lips together for a beat before nodding.
“I see.” I clear my throat. “I’m not sure what the definition of feminism is anymore. I think it’s changed, or perhaps it’s different for everyone. Mine is pretty basic. Women are equal to men; therefore, we should have equal rights and opportunities. Feminism should include all choices women make for their lives.”
“But?” he says.
“But nothing. I appreciate your honesty. There’s a long list of things I’ve come to love about you, but your honesty and transparency top the list. You’re unapologetically yourself. You own your mistakes and don’t hide what you want in life. There are no buts. What you said about your mother is so beautiful.”
Koen slides his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and lifts his gaze to the ceiling for several seconds. “I’m sure that sounded like I want you to be barefoot and pregnant for the next twenty years while chasing kids and canning tomatoes. But that’s not?—”
“You didn’t mention canning tomatoes.” The harder I try to hold in my laughter, the more it escapes as an unattractive snort despite my hand over my mouth.
He looks at me with heartbreaking vulnerability. “I love you, Scottie. And I don’t care if it’s been two decades, years, months, days, minutes, or seconds. This love I have for you is here to stay. And I don’t want you to compromise who you are or your dreams, but if you can imagine sharing even a fraction of my dreams with me, then marry me, because I would be the luckiest man alive to be part of yours.”
Crickets.
What does the girl say to the boy after he says all that?
“I need a minute.” I hold up a finger.
My reply only intensifies his anguish. Koen’s heart is out of his chest, in his hand, and he’s offering it to me. He struggles to keep from deflating, but he returns a single nod.
“Take all the time you need. I’m going to head home and walk Scrot.” He squeezes my hand while pressing a chaste kiss to my mouth. “Goodnight.” When he reaches the door, he sighs. It’s locked, and the key is on the counter.
“You’re leaving before I’m done thinkin’?” I step around the counter as he turns back toward me. My lips twist. “I thought about it. And I don’t know if anything in life goes as planned, but if making love, babies, and a life with you is even a potential plan, I’m in.Is there any better way to live in the moment than to experience life through the eyes of a child?” Tears well in my eyes like I’m seeing my dream for the first time. A flood of emotion fills my veins and takes my breath away. I think of the women who have come into the store holding their babies and how I’ve longingly looked at them without consciously allowing myself to desire that life because of fear.
Fear that I can’t have it.
But what if I can?
“I want that life, Koen,” I whisper, wiping my face. “I think you marrying me is the best idea in the history of all ideas.”
Koen grins a knocked-it-out-of-the-park grin. He takes two long strides to reach me, lifts me off my feet in a big hug, and kisses the life out of me while twirling me in a circle.
I giggle as he sets me back on my feet. “Let’s go to my trailer. I’ll come back and mop the floor later.” My hand slides beneath his shirt, teasing the waistband of his briefs.
He grabs my wrist. “Whoa. I thought we were waiting until marriage.”
“It was just a suggestion. Herb doesn’t have to know.”
“Know what?” He narrows his eyes.
“That we’ve had sex.” I tug at the button on his jeans. Maybe we can slide into the back room and get creative.
Koen steps away from me and buttons his jeans. “We haven’t had sex.”
I laugh.
He doesn’t. Not even the hint of a grin.
“Is this how you’re playing it?” I cross my arms.
He shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“When’s the wedding? Tomorrow?”
“Of course not. I haven’t met your parents and properly asked your father for your hand in marriage.”
Again, we have a silent stare-off.
“Fine.” I lift my chin, pulling my shoulders back. “It doesn’t matter to me. I can take it or leave it.”
“You’re a thirty-one-year-old virgin. What’s another six months to a year?”
Don’t react!
He’s baiting me. He’s going to make it halfway to his truck, turn around, and ravage me with his naked body.
“I don’t know if I’ll even like sex. So, yeah. What’s six months to a year?” I flash my teeth and bat my eyelashes.
Koen kisses me on my forehead. “Oh, you’ll like it. Night.” He exits through the back door.
I wait. Any minute now.
And I wait.
Then I see his truck drive past the front of the store.
“Oh, god.” I cringe. He’s not joking.