Epilogue #2
We eat our cake quietly, just getting lost in each other’s eyes, the low hum of music and laughter from the street below drifting past us.
The air is warm, humid, but luckily, there’s a cool breeze blowing in from the ocean at short intervals.
My body tingles, sated from today, my skin all sun-kissed and prickly.
When I’m halfway through my cake, I lean back in the chair and groan, patting my stomach.
Caleb eyes me like a hawk.
“I’m done,” I sigh, stretching. “I can’t eat a single bite even if you threaten me with a coconut.”
“Who has ever threatened someone with a coconut?”
“It could happen.”
“Right.” Caleb’s expression grows serious, his eyes darkening. The air between us shifts, becoming heavy with anticipation. Caleb reaches over and picks up a strawberry from my plate and holds it out in front of me. “At least eat your strawberry, baby. They’re really good.”
“I can’t,” I protest. “I’m all full.”
His jaw tightens, his gray eyes locked onto mine. “Eat your strawberry, K.” A shiver moves through my body, and I nod, unable to ignore the slight plea in his voice.
“Okay,” I whisper, accepting the strawberry from Caleb’s fingers.
He smiles tenderly, his eyes shimmering in the candlelight.
It feels like everything is on pause, like the earth stopped turning, and the entire universe is holding its breath.
My heart starts racing in my chest. I think Caleb is going to ask me to marry him, right here, right now.
No, I don’t think so—I know so. I see it in his eyes.
The way he looks at me with such wonder and a hint of fear, like he’s afraid I won’t say yes.
That I’ll maybe think it’s too soon, when the truth is, I’ve thought about it a thousand times already, ever since the day I moved in with him.
I love calling Caleb my boyfriend, but I’d love calling him fiancé and husband even more.
I lift the strawberry to my lips, and Caleb tracks the movement.
I open my mouth and take a careful bite through the layer of dark chocolate, the taste bitter on my tongue, before the berry’s juicy sweetness follows.
I lick my lips, savoring the flavor as I try to keep my nerves under control.
On the next bite, my teeth connect with something solid that definitely isn’t chocolate.
Tears gather in my eyes, then spill down my cheeks.
Within seconds, Caleb is next to me, engulfing me in his arms.
“Baby,” he hums against the crown of my head, holding me like I’m the most precious thing in the world. “Baby.”
I clutch the strawberry, crying against Caleb’s chest, and not in that dignified, pretty way they do in the movies, but rather in that hiccupping, snotty kind of way that’ll make my face all red and blotchy.
“I wanted it to be romantic. If you’re not ready, it’s okay. It can just be a ring. It doesn’t have to mean anything. Not unless you want it to. It can mean whatever you want it to mean.” Caleb’s full-on rambling by now, his voice blending with my hiccups.
I ease away from him, searching his face. He looks so worried, like he’s afraid it’s too soon or too much, when it’s exactly right and just enough.
“I want it to mean something,” I sniffle. “I want it to mean everything.”
Relief washes over his face, his eyes watery too, his voice shaking. “Yeah?”
“Of course!” I laugh through my tears, then look down at the mushed-up strawberry in my hand.
“Shit, let me get that.” He tries to salvage the red pulp, but he just makes it worse; the rest of the chocolate now melting against his fingers. “Fuck, this was the worst idea ever.”
I giggle almost hysterically as tears continue to trail down my cheeks. “How did you even get it in there?”
“Oh, it was a tight fit, sweetheart, but Camila helped me.”
We both stare at each other, Caleb’s words hanging between us. Then a mortified ewww spills from our mouths simultaneously.
Caleb places what’s left of the strawberry on my plate, then hands me a napkin. “It was supposed to be romantic. I saw it on YouTube.”
“It was. It is.” I try to stay serious, but I just laugh even harder as I watch Caleb pull out a silver ring from the remnants of the strawberry and chocolate mess.
“I had this whole speech planned.” He wipes the ring on his shirt, leaving a pale pink stain.
“I don’t need a speech,” I say breathlessly, my eyes glued to the ring.
It’s a simple silver band with a small blue stone in the middle.
“I just need you and that damn ring on my finger.” I hold out my hand between us.
Caleb’s breath is hot against my face, rushed and nervous.
Wrapping his hand around my fingers, he holds out the ring, and the stone glimmers in the candlelight, more turquoise than blue.
“I love you, Kayden,” he says, his voice low and serious.
“I love everything about you. I love our life together.” His jaw clenches, and he brushes his thumb along my ring finger.
“I never saw this coming. I never saw you coming.” It feels like my heart is ready to jump out of my chest because I never saw him coming either.
“We’re together all the time, and still, I want more.
We work together and we drive home together.
You fall asleep next to me, and I watch you, trying to make sense of how I ever got to be this lucky.
I look at you, how peaceful you look next to me, and I can’t wait for a new day to begin with you, because every morning when you open your eyes, you look at me like I’m your entire world. ”
“You are,” I whisper, and the tears begin again. “You are my world, Caleb.”
“You’re mine, too. My heart, my love, my life.
” He carefully slides the ring along my finger, the silver cool against my overheated skin.
I hold my breath. “I know you’re already mine, Kayden, but I’d love to marry you.
You’re already my boyfriend, but I’d love to be able to call you husband, too.
” Husband. The word echoes through my chest, igniting small fires in its wake before they spread to the rest of my body.
“Yes,” I cry, nodding furiously. It’s the easiest yes I’ve ever spoken. “I want that too. So much. I want to call you husband too.”
“Yeah?” Relief washes over Caleb’s face, and he suddenly looks so young and vulnerable.
“Of course!”
He pulls me against him, squeezing me impossibly tight, and I melt into him, our hands locked between us, Caleb’s ring on my finger.
He kisses me everywhere he can reach: my neck, below my ear, my chin.
He eases me away from him and presses his lips against mine, murmuring, “K, my beautiful K,” again and again.
It feels like my heart is going to burst into a million little pieces, for the wind to pick up and carry away, telling the entire world of my happiness.
When we eventually break away, we’re both panting. My gaze dips to my hand, the silver so pretty against my sun-kissed skin.
“It’s beautiful.”
“You like it?” Caleb asks, eagerness in his voice.
“Are you kidding me? I fucking love it.”
“Yeah? It’s a blue diamond. The color reminded me of the color of your eyes.” He says it like it’s just one of those things, and like he isn’t just killing me all over again with how amazing he is.
“I love it. I love you. I can’t wait to marry you. Because I love our life too. I love it so much. And this,” I brush my thumb along the ring, “is just—” My voice breaks, and Caleb pulls me against him.
“It is, isn’t it?” His voice is filled with warmth and wonder.
“It is.”
We stand like that for a long time, just holding each other, looking at the ring again and again.
“Kayden Somner-Morgan,” I eventually say. “It has a really nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
Caleb sucks in a breath. “It does. Would you want that? To take my name? Then I could take yours too.”
“Caleb Somner-Morgan,” I whisper, tasting his name together with mine on my lips. “Yeah, I’d like that. Then everyone will know that we belong together.”
“They will. I can’t wait.”
“Me neither. And I can’t wait to tell Mom.
To show her the ring.” Nervousness builds in my chest at the thought of Dad.
He’s only just gotten used to the idea of Caleb and me living together.
I have no idea how he’ll take this. I guess when Caleb is in, he’s all in.
My head is spinning, a thousand questions twirling around.
I look up at Caleb. “Do you think Dad will be okay?”
His fingers tighten around mine. “Sal is okay with it.”
It takes a few seconds for the words to register in my mind. Is. “You told him?”
“I asked him.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. Just before we left. I, uhm… I wanted his blessing because I knew how much it’d matter to you. How much it means to you that your dad and I are in a good place.”
“It does. Thank you.”
“That’s…” Caleb scratches the back of his neck. “That’s actually why I’ve been on the phone so much.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your old man. He’s been asking me every day since we got here if I’d proposed yet.” Caleb fingers the ring, circling the blue stone. “I was so nervous, I kept putting it off, that damn ring burning a hole in my backpack. So today your dad gave me the pep talk of all pep talks.”
“He did? Dad?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s so sweet. Dad all invested.” It means so much to me that Caleb asked Dad for his blessing, and that Dad gave it. “Let’s call them! Let’s FaceTime them, so Mom can see the ring.”
“Okay, baby.” Caleb kisses me lightly, then rests his forehead against mine.
We sway in each other’s arms, the Mexican moon shining down on us from above, the distant rushing sound of the waves breaking against the shore surrounding us.
I’m thousands of miles away from Barnacle Cove, and I’m still home.
Wherever I go, wherever I am, I’m home when I’m in Caleb’s arms. I’ll never feel lost or adrift again.
Caleb will always be there, a constant in my life, just like he’s always been, from the moment I was born, to when I was reborn as Kayden, and now, with his ring on my finger, and the promise of forever in his eyes.