Chapter 40 Easton
EASTON
FIVE MONTHS LATER
It’s the Saturday before Mardi Gras—a big day in the many Boudreaux households as their parade is this afternoon.
In addition to all the insane smart-home features they’ve added and the hydroponic vertical vegetable wall, there’s a wing for Judy, and plentiful guest bedrooms for frequent visitors—me and Elijah, obviously, but also Betty and Carol Cabot and Paul, though it’s unclear to us which one of them he’s with.
I frequently suggest to Elijah that it’s both. He still does not find this amusing.
We spend longer in bed than we should, given all the excitement about the parade, but no one can fault us.
Our time together is sporadic, though I hope that’s about to change.
Elijah’s nearly done with his existing projects and transferring the rest of the business to a few of his employees, and my research is nearly complete.
..at which point I’m free to leave. These final months in Boston have been okay, but I’d prefer to be near all the people Elijah and I love.
I interviewed at Tulane yesterday and the guy who interviewed me knew all about my research.
He was also a Boudreaux, so I feel good about my chances.
Elijah and I won’t have a mansion with circadian lighting, but we don’t need one, either. I’m just thrilled we’ll be in the same place at last.
At the appointed hour, we go out to the car waiting to take us to our reserved seats on the parade route.
“Surprised you didn’t want to be on the float,” says our driver once we’re on the way.
I raise a brow at Elijah. Hawk invited us to sit on the float with them, but my significant other insisted we’d rather watch. I guess someone had to sit on the sidelines to cheer on Hawk, Kelsey, Judy, Betty, Carol, and Paul.
“One of us didn’t want to be on the float,” I correct, hoping to get a rise out of him, but he’s weirdly stressed and checking his watch.
“What’s up with you today?” I ask.
“I think that circadian lighting Kelsey put in the house is messing me up,” he suggests.
Which is ridiculous, of course. Kelsey’s entire home has been lit by daylight since we got up, the way most homes are. Nothing even changes until sunset.
I wonder, though I don’t say it aloud, if he’s worried Kelsey shouldn’t be on the float at all.
I’m worried. Her due date is three weeks from now, after all.
When we arrive, a security guard shepherds us through the crowd to the bleachers, where the extensive Boudreaux family’s guests sit.
The parade begins, with floats tossing beads and frisbees and hats and candy. Grown adults rush into the street to grab stuff, fighting with children over things they won’t even want in an hour or two, but no one seems upset.
“Did Kelsey tell you how far down the line they are?” I ask, squinting at the float now turning the corner.
He shakes his head. “She’s going to text us. She just said ‘somewhere in the middle.’ It should be soon.”
Sure enough, a moment later, the float Kelsey and Hawk had made in honor of their wedding turns the corner.
It’s a massive fifteen-foot-tall wedding cake made of white roses, with a life-size bride and groom on top.
Though I can’t see their faces from here, Kelsey has sent me the photos.
..the bride and groom are dead ringers for the two of them.
For someone who never cared about Hawk’s money, Kelsey is enjoying it despite her best intentions.
“Has anyone ever told you,” Elijah says, “that you’re statistically more likely to marry someone with the same first initial?”
Normally it’s me with the odd facts, and him telling me it isn’t the time. Apparently we’ve reversed roles.
“That does sound familiar,” I tell him. “I guess that’s why I’ve got Evan Martin saved in my phone as ‘backup’. Wait, why have they stopped?”
The float has come to a dead halt, thirty feet before it’s reached us. Judy and Hawk are surrounding Kelsey, and security is moving toward the float to help her down. In the distance, there are sirens.
Both of our phones chime at the same moment.
CAROL
Kelsey’s water just broke. We are on our way to the hospital.
Kelsey looks in our direction and appears to be mouthing an apology to us, which makes little sense but is also typical of Kelsey, worrying about everyone but herself.
We rush from the stands. By the time we break through the crowd, Kelsey has been loaded into an ambulance, and Hawk is climbing in beside her.
Elijah calls for a car. We help Judy in, then slide in beside her.
We’ve only been in the very full hospital waiting room for about an hour—most of the Boudreaux family is here, along with all of the Cabots—when Hawk walks out to announce they’ve had a seven-pound baby girl.
“Holy crap,” I whisper to Elijah, my shoulders sagging. “That was really close. She’s lucky she didn’t give birth on the float.”
Elijah says nothing, but he was tense when she climbed off the float, and he’s still tense now. We let the new grandparents—Hawk’s parents and Judy go first—and then about ten minutes later, Elijah and I go back with Carol and Betty.
Kelsey is beaming and certain of herself as she holds her daughter. Hawk is thrilled but far less certain, especially when Betty says something about how she could juggle three babies if she needed to.
We don’t stay too long—Kelsey’s yawning and Hawk will have a nervous breakdown if Betty tries her one-armed carry again.
Carol sighs. “What a close call. I can’t believe I tried to convince her to wait to go to the hospital.”
“You just wanted Elijah to do his thing,” Betty counters. “I mean...honestly, it would have taken another five minutes at most.”
Beside me, Elijah stiffens, while Carol gives Betty a sharp glance.
“I need a drink,” says Carol, dragging Betty off, “and you need to keep some things to yourself.”
I wait until we’re around the corner and alone before I ask, “Thing? What thing were you going to do?”
He runs a hand over his face. And laughs. “It was supposed to be a proposal.”
For someone with two advanced degrees, it takes me way too long to realize that he’s saying he was proposing to me.
“This sign was supposed to unfurl from the bride and groom’s hands, and then their faces would rotate...they looked like us on the other side.”
My eyes swim. “That’s incredible. That would be...the greatest proposal ever.”
He gives me a half-hearted smile. “I guess you’ll have to wait ’til next year.”
I stare at him. “You can’t be serious. I’m not waiting another second. Let me see the ring.”
He shakes his head. “You want a story like Kelsey’s, and you’re getting one.”
Which is when I finally realize how stupid and misguided I’ve been for a very long time. I couldn’t care less about having a story like Kelsey’s.
“What were you going to say?”
He places his hands on my hips, still smiling. “I was just going to say, ‘Easton, you’re the person I want to share the rest of my life with, and your first initial has nothing to do with it. Marry me.’”
I smile up at him. “Yes.”
His brow furrows. “Yes? But that wasn’t really it, Easton. I’m going to do it the right way. You’ve just got to wait.”
I shake my head. “I’ve already accepted. I don’t want any proposal but this one.”
He looks around us. “We’re standing next to an elevator and a public restroom. In a hospital.”
Okay, sure. It doesn’t hold a candle next to getting proposed to in Paris, or at a Mardi Gras parade. It probably isn’t even as good as being proposed to at a steak house because the guy’s forgotten you don’t eat red meat.
But that’s the thing about getting proposed to by the right guy. You don’t need the perfect story.
Elijah has always been the only part of this story that matters.
And I don’t need the story at all, as long as I have him.