Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The Apartment
Brooks applied the bandage across my heel and then lowered my foot to the floor. “As good as new.”
If only he could bandage my heart so easily, I thought morosely.
“You need to text your friends,” he said. “Your phone keeps blowing up.”
“I don’t want to text them. If I text them, then Hadley and Salem are going to want to cheer me up and I don’t want to be cheered up. I want to wallow.”
“Your choice about how you want to handle this, but if you don’t at least send them a message, they’re going to show up—”
There was a knock on the front door.
“Unannounced,” Brooks said with a smirk.
“How do you know that’s them?” I demanded.
“Because I know.”
“How did they get into the building without a key?”
“I gave them a key.”
“You gave them a key?” I asked. “They could barge in here while we’re naked.”
“I made them promise to only use it in emergency situations,” he said. “And this is clearly an emergency.”
“You mind letting us in?” Salem called through the closed door.
“Some of us have to pee!” Hadley added.
Despite my funk, I smiled. “Why don’t you just use the key Brooks gave you?”
A key sunk into the lock and a moment later, Salem and Hadley blew in to the apartment. Salem went right to the counter and set down brown bags while Hadley beelined it to the bathroom.
“You staying, Brooks?” Salem asked.
“Up to Poet,” he said, looking at me.
“Would it hurt your feelings if I said no?” I asked.
He shook his head and leaned over to kiss me. “Just text me when I’m allowed back into the apartment.”
“Cas and Declan are at the Copper Mule,” Salem said.
“Then that’s where I’ll be.”
The door to the apartment closed just as I heard the toilet flush. Hadley came out of the bathroom while Salem removed bottles from the bag she’d brought.
“Did we scare Brooks off?” Hadley asked.
“No, he bowed out gracefully when Poet asked him to,” Salem said. “He’s giving us time to cheer up our girl.”
“It’s going to take a lot for that to happen,” I said, my tone dark.
“Which is why we brought the big guns,” Hadley said.
Salem pulled out a foil-covered dish. “Flourless chocolate cake with huckleberry syrup drizzled on top, huckleberry hard-cider for Poet and homemade ginger beer for us, because—babies.”
“Tell us what happened,” Hadley said as she moved around the kitchen to grab napkins and forks.
Salem popped the lid off a huckleberry cider and handed it to me.
“I didn’t get the loan,” I said. I took a sip and then another.
“We figured. When we didn’t get an excited call, we deduced that Mr. Perkins said no,” Hadley said. “Which is stupid on his part.”
“Very stupid,” Salem agreed.
The three of us piled on the bed, the flourless chocolate cake between us.
“You really need a couch,” Salem said.
“And where would I put it?” I asked.
“Good point. Try the cake,” she said.
I took a bite, the delicious chocolate melting on my tongue. “This is so good.”
“We made it this morning,” Hadley said. “It was supposed to be your celebration cake, but . . .”
I sighed. “Thanks.”
Hadley and Salem exchanged a look.
“We have something to run by you,” Hadley said.
“Hmm. What is it?” I took a drink of cider and waited for her to go on.
“We’ll finance the bookstore,” she said.
I looked at her and then at Salem, who nodded.
“You’ll what?” I asked softly.
“Finance the bookstore,” Hadley repeated. “You need money? We’ve got money.”
“No.”
“Poet,” Salem began. “We can help.”
“I know you can help,” I said, emotion battling its way up my throat. “But I can’t take your money.”
“Why not?” Hadley demanded. “We’re offering it to you. No strings attached.”
“We believe in you,” Salem added. “We believe in your dream. So let us help.”
I shook my head. “I won’t take your money. And I’d never ask it of you.”
“That’s why we’re offering,” Hadley said. “Besides, we don’t want you to leave.”
“Leave?” I frowned. “What do you mean leave?”
“We don’t want you to go back to New York,” Salem clarified. “Because why else would you stay?”
I blinked. “Aside from the cowboy currently sitting with your husbands at the Copper Mule?”
They exchanged another look.
My eyes widened. “You thought that was a crock.”
“No,” Hadley said quickly. “We didn’t.”
“You did. You so did. You thought this thing with Brooks was . . . well, what did you think it was?” I demanded.
“Not enough to get you to stay,” Salem finally said.
“I’m staying,” I stated. “Because of Brooks. Because of you two, despite how much you annoy me.”
“Think of the cake,” Salem said. “And be less annoyed.”
“Did I give either of you this much crap about your decisions?” I asked in frustration. “About Declan and Cas?”
“No,” Hadley said. “You didn’t. But without the bookstore . . . we thought maybe . . . the pull of your grandfather—and with Wyn still in the city—that you might go back.”
“You thought I was what? Playing house or something?” I asked.
“Or something,” Salem murmured.
Could I really be mad at them for thinking that?
“Your offer is so generous,” I said. “But you know I’d never take it. I’ll figure something else out.”
“So, you’re staying?” Hadley asked, biting her lip.
“I’m staying,” I promised.
The two of them wrapped their arms around me and then we proceeded to eat three quarters of the cake.
I messaged Wyn with a long paragraph of the best update I could muster.
While I was on my second cider, I texted Brooks to come back. I loved my friends, and I appreciated them so much, but he was the one I wanted to cry my eyes out to.
He’d hold me and murmur into my hair and promise me life would have a way of working itself out.
Declan and Cas collected their wives and with a somber farewell, the four of them left.
“You feel any better?” Brooks asked.
I shook my head. “They offered me money so I could open the bookstore.”
“Ah,” he said as he removed his boots and placed them by the front door.
“Aren’t you going to ask if I took it?”
“No. Because of course you didn’t take it.”
“Do you think I’m dumb for that?”
“No. I think your friends are like your family and taking money from family is never a good idea.”
I sighed. “Yeah. Where am I gonna get it then?”
“From me.”
I snorted. “No. We’ve already been over this. Besides, if I’m not taking money from Hadley and Salem, what makes you think I’d take money from you?”
“If you married me, it would be our money. Officially, anyway. It’s already yours, you just haven’t realized it yet.”
“You think I’d marry you just so I could feel okay about taking your hard-earned money and putting it into a business with a slim profit margin and only a moderate chance of success? Mr. Perkins’ words, by the way. I should’ve thought more about that stuff instead of living on vibes and a prayer.”
“You thought about those things already and chose to focus on how to offset that.”
“I’m still not marrying you for money.”
“Then marry me for love.” His eyes burned bright. “Marry me.”
I swallowed. “That wasn’t a question.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“I can’t marry you.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” I said weakly. “You don’t have a ring.”
“I don’t?”
“I’m not moving back to New York,” I said.
“I know that.”
“So you don’t need to propose just to keep me here. I’m staying no matter what. With or without the bookstore.”
“Come here, Freckles.”
I stalked toward him.
“Reach into my shirt pocket,” he commanded.
I extracted a velvet ring box. Taking a deep breath, I opened it.
On a black velvet bed rested a dainty diamond solitaire with small diamonds embedded around the entire band.
“Marry me because you love me. Marry me because you want my last name and my babies. Marry me because you can’t breathe without me. Because I can’t breathe without you, Poet.”
I looked away from the diamond ring that had grown blurry through eyes filling with tears, I stared up at him.
My throat was tight with emotion, rendering me speechless. So, I held out my hand to him.
He took the ring and slid it onto my waiting finger.
It was a perfect fit.
Of course it is.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he lifted me into his arms.
And then my fiancé took me to bed.