Epilogue
One year later…
A familiar tiny presence came to stand beside me at the window.
“That’s a rose-breasted grosbeak,” Benji said, pointing at a little black and white bird with a red mark on its chest perched in the tree nearest the studio window. “It’s early.”
Cooper had gotten into birdwatching since we’d moved to the cabin, and Benji was absorbing everything he said about them like a sponge.
I was content to sit under the gazebo Cooper had, as promised, put up near the cliffs at the back of the property.
In the summer, we’d sat out there until past midnight, looking up at the stars.
Now that it was spring again, we sat there in the evenings as the last of the light faded, and the two of them identified bird songs for me.
Avery teased me about going native. They were right—I had, and I loved every minute of my life here. Small enough to hold in both my hands.
More than big enough to hold everything that mattered to me.
“Rose-breasted because of the red?” I asked.
“Uh huh.” Benji nodded. “And grosbeak because it’s got a really big beak. For its size,” he explained. “It’s French.”
I smiled down at him and picked a curl to play with, heart swelling as he leaned into the touch. “Do you know you’re amazing?”
Benji half-glanced at me, one brow raised. He was learning to talk with them like Cooper did.
“Well, you are,” I said, stroking through his hair. “You’re amazing.”
“Who’s amazing?” a voice behind us asked.
I turned to look at Cooper, smile already widening before I saw him standing there in his stained overalls with a coffee in each hand—just like every day when he came to pick me up after work.
In the warm pre-sunset light streaming through the window he was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
Just like he was every day, in every light, every time I saw him.
But especially when he was bringing me coffee after a long day. I had every excuse—caffeine was good for muscle recovery, and I’d been running on it for so many years it made me sleepy now.
“Benji is. There’s a rose-breasted grosbeak,” I said, nodding toward the window.
Cooper crossed the room in two heartbeats, falling in beside Benji, who pointed the bird out to him. I stepped back, watching the two of them look at it with matching kid-at-Christmas expressions, my heart swelling so much it hurt.
Impossible as it seemed, I loved them a little more every day.
“Wow,” Cooper said. “Good spot, kiddo. If ballet doesn’t work out, you could be a… bird guy?”
“Ornithologist,” Benji annunciated with the kind of gravity only people under the age of twelve could muster.
“One of those,” Cooper agreed, ruffling his hair and turning to wink at me. To let me know he knew the word ornithologist but was letting Benji show off, I assumed. That was his latest parenting technique.
I loved him just a tiny bit more for it.
The two of them watched the bird for another minute or so before it flew off, sharing broad grins as they backed away from the window.
Benji tugged on Cooper’s overalls. “Ask him.”
“Ask me what?” I looked between two pairs of big brown eyes I couldn’t say no to. Whatever Cooper was meant to ask, I knew the answer was yes.
“Uh, if you’re ready to go!” he blatantly and obviously lied. It was easy to tell, because he had absolutely no practice at it. “Benji’s got, uh… homework. He wants your help with it.”
Benji turned a disappointed scowl on Cooper, lips pursed. I’d already known he was lying, but that confirmed it.
“Keep your secrets,” I said, lips twitching into a smile. I knew it wouldn’t be anything bad.
“What secret?” Cooper asked, striding over to my bag and hefting it over his shoulder awkwardly, since he was still holding both coffees.
Benji put his hands on his hips and tapped his foot. I wished his grandma had been here to see his pitch-perfect impression of her.
“Coop,” he said.
“What?” Cooper laughed. It would almost have been believable, except for the nervous edge to it.
I held my hand out for my coffee.
“Why don’t you ask me?” I asked Benji. “You know I’d do anything for you. Even if I wouldn’t do it for Coop.”
“I have to keep it a secret,” Benji said seriously. “And he has to ask. But you have to say yes.”
“Benji,” Cooper said, warning.
“Assuming it’s within my power, you’ve got a yes,” I said, looking between them again. What could he possibly have to ask me that he’d sworn Benji to secrecy over? It wasn’t even nearly my birthday.
It was our anniversary, I supposed. If you counted from our first kiss.
I liked to count from all our firsts, so I could think about how lucky I was at regular intervals. Not that I didn’t think it every day, but it was nice to have special occasions, too. Lots of them.
“You drink your coffee,” Cooper said, giving Benji a meaningful look.
I laughed, raising my coffee cup to my mouth.
And pausing when it… rattled?
I frowned at it, gently shaking the cup. It was lighter than it should have been, and there was definitely some kind of solid object in it.
I glanced at Cooper, whose ears had gone crimson at the tips. Then at Benji, who was grinning at me as he looked between the two of us, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.
For lack of a better idea, I popped the lid off my coffee and peered inside.
The whole world swayed around me at what I saw in the bottom. Heart pounding in my ears, I looked up to see Cooper so pale I worried he might faint.
A ring. A thin, white-gold band with the tiniest pale blue stone set deep in it.
So it wouldn’t catch on anything. Like my ballet tights, for example, which Cooper knew snagged on everything.
“I won’t hold you to that yes,” Cooper said, voice trembling.
I blinked at him.
“Are you kidding?” I asked, staring down into the cup. “Yes? Obviously, yes? You are asking me to marry you, right?”
A wave of relief I felt in my own stomach rolled off Cooper as he broke into one of his perfect gorgeous shy smiles. “Uh, yeah,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “That was the idea.”
I closed the distance between us in one long stride, practically crashing into him in my eagerness to kiss him. He made a startled sound but then melted into it, free hand landing on my hip and squeezing firmly as I threaded my fingers into his hair.
For Benji’s sake, I broke off approximately six hours before I would have liked to. We could pick up where we left off later.
“Hold out your hand,” I murmured, brushing the tip of my nose against his. Cooper obeyed and I tipped the ring out of the cup and into his palm.
“Put it on me.”
Cooper laughed, taking hold of my hand and raising it up so he could put the ring on.
“This is why you made me stick my hand in that modelling putty weeks ago,” I said as it slipped into place, the perfect fit.
Cooper would have objected to the idea, but he was a genius.
Maybe not the way most people thought of it, but there was nothing practical he couldn’t figure out.
The renovations on the cabin were proof of that.
As was our highly satisfying sex life, though I couldn’t exactly show people that as proof. Other than Avery, who marveled over the pieces of furniture Cooper had come up with to make things easier for me.
How could I not marry a man as perfect as Cooper was, if he was asking?
Cooper shrugged. “It worked.”
“I love you so much,” I said, kissing him again. Benji was used to it, he could handle one more.
“This is definitely a yes?” Cooper asked.
I kissed him one more time for good measure. “Definitely a yes,” I confirmed, bumping our noses together. “Let’s get out of here.”
Cooper passed me my cane once I’d pulled my sweater on, Benji took my hand, and the three of us walked out into the last of the afternoon light, toward the people mover.
Headed for home.