35. Tea and Tissues #2
But…it’s not like it was even a week ago.
The driveway has string lights, and someone has added paper lanterns to the trees. They hang in low, warm clusters, lit even though it’s not yet dark.
The house comes into view. The porch we redesigned six times until we were sure it was perfect is covered in flowers—small arrangements in every color sitting in mason jars in various sizes. Each and every one of them has sweet peas.
I don’t realize my fingers are digging into his thigh until he turns my hand palm up and laces his fingers through mine. “Trust me, sweetheart.”
“Cole.”
“Yeah?” He puts the car in park.
“What did you do?”
He chuckles. “I built you a porch.”
“Is that all?”
He kisses the tip of my nose. “Not even close. I made you a porch. And the residents of The Haven are about to clap from across the marsh because they can’t help themselves, and Stanley got a megaphone he’s been forbidden from using, and Bea has, against her better judgment, told me what verb to use.
Nana Mae is sitting somewhere with a glass of wine, pretending she had nothing to do with this, and I’m going to need you to go up those steps with me, Junie, because I’ve been planning this for months and the alternative is I burst into flames. ”
“Bea told you the verb?”
“She did. She said it would be helpful for us both.”
“Today?”
“This morning,” he confirms.
“Freaking Bea. She should’ve just sent me home with the whole damn box of tissues.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. Now, let’s go.”
The floral-covered porch smells like the best day of my life. Glowing lanterns frame our wide-open front door, showing me the entry I helped design.
Cole takes my hand. “Junie.”
I tear my gaze away from the home I’m impatient to see.
“I had a speech,” he says shyly.
“Did you?”
“I did. A really good one too. Hudson helped me write it. Fen added his…Fenisms. Nolan threatened to read it aloud at the rehearsal dinner if I screwed up the proposal, which suggests Nolan is more confident than I am that there will be a rehearsal dinner.”
My throat is too dry to speak.
“The speech was…” He glances over my head. “It was fine. It had three sections. Supporting evidence. An emotional hook. A solid theory. But now that I’m standing on the edge of our forever, I can’t remember a single word of it, so I’m going off script.”
I’m going to cry. Again. More proof that the new Junie is a freaking crybaby.
“I’ve been in love with you for longer than I’ve ever allowed myself to acknowledge.
I fell for you in stages, over many life events, and years that crossed like lifetimes.
I’ve loved you longer than I’ve been doing anything else in my entire life.
I built houses to give to you. I built a community to keep you safe in.
I built a quiet, full, terrified life around the absence of you, and I built it well enough that I almost convinced myself I was fine.
But I wasn’t. I am, as it turns out, only fine when you’re within shouting distance. ”
“Cole.” Oh, God. I sound like a frog.
“I’m not done.”
Good. I’m not ready to speak yet.
“You sat on my grandfather’s old dock with your feet in the water, and you told me you didn’t know who you were and that you didn’t think I knew who I was either. You told me you wanted a break—”
I shake my head, and a tear slips free. He wipes it away with his thumb and continues speaking.
“But then, you didn’t take one. You stayed.
I’ve spent the months since that night trying to be the man who deserves the version of you who stays.
I’m a work in progress, but I can promise you that I’ll try.
That I’ll keep trying every day of our lives because you’re it for me.
You are my forever, and I’m asking you to keep letting me try. ”
He reaches into his pocket while dropping to one knee, and my throat holds air hostage.
“You’ve released your ghosts, Junie, and you’ve helped me harness mine.” Cole pulls out a small velvet box. “Those are some pretty good verbs, huh?”
I choke on a garbled laugh as he opens the box.
What’s inside isn’t a replacement.
It’s so much more.
Three bands of pavé diamonds. The top and bottom sparkle in their symmetry. The middle row is slightly bigger than the others. Somehow, the three work in perfect harmony.
“Three bands,” Cole says. “For our past, our present, and our future. I want you to wear it on your right hand, because Nana Mae’s diamond is where it was always meant to be.
But this one, this one is us. It’s our messy beginning, our hard-earned story, and our happily ever after all together, just as we were always meant to be. ”
My tears are coming so fast I can barely make out his face.
“Juniper Mercer. Will you marry me?”
In less than three seconds, I take inventory of my feelings.
I’m not tempted to run.
No part of me is trying to lash out.
Every part of me is screaming yes.
“Yes,” I say.
Cole’s face warms in a way I will think about for the rest of my life.
“Yes,” I say again louder when he doesn’t move. “Yes, Cole. Yes. But I need you to put that ring on my finger and kiss me before I start making up stories about what’s happening here.”
The ring is a perfect fit.
His lips are the perfect touch.
Our hearts are the perfect match.
“She said yes,” he yells out over the marsh.
And as anticipated, The Haven residents respond exactly the way I’d expect them to—with cowbells, golf cart horns, and Stanley’s whoop of joy through a megaphone.
“We have about four minutes before they come racing up that driveway,” Cole says.
I laugh and hug him tighter.
They arrive in less than two.
“Junie.” Nana Mae reaches me first with the help of Hudson.
“Hey, I thought you weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow?”
Hudson winks. “You think we’d miss this?”
Behind him, Nolan and Fen are helping The Havens out of their golf carts.
“You said yes,” Nana Mae says. She doesn’t say anything else for a long moment. She kisses my hands, the right and then the left. Then she kisses Cole’s cheek. She takes one long look at us before she assigns herself mayor and starts handing out champagne.
Nolan and Fen join us next.
“I drafted a prenup,” Hudson says, hugging me awkwardly. “Cole rejected it. But I want it on record that I tried.”
“Noted,” I say. My eyes roll so hard they ache.
Fen hugs me next. His is longer, and true to character, more theatrical. He lifts me off my feet and swings me around. “What are we going to call you now that we’ve retired Spite-Berry and Petty-Betty?”
“Oh,” I laugh. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”
“I don’t think she’s lost the Spite-Berry side of her,” Nolan says. “I think she just finally learned when to utilize it.”
Fen sets me down on my feet. “That true?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“I love you, you little menace.”
“Love you too, Fen.”
Nolan stands off to the side with his hands still in his pockets. Then he pulls them out and opens his arms wide. I fall into him just like I did when I was five. “Junebug,” he whispers into the side of my head.
“Noley.”
“I think,” he keeps his voice low. “You’re the most amazing person I know, Junie. Despite who Anna tried to make you, you chose love. That’s something she was never able to do.”
I hug him harder. Over the last few months, I’ve opened up to him and Cole about what Anna used to say to me.
I think it broke my brother in ways he’s still trying to come to terms with.
But opening up to them did what Bea’s trying to teach me to do now—it released the shackles caused by a hurt woman who only knew how to hurt others.
“I’m so damn proud of you for fighting for this, Junie. This love that you and Cole have? Not everyone gets it. I’m so happy you found it and let that love in, baby sister.”
“Thank you, Nolan,” I sniffle into his chest. “Thank you for always loving me, even when I made it nearly impossible.”
Cole growls at my side right before he pulls me back from my brother. Stinking Neanderthal.
“You were never impossible to love, Junie,” he says, staring straight at my brother.
“He’s right,” Nolan says. “Loving you is the one thing I think we all did right.”
Behind us, Stanley shouts into the megaphone while Marley chases him with a ticket in hand.
Dollie and Nana Mae are setting out food while Frank photographs everything.
Katie stands with Bea at the punch bowl, but it appears Bea is forcing coffee on Katie, and her cackle of laughter tells me she’s tipsy enough not to care.
Music plays from speakers strategically placed throughout the property to blend in with nature. And Cole leads me in a dance, right here on our front porch with all our friends and family watching.
“To Cole and Juniper,” Nana Mae says over the crowd with the help of Stanley’s megaphone.
With the side of my face pressed into Cole’s chest, I’ve never felt so…content.
“Welcome home, sweetheart.” Cole’s words kiss across the top of my head, so I tilt my face up to look at him.
“You’re going to be my husband.”
“And you’re going to be my wife. Soon.”
“Soon,” I agree because we’ve already wasted too much time.
“I love you.” Those three words are the salve I’ve always needed in my life.
“I love you too.”
Amongst the faces of our family and friends, I see all the different versions of me. The woman I was. The woman I am. The woman I’m about to become. And all of them are finally in agreement on something…
We’re going to stay.