Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Five
ETHAN
Nine months later
I had an epic plan. We’d take the canoe out on Glass Lake, row out to the island for a picnic, and I’d pop the question. It had taken everything within me not to ask her to marry me too soon. I wanted nothing more than for her to have my last name and officially be mine. On so many occasions, I’d almost said the words, but I wanted to give her time to feel comfortable and secure in our relationship. I needed to reassure her that I was here for her and I wasn’t going anywhere. After nine months, we were pretty solidly committed to each other, and when I realized May the Fourth was the day we had made plans to head to the lake with our friends, I knew it had to be then.
When I picked her up that afternoon, she was wearing a T-shirt with Han Solo’s face on it along with the words “I know” from the famous scene where Princess Leia proclaims her love to him.
I was about to tell her I liked it when she tossed a T-shirt at my face.
“May the Fourth be with you,” she said with a smile.
When I unfolded the shirt, I cracked up laughing at the image of Princess Leia telling Han, “I love you.”
I whipped off the Millennium Falcon T-shirt I’d been wearing, and Jessa’s eyes fell to my chest, which made me want to puff it out more. For years, I’d dreamed of having her look at me like that, and it still felt surreal sometimes when I caught her staring at my body.
“Shouldn’t I be wearing the Han shirt,” I said as I tugged on the Leia one.
“Why? Because you’re the man?”
“Well, yeah. I am the man.”
“You’re the one who said ‘I love you’ first, so you get to be Princess Leia today.”
“I get to be her? Are we role-playing now?” I winked.
“How would that go exactly?” she smirked as I opened the door for her, and she got in.
“I would kiss you right before you were frozen in carbonite.”
“Not very sexy,” she said.
I shook my head. “Not really. But when I rescued you and unfroze you, there would be an epic kiss.”
“Epic, huh?”
I reached down and tilted her chin up until she looked at me. Her lips parted slightly as I leaned in close.
“Our kisses are always epic,” I whispered just before I took her mouth with mine.
She didn’t stay seated. She pushed me back enough so she could stand, and I trapped her between my body and the car as we made out right there on the street. So much for her aversion to PDA.
“This will never get old,” she said between kisses.
“Nev” was all I could manage as she raked her fingers against my scalp and deepened our kiss.
“Promise you’ll never stop kissing me,” she said with a sigh.
“Never.” I finished the word this time.
She leaned away and gazed up at me with hooded eyes and swollen lips. I aimed for her mouth again, but she held her hand against my chest to stop me.
“I mean it, Ethan. I don’t want to be one of those couples that stops kissing each other. Like it becomes such a normal, everyday thing that it loses its importance.”
I cupped her face in my hands. “I promise.”
She gripped the back of my neck and drew my mouth to hers again, and we kissed a while longer before heading out to the lake.
Ellie and Cooper were home for the weekend, and we always tried to get together as a group when they were able to visit. I let everyone in on my proposal plan, and Luke was able to arrange for some fireworks to be set off that night for us. Like I said … epic.
Now, if everything went according to plan, it really would be.
Nervousness set in as I drove us out to the lake. I was prepared for some amount of nerves, but about halfway there, they hit me stronger than anticipated.
I usually held Jessa’s hand when we drove somewhere or rested my hand on her knee. But I knew if I touched her, she’d feel my hand shaking, and I didn’t want to give her even a hint of what was about to happen.
Thankfully, it wasn’t a very long drive out to the lake. We arrived after everyone else, thanks to our little make-out session. I opened the back of the SUV, and she came over and stood directly in front of me. I grabbed hold of the belt loops at the hips of her jean shorts and tugged her fully against me. Her hands came to rest against my chest, and she gazed up at me with this look that always took my breath away. The sun was shining on her hair, making the blonde glow around her head like a halo, and I lifted one hand and brushed a piece back from her face, tucking it behind her ear.
“I love you,” she said softly as she leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to my lips.
I smirked as I whispered, “I know.”
She smacked my chest and turned toward the vehicle to grab our camp chairs.
I told her to go on ahead, that I’d get everything else. In truth, I needed a few moments to collect myself from the surge of emotions she always brought out of me, but also from the underlying nervousness that currently distressed me.
“Hey, Jessa.” Luke fist-bumped her as they passed each other, then he joined me behind the vehicle. “Need some help, buddy?”
I didn’t reply.
“Oh, man, you look nervous.”
I shushed him.
“Like, really nervous. Did you remember the ring?”
My heartbeat stuttered in my chest as I opened my backpack and frantically searched through the pockets. It only returned to its slightly elevated rate when I confirmed the ring box was in a small side pocket that I figured Jessa wouldn’t be likely to look in.
I took the box out and opened it to be sure the ring was there, and Luke whistled.
“Shhh!”
“Nice ring. It seems like Jessa’s style.”
That was exactly what I thought when I saw it at the jeweler. A simple white gold band with a sparkly half-carat round diamond solitaire. Nothing flashy. “Yeah. Simple and beautiful. Like Jessa.”
“Are you excited?” he asked.
I smiled as I looked at the ring. “I am. I’m ready.”
“What do you think she’ll say?”
I frowned. “Yes, I hope.”
“I’m just messing. She’ll say yes for sure.”
I zipped the ring box back into the side pocket and left the backpack in the SUV for now with the little cooler I’d packed for our dinner. We wouldn’t need them until we headed across to the island.
Luke helped me carry a couple more chairs, the blanket, towels, and a cooler, and we joined everyone else near the water.
“No kids today?” I asked Jake and Tally.
“They’re with their grandparents,” Tally replied. “We needed a day to ourselves.”
“You look tired, Tal,” Ellie said. “A relaxing day will be just the cure you need.”
Tally exchanged glances with Jake. “I don’t think pregnancy can be cured.”
“What?” Ellie’s eyes bugged out of her head.
“Tally!” Penny cried.
“No way!” Jessa said.
“I’m six weeks along.” Tally’s face lit up with joy.
The girls shrieked and attacked her with hugs. The rest of us could’ve used earplugs to prevent the high decibel level from bursting our eardrums.
“Congratulations, Jake.” I gave him a fist bump.
“Thanks.”
“Hoping for a boy?” Luke asked.
“That would be nice,” Jake replied with a huge smile. “But a healthy baby is all we care about.”
“I want a boy,” Luke said as he sat down behind Penny, and she reclined against him. Her baby bump was showing more prominently now that she was four months along.
“We’ll know soon enough.” Penny gave him a wink.
“Did you have your ultrasound?” Tally asked.
“We did.” She looked over her shoulder at Luke again. “And we have a surprise for you guys. We’re doing a little gender reveal today.”
The girls were giddy, and I was honestly excited to know what they were having too. It made me think about Jessa and what it would be like to have a baby with her someday. We’d had a few conversations about kids over the past nine months. She wasn’t sure having kids was something she wanted to experience, but she did talk about adoption and how many kids out there were without a mom and dad. A part of me longed to have a child that was my own—part me, part Jessa—but I was beginning to think maybe God had different plans for me when it came to having a family, and I was on board with whatever those plans were.
But first, I needed Jessa to say yes to my proposal.
Luke went to their car and returned carrying a box with the mouth of a glass bottle poking out a hole in the top, a smaller box in his other hand, and a card table tucked under his arm.
“Back when we were lab partners in high school, we did this experiment called Elephant Toothpaste,” Luke explained as he set up the table and placed the bigger box on top and the smaller box on the ground. “We thought it would be fun to do it again to find out the gender of the baby.”
Penny joined him by the table. “We had the baby’s gender put in an envelope so we couldn’t see, and we gave it to Lucas’s sister, Steph, and she set up the experiment for us.”
Luke took a measuring cup out of the small box with what appeared to have powder inside it and proceeded to add water from a thermos. “Steph put in either red or blue food coloring for the gender and hid it in this box, and all we have to do is add a little yeast here to the bottle and see if we’re having a boy …” He stirred the water and the yeast together.
“Or a girl.” Penny beamed.
Luke handed her safety goggles and put on a pair of his own.
“Lovely.” She made a silly face as she donned the goggles.
“Baby doesn’t need mommy to have permanent eye damage from elephant toothpaste shooting into her face.”
Penny laughed. “Yeah, I’d like to be able to see what the baby looks like.”
Luke moved the table back a little from where we were all sitting. “Everybody ready?” His excitement was palpable.
“Ready!” we all cried.
Luke kissed Penny on the temple then focused on the experiment. “Here goes!”
He poured the yeast mixture into the bottle, and within seconds, pink foam came shooting out the top of the bottle.
“It’s a girl!” Ellie cried.
We all cheered as Luke and Penny hugged and kissed, then we surrounded them with hugs. It was exciting to see our friends reach this new milestone in their life. They were starting a family of their own, and it was touching that they chose to celebrate this part of it with us.
Jessa came over and stood in my arms, and we watched the elephant toothpaste continue shooting out of the bottle, making a foamy pile all over the table and down onto the grass around it until it fizzled out.
“A girl,” I said. “That’s exciting for them.”
“I wouldn’t know how to raise a girl,” she replied. “I’d have no idea what to do with her.”
“You are a girl.”
“But I wasn’t raised like one.”
“You were loved and taken care of. That’s what matters most.” I spoke with my lips against her ear. “And I’m really glad you’re a girl,” I whispered, which caused her to shiver against me.
When the excitement of the announcement wore down, everyone settled in for the day—relaxing, swimming, snacking, and enjoying each other’s company. Once the sun dipped lower in the sky, I nervously went and grabbed my backpack and the cooler I’d packed for our picnic dinner on the island.
“Wanna take the canoe out?” I asked Jessa as I walked past her toward the dock.
She jumped up and followed. “What’s all that?”
“I thought we could row out to the island and eat over there,” I said as I set my stuff in the boat.
Jessa climbed in and took one of the oars. “All aboard.”
Glass Lake was a small, no-wake lake, so I was surprised to see two young teenage boys flying across the surface on jet skis, causing waves to head our way as we rowed across the water. I wasn’t too worried about the choppiness at first, but when they made multiple passes and circled again, horsing around, and kicking up waves on purpose, I wished there was a police boat out on the lake to nip it in the bud.
“Hey! Knock it off!” Jessa yelled as the canoe rocked from side to side.
They didn’t listen, and one of them flipped her off.
“Jerks!” she cried. “Where are the cops when you need them?”
“I was thinking the exact same thing.”
She grinned my way, but then they circled near us again, and Jessa was having none of it. “Get off the lake, or I’m calling the cops!” she yelled.
I recognized one of them from church. “I’m calling your mom!” I shouted.
They clearly didn’t appreciate being told what to do because they aimed their jet skis straight for us and veered to the side at the last minute, causing rather large waves to head our way.
We tried to turn the boat, but we were too late. It tilted to the side and took on water, sending us over the edge, along with the cooler and my backpack.
“No!” I cried as I threw myself in the direction of the bag, trying to grab it before it went under. But it was just out of reach, and I felt like throwing up when I lost sight of it, sinking beneath the dark, murky water. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the cooler floating away on the surface, but I couldn’t reach that either. I’d never felt more helpless.
“Forget our stuff!” Jessa cried. “Look out!”
The waves flipped the capsized canoe and pushed it in our direction, and we went under just in time to avoid being knocked out. I surfaced in the pocket of air underneath the boat and spotted Jessa as she went under and swam out. I took a deep breath and followed.
Jessa’s eyes looked frantic when I emerged. “Ethan! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. You?”
“I’m okay.”
We worked together to retrieve the oars, flip the canoe over, and climb back in, which was not easy or graceful by any means.
“Teamwork makes the dream work,” Jessa said when we were finally back in.
I was thankful we were both safe, but my heart was at the bottom of the lake with Jessa’s engagement ring.
We rowed to the island and climbed out, and tears were close to the surface as we hauled the canoe to shore and plopped down in the same place we’d sat last summer the day of the tornado. This was supposed to be the place where I spoiled her with a picnic and surprised her with a proposal. Everything was ruined.
“You said you were okay.” Jessa elbowed me gently in the side.
“I am.”
“You don’t seem like you are.”
“It’s just … I had plans for us. Special plans. And now they’re ruined.”
“What kind of plans?”
I looked over at her, and my throat tightened as I fought back the impending tears. “Before I quit my job, I saved a bunch of money and bought you something I really wanted to give you tonight. And now …” I swallowed hard as I stared out across the water. “It’s fish bait.”
Jessa didn’t say anything, and when I looked over at her again, she gave me a sly grin.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
She raised her right hand, and there on her finger was the ring I thought had been lost forever. “Do you mean this?”