Chapter 36 #2
Later, I realized what it was.
Hope.
She tasted like hope.
I think about the last time I saw her. The promise I’d be back.
We found a way. And now I’m driving toward it with a ring in my pocket and a new name and no idea what I’m going to say when I see her.
The Blue Door is exactly how I remember it.
Small. Cozy. The kind of place that smells like butter and sugar and everything good in the world.
I park across the street. Sit there for ten minutes, trying to remember how to breathe.
I testified against the most dangerous man I’ve ever known. And can’t walk into a bakery?
I get out of the car.
The bell over the door chimes when I walk in. The sound is cheerful, welcoming, completely at odds with the terror clawing at my chest.
She’s behind the counter.
Flour on her apron, the teal one, Dario’s gift. Hair pulled back. Laughing at something a customer just said.
She looks up. Sees me. Freezes like she’s just spotted a goddamn ghost.
Her hand flies to her mouth. “Saul said, I mean, he called, but I thought. Oh my fucking god, you’re here. You’re actually here.”
She’s already crying, mascara bleeding, mouth open in shock and giddy disbelief.
I barely have time to brace myself before she launches over the counter, crashes into me.
I catch her. Hold her. Bury my face in her hair and breathe her in. Flour and vanilla and that perfume Dario bought her, the one that smells like who she used to be.
“You did it,” she whispers. “You actually did it.”
“I had a reason.” I pull back. Look at her face. Memorize it all over again. “I had you.”
She’s half-laughing, half-sobbing, fist thumping my chest. “Don’t get all romantic on me now. I just did my mascara.”
I grin. “Can’t help it.”
She wipes her eyes with the heel of her hand. “You’re so fucking cheesy. It’s disgusting.”
I kiss her. “You love it.”
Behind her, I’m vaguely aware of customers watching. An older woman at a table near the window is openly staring, a scone forgotten in her hand.
I don’t care. I reach into my pocket. Pull out the box.
Stevie goes still.
“I’m not good at this. I’ve never been good at words or romance or any of the things that come easy to Dario. I can’t buy you the world. All I have is.” I open the box.
The ring is simple. Silver. Nothing special except for what it means. “All I have is me. And I know that’s not much. I know I’ve done things that should make you run the other direction. I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to make up for it.”
“Enz…” She stops. Catches herself. “Nate. God, Nate, you can’t just.”
Her voice breaks on my new name. Learning how to say it. I love the way it sounds uncertain on her lips, like she’s trying it on for the first time.
“I love you.” I sink to one knee. Right there in her bakery, surrounded by pastries and gaping customers and everything sweet.
“I love you more than I knew I could love anything. And I want to spend whatever life I have left being yours. Being better. Being the man you saw when you looked at me that first day, even though I didn’t know how to be him yet.”
She’s crying harder now. Both hands pressed to her mouth.
“I’ll burn your eggs every morning. I’ll probably burn everything else too. I still can’t bake worth a shit no matter how many times you try to teach me.”
I hold up the ring. “But I’m yours. If you’ll have me. If you’ll let me be your husband for real.”
The bakery’s silent. The woman with the scone is holding her phone up, probably recording.
I don’t care. I only care about Stevie.
She lowers her hands. Looks at me the way she did that first night when she saw past the enforcer to whatever was underneath.
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Yeah?”
“Yes, you absolute idiot! Did you really think you could walk in here, propose like that, and not get laid for the rest of your life? Get up here and kiss me before I start ugly crying in front of Martha and her scone.”
I barely make it to my feet before she yanks me in and kisses.
The bakery erupts in applause. The scone woman is definitely filming. Someone wolf-whistles.
I don’t hear any of it. I just hear her. Laughing against my mouth. Saying yes. Saying my new name like it’s something precious.
Nate. Nate. Nate.
I slide the ring onto her finger.
It fits perfectly. Of course it does.
Saul probably measured her finger while she was sleeping. That’s exactly the kind of thing he would do.
“You’re here,” she says again. Like she can’t believe it. “You’re really staying.”
“I’m staying. Permanently.” I press my forehead to hers. “I live here now. Husband of a baker. Future disaster in the kitchen. Whatever you need me to be.”
“I need you to be you. Nate. Enzo. Whoever you are. I need all of it. The burnt eggs and the wall-punching and the part of you that looks at me like I’m the reason you learned to breathe.”
“That’s the plan.” I kiss her again. Soft this time. “Nate Carter. Husband. Lover of Zoey Carter who is too good for him.”
She laughs, pulls me closer, and stage-whispers, “Welcome home, disaster husband.”
And for the first time in my entire life, I feel like I’m home.
Not because of the place. Because of her.
Because of the ring on her finger and the name on my license and the future stretching out in front of us like a road I never thought I’d get to travel.
Enzo Mancini is gone.
Nate Carter is just beginning.
And whatever comes next, the hard conversations, the complicated relationships, the four of us figuring out how to love each other, I’m ready.
I’m finally ready.