Chapter 3
Three
SIX MONTHS AGO
“One year,” Rosalie says, peering out at the road. “That’s crazy.”
“Maybe.” I watch her, behind the wheel, eyes on the road. “You’re sure you won’t get sick if you drive?” Rosalie’s night car sickness has gotten worse since winter hit.
“I’m sure. As long as I’m driving, I’ll be fine. You’re changing the subject.”
I chuckle. “I’m not.”
“Come on, you don’t think our best friends celebrating their first anniversary isn’t crazy? Fran and Callum have been married an entire year. It feels like just yesterday I was talking Fran down from borrowing Stella’s pottery wheel to remake that love scene from the movie Ghost.”
I chuckle. “Now that’s crazy. Fran and Callum being married a year—not bizarre at all.”
“It’s a little bizarre. It happened so fast.” She glances over at me, her long blonde hair trailing down her back after tugging it out of a bun. “You don’t feel like it was just yesterday that Fran was forcing Cal into movie-esque dates while his feelings were in full-on denial.”
“Not yesterday. And it wasn’t that fast.”
She gives me one of her classic glares. “You’ve always had an unhealthy handle on time.”
“Unhealthy?” I laugh. I am tempted to pinch her sides, but she’s driving, so I’d better not. “Because life feels on time to me? Because I don’t think our friend’s relationship is rushed.”
“Yes. Unhealthy. And I don’t think their relationship is rushed. It’s just been a quick year. An even quicker six months.”
“So it doesn’t fly by for me like it does for you.” I shrug and slide my passenger seat back a little. My legs need a lot more room than Rosalie’s.
She huffs, both hands gripping the wheel. “But time also doesn’t drag for you. You are incorrigibly realistic in the matter of time.”
I can’t help but chuckle again. She’s just so passionate about this. “I don’t know, Rose. A minute is a minute. An hour is an hour.”
Rosalie flicks her eyes in a roll. “Does it really feel like we’ve been together as long as we have?”
“Does it feel like I’ve been in love with you for a year and a half—”
“You were not in love with me the day we met,” she growls, but she can’t stop the smile that swells her cheeks.
“I was. And yet, you still haven’t accepted my proposal. Maybe it has been a long year. At least, this wait feels like forever. See? Not incorrigible. In certain matters, my handle on time is very unrealistic.”
Rosalie sighs and gives me another childish glare. “Zevulun Hayes, you have not proposed to me. You can’t say you’ve been waiting forever when you’ve never actually popped the question.”
“I have. Four times, in fact.”
Rose turns onto the freeway to take us back to Reno—we will have forty glorious minutes to banter about how long I’ve loved her. And how many times I’ve asked her to be my wife.
“Telling me that you’ll do all the cooking when we’re old if I do the shopping is not a proposal.”
“Actually, it is.” I stretch out my arm, resting my hand on the headrest of her seat, my fingers lightly brushing the skin at the back of her neck.
“Also, telling me that I can name all of our children—” She glances from the road to scowl at me. “Not a proposal.”
“I disagree. Pretty sure that one is as clear as day.” I watch her side profile, waiting for the slight wrinkling around her eyes—a sign she’s fighting a smile. “What about telling you I’d like to love you for the rest of my living days?” I used that one last week.
She clears her throat, remembering that sweet moment just as I am. Her lips purse in determination though. “That’s not a proposal either.”
“I see.” I huff out a long breath. I hadn’t planned to do this here, but then, we are talking about it, and I have been waiting for the right time. “Then what about Rosalie Noreen Conrad—”
“Zev,” she hisses, her knuckles turning white around the steering wheel.
“I’ve loved you since the day I laid eyes on you lecturing Callum in that elementary school gymnasium.”
She blows out a raspberry.
“And it would be the greatest blessing of my life if you’d agree to be my wife.”
Her jaw clenches. “Zev,” she whisper-lectures me.
I trace my finger over the skin on her neck. “Is that a good enough proposal for you?”
“I am driving.”
I mimic her latest sigh. “Then maybe you should pull over.”
Her eyes rove over my face before returning to the highway. “Zevulun,” she grumbles.
My heart thumps in my chest. I’ve left it all out there. All I need now is an answer. “Come on, Rose,” I say, my tone hushed. “Marry me.”
Thankfully there isn’t a car behind us, because that girl slams on the brakes so hard that my seatbelt locks up.
She pulls off to the side, aggressively jerks the car into park, then swivels her body and her glare until it’s facing me.
“You were saying?” she says, her baby blue eyes peeking out through thin slits.
But I’m not afraid. “Marry me.”
She shakes her head and scoffs.
But I am in earnest. I reach out, cup her cheek in my hand, and pull her gaze to mine. “Rosalie, I love you. Marry me.”
“You aren’t serious,” she says, but her tone is weak.
I inch my face closer to hers. “There is a ring burning a literal hole in my wallet.”
“There isn’t,” she says, leaning my way.
“There is.” I trace my thumb over her cheek.
Her voice is shaky and her eyes drop to my lips—oh how I love those baby blues. “Wrong use of the word literal,” she says, her voice quiet and raspy.
“I’ll show you the hole,” I say, tilting my head, taking in her expression.
But I don’t get to pull out my wallet or that little diamond ring. Rosalie claims my lips with hers, shutting me up with a kiss. Her fingers grapple at my shirt, fisting the fabric and tugging me closer to her in the cab of my car.
She’s sweet, like the coconut cake we had at Fran’s, and soft, like the down pillows that adorn her bed. She is my favorite human on the planet, and I’d do just about anything to make her mine.
“Is that a yes?” I whisper when she separates our lips and pulls in a breath.
“Zev, you actually have a ring?”
I let go of her just to prove that I do. I pull my wallet from my pocket and pull out the white gold band and small oval diamond.
A delirious laugh bubbles from her throat. She slaps a hand over her mouth and stares down at the ring pinched between my fingers. Her head bobbles in a shake. “I thought you were teasing.”
“Why would I ever tease when I’ve never wanted anything more? Now—answer the question.”
Her eyes flick to mine, and the corner of her lips tug up in a grin. “Yes.”
Yes.
I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until Rosalie uttered that one-syllable word.
But before I can put the ring on her finger, before I can kiss her in celebration, bright blinding headlights burn our eyes and block Rosalie and everything else from my sight. The blaring horn of a semi sounds.
And then everything before me goes black.