CHAPTER 28
Tessa
The bedroom is the big project to tackle today.
Boxes stacked three high along the wall, a duffel bag that didn’t make it past the doorway, his shoes already taking up residence on my side of the closet in a manner I’ve decided I’m not going to mention for at least another week.
The dresser is covered with his watch, keys, the worn leather wallet I bought him years ago for his birthday, and it touches me that he still has it.
All of it taking up permanent residence in my residence.
Well, our residence.
That word still does make my pulse jump.
Permanent.
It’s what we easily fell into and it crosses my mind more than once—a gentle chastising my conscience throws at me—that I could have had this five years ago and a lot of time has been wasted.
I’m standing beside the bed breaking down an empty box while Cole moves between the closet and the duffel with systematic efficiency.
He’s exceptionally hot today in a gray Henley with the sleeves pushed up over his muscled forearms and I keep losing track of what I’m doing because I can’t stop looking at him.
“We should get a dog,” I say.
He doesn’t peer up from the duffel. “Okay.”
I wait. “That’s it? Just okay?”
“Did you want a debate?”
“No, but… what kind of dog?” I ask.
He glances over his shoulder. “A big one.”
“I was thinking small,” I reply primly. “Fluffy like a Havanese or a Cavalier King Charles.”
Cole turns around fully and looks at me with an expression that is very patient and very clear. “No,” he says.
“You haven’t even—”
“A Cavalier King Charles,” he says, “is not a dog. It’s a throw pillow that needs vaccinations.”
“They’re sweet.”
“They’re decorative.” He turns back to the duffel. “We’re getting a real dog.”
I cock an eyebrow at him. “Define real.”
“One that could survive outdoors for more than forty minutes.”
“I don’t need it to survive outdoors.” I laugh. “I need it to sit in my lap while I’m writing.”
“Get a cat.”
“I don’t want a cat, I want a dog. A small fluffy one that I can carry in a bag if I need to.”
Cole puts down what he’s holding and turns around again. “You are not carrying a dog in a bag.”
“People do it all the time.”
“Not in this house.”
“This is technically my house.”
He gives me a look—one that means he finds me genuinely entertaining and is doing only moderate work concealing it. “German shepherd,” he says.
“Absolutely not.”
“Think about it… they’re loyal, intelligent, athletic—”
“They’re enormous,” I say dismissively. “They can’t fit on my lap, and besides… I have you if I want loyal, intelligent and athletic.”
He ignores my jab. “Labs are good.”
“Labs chew everything.”
“You train them not to.”
“Have you even met yourself?” I challenge. “You can’t even train yourself to put your socks in a hamper.”
He covers his heart with his hand, looking grievously pained. “That’s a low blow.”
“Golden retriever,” I offer, because I’m willing to negotiate.
He considers this. “Go on.”
“It’s fluffy and retrieves. It’s a compromise candidate.”
“It’s a dog that cries when you leave the room.”
“So do I,” I say with a grin, “and you seem fine with that.”
Cole’s eyes warm, his smile softening from banter to adoration.
It’s an expression he’s been wearing all week like he’s still surprised that we’re here, that this is real, that all of it worked out.
He gets that look and I lose my train of thought completely every time.
I almost capitulate on the German shepherd.
“Fine,” he says. “Golden retriever is a top candidate.”
He goes back to unpacking and I start on a new box, cutting the tape, digging through the layer of bubble wrap protecting what turns out to be a set of coffee mugs even though the box is clearly labeled Bedroom.
I hold one up. “We need to have a conversation about cabinet real estate.”
“Bernese mountain dog,” he says, ignoring the cup in my hand.
“Now you’re just changing the subject,” I chide.
He grins at me. “They’re great dogs. Calm, gentle—”
“Also the size of a love seat.”
“You said you wanted fluffy.”
“I said small and fluffy.”
“Fine. How about a Pomeranian?” he says.
I look up, skepticism twisting my expression. “Seriously?”
“I’m showing range.”
“You just went from Bernese mountain dog to Pomeranian. There’s a lot of disconnect between those two breeds.”
“I have layers.”
I laugh and it fills up the bedroom, easy and uncomplicated. It’s a sound that’s been coming out of me all week at unexpected moments, as though my body is still recalibrating to what happiness feels like.
I set the mugs aside and start on the next box. Cole is moving items from the dresser, making order in that methodical way of his. I dig my fingernail under the tape and rip it back, forcing the top flaps open.
Bubble wrap on top, same as the others, and I reach in.
My hand finds a small object. A box inside the box, velvet, palm-sized, an unmistakable shape I was not prepared to find on a Tuesday morning in my bedroom surrounded by coffee mugs and the ongoing dog debate.
I go completely still as I stare at it in my hand. It’s obviously a ring box and I think several things in very rapid succession, none of which make it as far as words.
“What is this?” I say, my voice sounding strangely level considering what’s happening in my chest.
“What does it look like?” Cole says, having moved to my side.
I look up at him and he’s staring at me intently, his casual unpacking energy gone. Just him standing in the middle of our bedroom with his hands at his sides and that deep expression of love on his face that I have never been able to look away from.
Cole gently takes the box from me, which is good because I’m not entirely sure I have a grip on it.
He opens it and I stop breathing.
Inside is a round solitaire on a simple band. It’s clean and elegant and completely, exactly right. I don’t know how he knew, because I don’t know that I knew, yet there it is sitting in its velvet bed looking like it was always going to end up on my finger.
Cole takes the ring out of the box. He doesn’t get down on one knee, which is very him. He stands in front of me, takes my left hand in his, and holds the ring between his fingers. He looks at me like I am the only fixed point in a variable world.
“We’ve done this backward,” he says softly.
“Well, we’ve done most things backward. Met at the wrong time, fell in love at a worse one.
” A pause, movement in his voice that isn’t quite steady.
“I almost didn’t get here. I keep thinking about that.
All the ways this doesn’t work out, and we don’t end up in this room.
” His hand tightens fractionally around mine.
“I am not interested in doing life without you. I’m not interested in playing it safe or keeping distance or any of the concerns I convinced myself made sense before you blew up every careful wall I’d built.
” He exhales, gives me a slightly sheepish smile.
“I would give up everything for you. I would burn down anything that needed burning. The only thing I won’t do is let you go again. ”
His eyes stay on me as my own sting with tears.
“Marry me, Tessa,” he murmurs. “Not because it’s the next logical step and not because we’ve earned it after everything.
But because I love you and you’re my person and I want to get old with you and argue about dogs with you until we’re eighty.
” The corner of his mouth moves. “Marry me and we’ll get the golden retriever. ”
I make a sound that is embarrassingly close to a sob and is absolutely also a laugh. “Yes,” I exclaim, nodding my head so hard I’m afraid I’ll cause brain damage.
He slides the ring onto my finger and it fits perfectly. Just the way he fits into my life, like he was always meant to be here.
Cole cups my face in both hands and tilts it up. He kisses me how he kissed me in the cabin, how he kissed me after every hard moment, a promise for all eternity. I grab the front of his Henley with both hands and kiss him back with everything I have.
When we finally break apart, he rests his forehead against mine.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you,” I say back. “And I’m so deliriously happy right now, I might even concede on the German shepherd.”
His chest shakes against mine. “I think the golden retriever will be just fine for both of us.”