Epilogue #3
“Yeah.” He says it like it’s no big deal, like he didn’t just make this grand gesture because we’ve been married for half a year.
He takes a piece of licorice from the package, ripping off the top with his teeth and chewing.
Now it makes sense why he wanted to rent a truck instead of one of the fancy cars he usually likes.
He usually hates trucks. He complained the entire time we borrowed Luke’s truck again to bring the rest of my stuff over from the cottage when I officially moved in with him a couple weeks after my birthday.
I look down at the package of bright red candy. “How did you even know about this place?”
“Honestly?” He swallows the licorice, his throat bobbing with the motion.
“Yes, honestly.”
“I came here once a few years ago when we were in college. I may have stalked your Instagram once or twice, so I knew where you went to school.” He clears his throat.
“Anyway, I came to California during winter break junior year. To this town. To see what you saw. To experience what you were experiencing. I found this place, and when I saw the sign for classic movie night, I imagined you coming here. By yourself, of course, because if I thought you came here with another guy, I would have barged into your dorm room and thrown you over my shoulder.”
I imagine him doing just that, and while now it makes heat pool in my core, at the time it would have made me hate him even more.
“Ever since we got back together, I knew I wanted to take you here one day.”
“This is—” His eyes dart to mine, boyish and hopeful. “The sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
He relaxes, throwing an arm around my shoulders and pulling me in closer. He smells like cherry and leather from his jacket, which he insists on wearing, California heat be damned.
“Dec, I—”
“Shhh. It’s starting.”
Sure enough, the screen in front of us turns to gray and the opening credits of Casablanca appear. A smile pulls at my lips as we sit and watch the movie together. “You know,” he says as the narrator starts speaking. “I’d already seen this movie before that day at your house.”
“What?” I mock-gasp, turning to face him, but he can see right through me.
A smirk plays across his lips. “You knew?”
“You were mouthing the lines the entire time!”
He shakes his head. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
I shrug. “You wanted to make me happy by watching it with me for the first time, and I wanted an excuse for you to come over. I think I had a crush on you.”
“Oh, did you now?” His tone is teasing as he wraps both hands around my middle.
“Maybe,” I say, laughing as he tickles my sides. “Stop, stop, I want to watch the movie.”
“Okay, fine,” he relents, pulling me back so I’m in the crook of his arm.
A few minutes go by, and I look up at Declan. He bends down, pressing his lips to mine. I open for him, and he slides his tongue against mine. He groans, but we don’t take it any further despite the growing ache between my legs. We have the rest of the night for that.
“Hey,” I say when we reluctantly break apart.
“Hi,” he replies.
“Tell me something else real.”
He thinks for a minute, running a hand through his dark hair. “You were my first kiss.”
My mouth drops open. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it. I told him that I remembered our conversation in the car, how I admitted to kissing him that day he fell asleep on my couch when we first met, but he was thirteen. Surely he had already kissed a girl by then.
“You—what? That can’t be right.”
“But it is. You stole my first kiss, Firefly.”
I turn back to the movie, shaking my head in disbelief when I feel something tugging at my finger.
I look down, and there’s a ring on my left hand.
My eyebrows knit as I sit up, letting Declan’s arm fall from my shoulder.
It’s hard to make out at first because it’s smoother, less textured, but when I look closer, I can see that it’s made out of a champagne cage.
In the center is a teal-blue gemstone with pointed ends, and on either side, three clear stones that look almost like... wings.
It’s a firefly.
When I look back at Declan, he’s on his knees in front of me. “I never got to properly ask you last time, and since you beat me to it when we were kids, I think it’s only fair that I get a chance to ask you now. Will you, Skylar Galloway? Will you marry me again?”
My other hand goes to my mouth, and I shake my head, tears already leaking down the sides of my hot cheeks. “Yes,” I whisper. “I’ll marry you as many times as you want.”
Declan flashes that boyish smile, the one he saves only for me. “God, I’m so in love with you, Firefly.”
I look at the man kneeling before me, this man who should have been my downfall but ended up being my salvation, and I know I made the right choice.
“I love you too,” I say into his chest, my tears collecting on the fabric of his T-shirt.
“Hey, hey. I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he says, lifting my chin up.
“It’s the good kind,” I assure him.
He smiles, and I snuggle into him as we watch the rest of the movie. At the end, just as Rick is about to tell Ilsa to get on the plane, I turn to Declan. “I get it now—why he lets her go.”
He doesn’t say anything. All he does is tip his chin up in a small nod.
We stay there long after the credits have rolled.
Long after the screen goes black.
After the Red Vines and the popcorn are nothing but empty bags.
We stay there, breathing each other in because we can.
Life gave us a second chance, and we’re not going to waste a second of it.
The End.