19. “IT JUST TAKES SOME TIME, LITTLE GIRL, YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RIDE, EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING WILL BE JUST FINE” #3
“How’s that going?”
“Not great, but I’m working on it.” He took a small step forward. “Did you know that you can love someone so much that the thought of losing them can make you physically ill? Like, physically ill.”
She nodded, because she did know. Her stomach had been killing her for days.
“The thought of losing you broke my heart, Jocelyn. I literally thought I was having a heart attack.”
“Stop.” She sniffled, unable to believe that anyone could feel so deeply for her.
“I’m serious. The paramedic said it was just an anxiety attack, but when I was on the kitchen floor unable to breathe, I honestly thought I was dying.”
Her head shot up. “What? What paramedic?”
“Wren didn’t tell you?”
She took a step forward. “No. Tell me what?” She was going to strangle Wren.
He waved her concern away. “It’s nothing.
Apparently, I have anxiety.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “I never felt anything so horrible before in my life. The thought of a future without you… It felt like having my heart clawed out of my chest. Thank God Logan had been there to call the ambulance.”
“Soren, are you fucking serious? It was so bad you needed an ambulance?”
“As serious as an anxiety attack, which—turns out—feels exactly like a heart attack.”
“Oh, my God.” She closed the distance, stopping only a scarce few inches in front of him. She wanted to touch him to make sure he was okay, but if she laid a single hand on him the last of her defenses would be lost. “Have you seen a doctor?”
“I saw my primary on Monday, after it happened. He ran more tests and told me to manage my stress. I asked him to write me a note prescribing you to forgive me, but he said no.”
Her chin trembled, her concern too big to laugh at his corny joke. “Are you okay now?”
He nodded. “I’m getting there. Working on fixing a few wrongs and prioritizing the things that matter most, like family.” He pocketed the dog whistle and lowered to one knee.
She immediately stepped back. “Soren, you don’t have to do this.”
“I do. This is what I want, Jocelyn.” He opened the velvet box, revealing a diamond so bright it looked like he’d plucked a star right from the sky.
“Jocelyn Collins—”
“Oh, God.” Her breath caught, and she wobbled. “I need to sit down.” Without thinking, she lowered to the flagstone and rubbed her temples. “Sorry. I haven’t eaten, and everything started spinning.”
“You good?”
She nodded. “Yes. Go on.”
“Jocelyn, you’re my best friend and the only person I can imagine spending the rest of my life with and never getting bored. If you agree to marry me, I grant you permission to boss me around and break my balls for the rest of your life.”
“You live for that.”
“I do. And I promise to let you win ninety percent of all the stupid arguments we have, as long as you keep offering makeup sex and never compare me to Torvald the Iron-Cock or any of your other ergonomically gifted fictional Viking men.”
She laughed. If only he knew that it was the Vikings who couldn’t measure up to him.
“King has been absolutely lost without Cordelia these last few days. We want our ladies back with us. Forever. To Stay.” He pulled the ring from the box.
“Oh, shit.”
“Don’t interrupt.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did, but that doesn’t matter.”
“If it doesn’t matter, why bring it up?”
“I wasn’t. I’m just trying to propose.”
“Well…get on with it.”
He scoffed. “Such a brat. Jocelyn Elizabeth Collins,” he rushed out. “I want you as more than a best friend. Will you be my wife?”
Time held still and for once, she was right there in the moment, watching it happen. It was perfect and beautiful, and her best friend wanted to marry—
“Well?”
She flinched at his sharp tone, then realized she hadn’t answered. “Oh. Yes! Of course, I’ll marry you.”
He yanked her close and slid the ring onto her finger, sealing the deal with a kiss. Her heart fluttered wildly in her chest, and all the anger she’d been hiding behind vanished in the blink of an eye.
“I’m never letting you go again.” He cradled her face and glided his fingers into her hair. “What the…?” He unearthed a pencil from the rat’s nest of a bun on her head, and her face burned with embarrassment.
“Sorry.” Up until that moment, she forgot what she looked like. “It’s been a rough few days.”
He stretched to look more closely at her hair. “What else do you have in there?”
“It’s anyone’s guess. Honestly, you probably shouldn’t touch me until I shower.”
“That’s not happening.”
“Three days, Soren. Three days.”
“Yeah.” He stood and helped her up. “You should shower.”
She’d never gotten clean so fast. Soren waited for her out back. The second she returned, smelling like his soap, wrapped in his plush robe, he sat up.
“I know that look.” She crossed the flagstone and lowered herself onto the chair across from him.
“If you know what the look means, why are you sitting all the way over there?” He tugged her off the chair and onto his lap.
“Do you have any idea how much I missed holding you? Touching you?” He pulled the robe open, exposing her shoulder so he could scatter kisses across her chest. “I like when you use my things. It makes you smell like me.”
“For a caveman, you have really high-end toiletries.” She sniffed the back of her hand.
“Should I be on the lookout for any sharp objects?” he asked, loosening the clip in her damp hair.
“No, I’m all clean. Any weapons, narcotics, or questionable paraphernalia got flushed down your drain.” She reached for a glass of champagne. “Oh, but I do have this massive rock on my finger now, so don’t get any ideas. One swing with this iceberg and I could drop you like the Titanic.”
He laughed. “I actually thought about that.”
Jocelyn took a sip and held out her left hand, admiring the way the diamond sparkled.
“Do you like it?”
“Like it? I love it.”
“I wasn’t sure if you’d see it as some sort of archaic practice—”
“I definitely see it that way. But also, look how sparkly!”
He laughed. “Promise you’ll never take it off.”
“Are you kidding? A rock like this? This is going to the pawn shop first thing in the morning. That’s rent.”
He clamped a hand over her fingers, and a flash of vulnerability danced across his eyes. “Promise, Joce.”
For that rare moment, she put all sarcasm aside. “I promise, Soren. I’ll never take it off. I’m yours until the day I die.”
He kissed her knuckle then informed, “You’re mine longer than that. After this life, I’ll find you in the next.”
“You better.”
That night they made love under the stars, slow and patient.
Soren touched her in ways that permanently marked her soul.
Then they made love again in the jacuzzi, where she discovered her talents at underwater seduction.
When he finally carried her to bed, she was boneless, blissfully content, and more settled than she’d ever felt in her life.
Soren had proposed because he wanted a life with her.
The ring was simply the traditional thing to do.
But to her, it was a claim. He wanted her.
Not for a day or a few weeks or months, but for the rest of her life and his.
It was the greatest commitment anyone had ever offered her, and shockingly easy to accept.
Lying on her side, curled into the crook of his arm, she stared at that glittering claim, imagining what kind of ring she would give him. Something lasting. Something he’d never want to take off.
“What are you thinking about?” He kissed the top of her head.
“You. Us. Our future.”
His mouth curved into a smile against her temple. “I was thinking about the same thing.”
Cordelia slept soundly at his back, and King draped his long body over their legs. This was just the beginning.
“I hope you know your perfectly ordered life is about to get very messy.”
“I can’t wait.”
Strangely, she believed him.
She had too many soft, squishy feelings rushing through her to accurately name, which was a terrible problem to have for someone who wrote love stories for a living.
Then she realized she didn’t have to label every flutter or know what caused her heart to skip a beat, she only had to say the one word that encompassed all.
“I love you, Soren.”
His arm tightened around her, another smile pressing into her skin. He sighed as if he’d waited a lifetime to hear that single word from her. And, in a way, he sort of did.
She nestled into him, perfectly safe and protected in the shelter of his arms. She was a kaleidoscope of jagged edges, and he was the light.
Apart, they were only broken fragments, but together they made beautiful, chaotic sense.
Falling and colliding all along, until they finally stopped fighting long enough to see that this was how they were always meant to be.
“You’re hogging the pillow.”
She scoffed. “You know, I was just thinking how perfect you are, and you ruined it.”
“I ruined it?”
“Yes.” She tugged the pillow out from under him and shoved it in his face. “Here. It’s all yours.”
But when she tried to roll away, he caught her and dragged her right back to him. Pressing his face into her neck, he whispered, “You’re so easy to piss off and so sexy when you’re mad.”
She tsked and snapped, “So, what, you’re just pissing me off on purpose now? Great…”
But as she rattled on, she didn’t realize that every irritated word out of her mouth had him falling deeper and deeper in love with her. And at the rate they argued, he’d never stop wanting her in this life or the next or even the one after that.