Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
LAUREN
Four Months Later
“What the hell are cremini mushrooms?” Jameson’s voice is bordering on annoyed as it carries through the phone, which is perfect—it means I’ve succeeded in sending him on a wild goose chase at the grocery store for “the last few items” I need for dinner tonight.
The man knows me inside and out and still believes that I am cooking him an elaborate birthday dinner—and I can’t stop laughing about it.
“If you can’t find them, you can just get baby bella mushrooms instead,” I say into the phone, thankful that he can’t see the way my whole body is shaking with laughter.
“And what, pray tell, are those?”
In the half hour that he’s already been gone, his sisters, along with Paige and Morgan, have decorated the first floor of our house, and set up drinks and snacks on the back deck.
Several of Jameson’s friends, including a few current Rebels players, are hanging out in my kitchen.
Colt is playing with the kids like he is one of them, and my best friends and their husbands just walked in a few minutes ago.
Our house is packed with the people who love us most—it’s everything I dreamed about when I decided to move to Boston, only better. It’s also why I’m standing on the back deck, because there’s no way they could all be quiet enough for me to have this conversation inside.
“They’re like normal white mushrooms, but brown.
” I have no idea how one even cooks mushrooms. Luckily, I won’t be cooking.
Jameson’s favorite food truck, a BBQ place that has an amazing variety of foods, will arrive shortly after he gets home to cater his birthday party. The one he doesn’t know he’s having.
“If I can’t find them, can I just get normal mushrooms?”
“You’re asking because you already have those in your hands, aren’t you?”
“Most definitely.”
“Okay, fine. Hurry home, okay?”
Our home. Jameson came home with me the night I met Sophia, and he never left. Which has worked out well, since I’ve never wanted him to.
“I’ll be home in fifteen minutes. Are the girls down for their nap yet?” He drops his voice low and says, “My birthday feels like the perfect day for some afternoon delight.”
A laugh bursts out of me as I glance over my shoulder at our house full of guests, all here to celebrate him. “They’re still awake, so we’ll have to see.”
We say goodbye, and then I head across the backyard to open the gate that leads to the driveway. I enter the code on the keypad to open the garage door and back my SUV down the driveway and park it on the street.
When I return to the garage, I pull out two portable sawhorses and the piece of plywood that Jules brought over.
I lay the plywood across the sawhorses, then grab the packing tubes with the architectural plans I had Audrey draw up.
I unroll the plans, flipping quickly through the extra-large pages to double-check that they are in order, and then I hold each corner down with paperweights I bought just for this occasion.
When I see Jameson’s car approaching the driveway, I shoot off a text to the whole group inside, telling them to stay away from the windows and be quiet, and then I’m walking out of the garage to meet him.
“Hey, what are you doing out here?” he asks as he steps out of his car.
“I need to show you something in the garage. Come look at this.”
“Okay.” I can tell by his voice that he’s confused.
“So, I did a thing. For your birthday,” I say as I stop in front of the plywood.
He stands behind me, his left hand resting on my rib cage, below my armpit, where my new tattoo resides.
His hand always lands there, as if he’s reminding me that we have matching dates inked onto our bodies: this year, when I came back to him.
“Are these . . . drawings of a garage?” he asks, reaching over my shoulder with his other arm to trace the lines of the two-car garage with his finger.
“Yeah, to replace this tiny one,” I say as I glance around the small freestanding garage that barely fits my SUV and some yard tools.
“You’re giving me drawings of a garage for my birthday?” There’s laughter in his voice, so I lean my head back on his collarbone and look up at him.
“Turn to the next page.”
As he moves the paperweight, I slip my hand under the top page, holding the next one down. It’s crucial that he sees these pages one at a time.
“Is this a fully finished room above the garage? This is a really big space.” His eyes scan over the page. “Why would we need a bathroom and a kitchenette in this room above the garage?”
“I was thinking it could be an office space,” I tell him, “for when you need to get some work done at home.”
He tries really hard to leave work at the office, but it’s the nature of his job that it isn’t always possible.
We set up one of the spare bedrooms for him to use as an office months ago, but it hasn’t been ideal.
If he needs to take a late phone call or something, he always ends up in the sunroom so he doesn’t wake up the kids.
Or, occasionally, he’ll stay late at work because he knows he has a phone call that can’t be interrupted.
“You really do want me here as much as possible, don’t you?” he teases as he kisses the top of my head.
“Guilty. But I also want you to be comfortable here. Look,” I say, flipping one more page and pointing at the next part of the plans, “this breezeway would come right off the sunroom, and then you could either take these stairs up to the office, or go through this doorway into the garage. So it would be separate from the house, but you wouldn’t have to go outside to get there.
And right here”—I point to an opening in the front of the breezeway—“is an exterior door so if you needed to meet anyone in the office, they could come in here and go right up the stairs without going into the house or garage.”
He gives my side a squeeze, right over my tattoo, and when I look over my shoulder at him, he looks a little choked up. “Are you officially asking me to move in?”
“You basically moved in four months ago, Jameson. I’m asking you to stay . . . forever.”
He kisses the top of my head again—the affectionate gesture he does almost without thinking about it now—then says, “But when—”
“I’m also thinking that it’s time we both added another tattoo.”
He stiffens a bit behind me. “Oh yeah, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we add the Roman numerals for next year.”
He dips his head down toward mine so his voice is low in my ear. “What’s happening next year?”
“I was thinking that next year, we should get married.”
“Are you . . . proposing to me?”
I flip to the last page of the plans in front of us, where the bottom page reads Will you marry me? in a beautiful hand-lettered design that I hired a local graphic artist to create.
“Lauren,” he says, spinning me around to face him. Without me holding them down, I hear the papers roll up on the table behind me. “Are you serious?”
“You told me you’d wait for me as long as I needed you to. You told me you didn’t want to push me. But I’m done taking this slow. I’m ready for this next step with you. And I hope that you’re ready for it too?”
He cups the side of my face in his hand as he leans his forehead against mine. “I have to show you something.”
“Okay,” I say, wondering for a split second if I should be worried that he hasn’t said yes yet.
He takes a step back, reaches in his back pocket, and pulls out his wallet.
Then he slides his finger into it and kneels as he pulls out a ring.
“I’ve been carrying this around for months, all the while knowing that the second you told me you were ready to marry me, I’d drop down on one knee.
And here I am, finally. I love you, and I love this life we’re building together.
There is no one else in this world who I’d want to marry.
No one else I’d want to raise two beautiful girls with.
No one else I’d want to grow old with. It’s only you, Lauren. It’s always been you.”
My hands are covering my mouth and there are so many tears in my eyes that I’m afraid I’m going to start bawling like a baby. “I didn’t hear you ask me to marry you.”
“Because I didn’t.” He smiles up at me. “You already asked me. This is me, saying yes.”
He rises off his knee and holds the ring out, and when I hold my hand out for him, he slips it on my finger.
“You make me so fucking happy every single day,” he says. “I can’t wait to experience the rest of my life with you.”
“Same.” I laugh as I hold out my finger and examine my new ring while also wondering how it fit into his wallet all this time.
He wraps one arm around my lower back and pulls me to him, and his other hand tilts my chin up to him.
“I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure I deserve you.
” I’m about to say Same, again, but his lips descend to mine, and then he’s lifting me and my legs are wrapping around his waist, and he’s kissing me like he’s about to take my clothes off.
An ahem sounds from right outside the open garage door, and we both look over to see Sierra standing there, camera in hand.
“I’m supposed to be capturing the proposal, but I feel like this is going somewhere else, and I just wanted to remind you that the garage door is open and you’re in full view of the street. ”
It’s true. Jameson pulled into his normal space to the side of the driveway, so it’s a clear view down to the street, where a woman is pushing a baby carriage while her partner walks next to her with their dog on a leash.
And they’ve definitely noticed us, so I guess we’re making a good impression on the neighbors.
I blush, and I can tell a deep crimson is staining my neck and cheeks just by how hot I feel. Or maybe it’s the late-July heat. Either way, I drop my legs and Jameson sets me on the ground.
“What are you doing here?” Jameson asks Sierra.
She looks at me. “Lauren needed a photographer.” She holds up her camera, as if to remind him that she and her husband run one of the most successful photography accounts on social media.
“Let’s go inside,” I say. “I can’t wait to see the pictures.”
Jameson grabs the two grocery bags out of his car, then follows Sierra and me into the sunroom, and the minute we step through the door to the kitchen, there is a chorus of surprise and a badly done rendition of “Happy Birthday” sung at an obnoxious volume.
But I’m not looking at our friends and family, I’m looking up at Jameson’s smile as he takes in everyone we love, gathered here to celebrate him, and us. And when they finally stop singing, he says, “Did you all know Lauren was going to propose?”
There’s shock and surprise and excitement rippling through the crowd, because Sierra is the only one I told.
Even Audrey didn’t know about the last paper added to the end of her drawings.
Then everyone is surrounding us with their congratulations and well wishes and requests to see the ring.
And everyone wants to hear how I ended up being the one to propose, but he already got me a ring.
And there’s a moment, a tiny one amid the chaos and excitement, where I think about how I got here.
I recognize that it wasn’t an easy path, but it was exactly the one I needed to take.
The heartbreak, the tragedy, the lies . .
. the struggle to get here is what makes this moment—where I feel nothing but unconditional love from this man—even sweeter.
“I love you,” I say, standing on my tiptoes to whisper in Jameson’s ear.
“I love you, and I love our life together,” he replies. “But I’ll love it even more when your last name is Flynn.”