Chapter 39 Noah
thirty-nine
Noah
I’m hanging by a thread here. She admitted that she swore she’d never get married.
She’s making a joke about Calla. And sure, I kind of had it coming, saying she’s our witness.
And right, I don’t have a wedding band because one, I didn’t plan this, and two, even if I had, she’s already wearing the Callaway ring.
Hard to top that.
But I’m dead fucking serious about wanting to spend my life with Willow. Maybe she doesn’t want to.
Although she did say she loved me. But what do I know? Maybe that doesn’t mean marriage to her. She could love me but not want to remain married. Something about freedom, as if marrying me tied her down. I could see Willow explaining—
“Yes,” she says, her voice firm.
She lunges herself at me, and I fall back on the grass, clasping her to me, my head on her chest.
Her heartbeat is a storm. Loud. Pounding.
I listen to every beat. Feel every tremor of her body. This. This is the magnitude of her love, and I want to seal it in my memory forever.
We stay embraced for moments that seem etched in eternity yet end too quickly when Calla nudges my arm aside. With a bump of her large snout, she turns this into a group hug. Soon she’s licking us both profusely. “Is that her way of pronouncing us husband and wife?” Willow laughs, hugging Calla.
“She’s certainly taking care of the You may kiss the bride part,” I answer, pretending grouchiness.
Willow laughs harder and harder, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “What was that with the shoe?” she asks between two fits of laughter.
I shrug. “Something you said about Prince Charming, when you turned me down the first time?”
“Oh,” Willow answers, her laughter subsiding. “Does that make me your Cinderella?”
She says it like it’s a bad thing, and I wouldn’t have a clue. “I dunno. Snow White? Little Red Riding Hood?” Don’t they all have a Prince Charming? “Which one has the guy put her shoes on?”
“Cinderella?” She makes the question sound like a terrible answer. Like I did or said something wrong.
“Okay then, that one.” I put her other shoe on while she’s too busy trying to make a point I’m never going to get, and pull her up to me. “We have a missing puppy, Cinderella.”