Epilogue
WYATT
ONE YEAR LATER
“I can’t wait to see it.” Nash is practically jumping out of the golf cart and onto the grass.
“It’s just a bunch of concrete and two-by-fours right now.” I turn the key and step out of the cart.
She takes my hand and drags me toward our spot, Arthur bounding along beside us. “But it’s our concrete and two-by-fours.”
I smile back at her, hoping my nerves don’t show through.
A tiny black velvet box is burning a hole in my pocket.
I wanted to tie the ring to Arthur’s collar and have him greet her at the front door, but when the builders called and said the framing of our cabin was complete, I knew it needed to be here.
The house doesn’t look like much now, but when they’re done it will be a two-story cabin with the big logs and green roof.
There’s a fireplace in the living room and heated floors in the primary bathroom.
This is a forever home more so than when other people use the term.
My family has owned this land for over a hundred years.
We’re never selling. This is it. The permanence of it all made me feel like it was the perfect place to propose.
Nash is running her hands along the wood where the front door would be, chattering on about how big of a window she wants the door to have. Something about wanting more light. I watch as she takes another step into the house, Arthur on her heels. I follow behind her, taking a step forward.
I can feel my blood rushing in my ears. The anticipation of this has been killing me.
With my next step I’m close enough to get down on one knee.
Earlier this week I practiced which knee I was going to get down on, but I can see now that all of that planning went right out the window as soon as I had the ring in my hand.
I clear my throat. “Nash.”
“What are these blankets doing here?”
“Nash,” I repeat.
When she spins to look at me, her eyes go wide, taking me in, as I kneel before her.
The concrete is hard under my knee, but I’ll stay here forever if that’s what it takes.
I hold the box up to her while I try and rack my brain for my speech, which I also rehearsed earlier, and which has also disappeared from my brain.
She gasps, putting her other hand over her mouth when I hold it up in front of her, the reality of what’s happening fully hitting her.
“Nash,” I begin again. “There hasn’t been a day that’s gone by since we first met that I didn’t love you.
When I first met you, I loved your laugh, I loved your fire.
As we got to know one another, I loved the softness you rarely let people see.
I love that you’re always there for the people in your life.
As hard as I tried to fight it, my love became romantic.
Slowly at first, and then all at once. I loved you close up during our junior and senior year while I watched you win a Big Ten championship.
I loved you from five-thousand miles away while you chased your dreams in Rome.
I loved you when I thought you were faking it for everyone else, even though I never was.
Because I never was. It was always my reality.
I loved seeing you win your first championship at home.
I loved seeing you dance at my brother’s wedding looking like you were exactly where you were meant to be.
” Tears stream steadily down her cheeks now, but I push through.
I pull the ring out of the box and take her hand.
“Every time I thought a version of my love for you was the best it would ever be, we changed, and it got better. I thought when you said you’d stay here with me and Arthur that that was the happiest I’d ever be.
I finally had everything I wanted, but then it changed again.
Loving you together in our own place was better than loving you as a roommate.
I expect,” I pause as I hold the ring against the tip of her finger, “that after I put this ring on your finger, I’ll find a new level of bliss as your fiancé.
And after that as your husband. Will you, Nashville Taylor Green, do me the honor of discovering if that’s true by marrying me? ”
She chokes a laugh through her tears and cries, “Yes.” I don’t need to hear anything else.
I slide the ring on her finger and stand, wrapping my arms around her.
I hold her up and she puts one hand on the side of my face.
“Of course I’ll marry you.” She kisses me once and pulls back.
“Is this why you’ve been so weird the last two weeks?
” Her eyes light up with the realization, and I can see her putting the puzzle pieces together.
“Is that why you insisted on meeting my parents for dinner a month ago? And why Temi took me to get my nails done before we left?”
“And why my parents happened to be busy today instead of being on the farm like they normally would,” I add. She smacks my shoulder, and I rub where she hit me. “Ow!”
“I’m so surprised and so excited I want to hit you and kiss you and run away all at the same time.”
“Well,” I take the hand that wasn’t on my face and guide her farther into the house. “I hope you will stay and have a picnic with me.”
In the middle of what would be our living room sits a setup right out of a reality dating show. Thick blankets lay on the concrete, topped with decorative pillows, and a low table holding an assortment of Wisconsin cheese and a bottle of nice champagne in an ice bucket.
She dances a little in place when she sees the setup. “Our first meal in our house,” she squeals.
I let her go to move toward the champagne flutes and fill one, handing it to her, then another for myself.
I put my hand on her arm, guiding us down to the blankets.
The front of the house looks out toward what will be our driveway.
Two acres away is the front of Henry’s house.
The back of the house will have huge windows so you can sit on the couch and watch the deer move through the forest, or watch the snow fall silently on the leaves.
It’s everything I dreamt it would be. I hold my flute out to Nash. “To us.” She touches hers to mine, leaning in to kiss me at the same time.
“I love you,” she says when she pulls back.
“I love you, too. You’re the most important thing in the world to me.”
She straightens her left hand out over my shoulder and admires the ring. “You did good.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s perfect.”
I smile because hearing those words makes it feel like I’ve done everything in my life up until this moment to lead me here.
I left Green Bay heartbroken and mad at the world having lost my faith in destiny after believing in it my whole life.
But now that I’m standing here in front of my girl and our dog, who was also brought to us by destiny, I can see that this is where I was headed the whole time.
The guiding stars in the sky and the gravitational pull of Nash never led me astray.
They were leading me not to a place, but to a person.
I think we both realized that life isn’t about where you’re from, but who you build it with. And for me, it’s her.
My best friend.
The love of my life.
Then and now and always.
THE END