23. Wilson #2
She turns her head against my chest and whispers it so softly I almost miss it.
“Ask me again.”
My hands are unsteady, but the box is where it’s been for a month, in the inside pocket of my jacket, pressed against my heart.
I go down on one knee on the dusty floor of a gallery storage room, between leaning canvases and a rusty can of turpentine, and look up at the whole point of my life.
“Isadora Carter.” Nothing left of the speech I practiced in front of the bathroom mirror for weeks. Nothing left but this, the raw truth of what I need. “Will you stay married to me?”
“Yes.” She’s laughing and sobbing in the same breath, her hands grabbing my lapels and hauling me up off my knee with strength that surprises us both. “Yes, Wilson. A thousand times yes. Forever yes.”
I slide the sapphire onto her finger, the ring I chose because it matches her eyes exactly, and she kisses me so hard we stagger into the spare frames and send them clattering across the floor in a cascade of wood and dust, and neither of us stops to pick them up.
“Take me home.” She says it against my mouth, breathless, her fists still wound in my jacket.
“Which home?” I tuck a fallen strand of hair behind her ear, my fingers lingering on the soft skin of her jaw.
“The penthouse. Ours.” She leans back to hold my eyes and taps one finger against my chest to mark each word. “You’re calling the broker first thing in the morning and taking it off the market. I painted the instructions, Wilson. Try to keep up.”
***
The penthouse is dark when we stumble through the door, wrapped around each other, her fingers working on my tie while my hands hunt for the zipper at the back of her dress.
The living room is still a maze of taped boxes, KEEP and DONATE stacked in the shadows, and we weave through the middle of it laughing, my hip clipping a corner, her hand shooting out to steady a tower before it topples.
“Unpacking tomorrow.” She kicks off one heel mid-stride, then the other, dropping two inches between steps and laughing at the sudden height difference.
“Whatever you say, boss.” I catch the second heel before it takes out a lamp that has it coming.
“Correct answer.” She snatches the shoe back and tosses it over her shoulder into the dark, not caring where it lands.
Then her mouth is on mine again, and I catch her wrists and hold them gently between us.
“Wait. Slow down.” I press her knuckles to my lips.
“Screw slow.” She strains forward. “I want you.”
“I want to do this right.” I cup her face, tilting it up toward me. “I want to remember every second of tonight.”
She goes still, her body settling against mine.
“Then do it right.” She traces my jaw. “Show me what that looks like.”
I lead her to the bedroom I never touched after she left. Her reading chair is still by the window. I stand her in front of the tall glass with the city spread out below us.
“I love you.” I find her zipper and draw it down slowly. “I’ve loved you since that coffee shop and the failed exam and the napkin I handed you because I couldn’t think of anything clever.”
“I was such a mess that day.” She lifts her arms and lets me slide the green fabric off her shoulders. “Crying over an art history exam. Mascara everywhere.”
“I spent twenty minutes pretending to read the same page of a book I didn’t care about, trying to work up the nerve to talk to you.” I press a kiss to the back of her neck. “And all I managed was a napkin.”
She shivers under my lips.
“You looked at me with those red-rimmed eyes and laughed.” I slide the dress down her arms. “And I decided right there I was going to marry you someday.”
“You didn’t even know my name.” The dress pools at her feet and she steps backward, into me.
“Didn’t matter.” I wrap my arms around her from behind. “I knew enough.”
I turn her by the waist to face me.
“I knew you were the most gorgeous disaster I’d ever seen. And I knew I wanted to be the one handing you napkins for the rest of your life.”
“And you married me anyway.” She works my shirt buttons open, one at a time, then flattens both palms over my heart. “Twice now, apparently.”
“Twice, and I’d do it a third time by breakfast.” I kiss her forehead.
“Don’t tempt me. I know a clerk.” She kisses my jaw.
“This freckle right here.” I put my lips on the spot on her shoulder I’ve been loyal to for a decade. “I missed this freckle specifically.”
“It’s a mole. We’ve been over this a thousand times.” She shoves my shirt off my shoulders.
“A thousand and one.” I walk her backward toward the mattress, one slow step at a time.
She laughs, breathless and bright, and pulls me down with her.
We land on the sheets together and I take my time. I relearn her with my hands, every curve I memorized years ago and nearly signed away before we tore the papers in half in her mother’s kitchen.
We move without hurry, drawing it out until we’re both trembling, until slow becomes its own sweet punishment.
When she comes apart in my arms with tears sliding into her hair, I follow her with my heart cracked open on joy instead of grief for the first time since she left.
Afterward she curls against my chest, tracing shapes on my skin while our heartbeats settle.
“I’m crying.” She swipes her cheeks and laughs at herself. “This is ridiculous.”
“Completely ridiculous.” I press my lips to her forehead. “I’m not looking. I’m being a gentleman about it.”
“You’re looking.” She pushes herself up and looks down at me, the sapphire on her finger catching light. “We have all night, you know.”
“Then we’d better not waste it.” I hook a finger under the chain at her throat and draw her closer.
“And the rest of our lives after that.” Her hand slides down my stomach. “But tonight first.”
“We should pace ourselves.” I catch her wandering hand and kiss her wrist.
“Or we could do that again.” She grins against my lips. “I’m aiming for a record.”
I’m absolutely not going to argue with that.