Epilogue
Day 420
The late-afternoon sun poured into Dax’s garage. I’d just gotten out for the summer after my first job as a professor at Harvine College. After the twelve-minute ferry ride to the mainland, the community college was only a ten-minute drive. Not bad, if you consider the fact that I got to teach college students, I wasn’t stuck behind a computer, and Dax’s garage was on the way home from the ferry. Usually, I stuck around for his last half hour or so of work and helped him fill out some invoices, among...other things, if we happened to be the only ones there.
So much had changed in a year. So many of my friends had gotten engaged. Even with all my indiscretions last year, my dad had won his campaign. I felt removed from it all. Our relationship had fallen into exactly what I had told him I’d accept. I no longer worked at the cafe, but whenever I saw him on the street, I smiled. Occasionally, he’d call me when he needed something, but I only said yes when I truly wanted to. The need for his approval had all but dissipated and it seemed to make all the difference.
Dax now had a full-time helper by the name of George, who had lost his job early last summer. He hadn’t known much about mechanics, but he was hard-working and eager to learn. Bonus: he’d been raised on seventies music, so he fit right in. Evan, the high schooler Dax had also taken on, turned out to be a natural and had been a great asset to the shop. He was a reluctant convert to the music Dax insisted on playing, but I had no doubt Dax would get him in the end.
He’d gotten me.
I walked into the shop wearing my favorite casual teaching outfit—paperbag coral shorts that hit me mid-thigh and a cream-colored tank top. My students had been out for the summer for two days already, while I had been stuck in meetings and trainings before, finally, being released as well. I smiled when I saw the massive Lego car spinning around in front of the window, a beacon for tourists and locals alike. Making my way back past the empty lobby, I opened the door to the garage and peeked inside.
Dax and Evan were standing on a small fishing boat pulled into the garage on a trailer. Dax was showing Evan something on the motor. His words were patient, easy-going, and kind—all the traits I’d surprisingly discovered about Dax last summer. That secret sweetness he tried to keep locked away, but ultimately couldn’t.
After a year of serious dating, light discussions of marriage had been danced around more and more, but Dax had seemed to clam up about it lately. He had come a long way in opening up, but sometimes the closed part of him won out.
But come on…you can’t dangle the word marriage in front of a woman for months now, only to get too scared to press forward. I had a whole litter of mini dark-haired, brown-eyed babies I planned to have, and we needed to get cracking.
Dax looked up and saw me standing there. I felt his gaze more than saw it as it trailed down my body, leaving fire in its wake.
“That’s enough for today, Evan.” Dax looked at me while he spoke. “I’ll see you tomorrow. ”
Evan glanced at me and nodded, clearly understanding some sort of silent man code. He stood and jumped down from the boat.
“Don’t forget to clock out.”
“You got it, Boss.” Evan smiled shyly at me while he ambled toward the old pinup calendar.
“You haven’t gotten a new calendar yet?” I laughed.
“Works just fine, doesn’t it, Evan?”
Evan shrugged, blushing a bit as he passed me. “I guess.”
“Bye, Evan,” I called as Dax jumped from the boat and made his way toward me, a panther stalking his prey.
I hoped Evan was gone by the time Dax’s hands found me, but I couldn’t be sure. Nor could I find it in myself to care.
“Are you mine for the summer now?” he asked as he picked me up, his arms locking around the bottom of my hips. I leaned down, skimming my nose against his, while my hands caressed the stubble on his cheeks.
“Yup.”
“How was the last day?”
“Boring, but I’m glad for the summer break.”
“Got any plans this summer?” He blew a breath along my neck.
I tightened my hold around his shoulders. “Maybe a few.” I moved my forehead down so it pressed against his.
“Good.”
“I heard a song the other day that I think you’d like,” I said casually, before I lost my nerve. “It’s even from your preferred decade.”
He put me back down on the ground as I reached in his back pocket for his phone. “So, it’s not ‘SexyBack’?”
“Not this time, hot stuff.”
I looked up the song and pressed play, hiding it away from Dax when he tried to peek over my shoulder. When the music began, I watched Dax’s face out of the corner of my eye, growing a bit more hesitant. Each passing second brought more awareness onto Dax’s face. A slow, impish smile formed, the kind that always got my heart thumping wildly.
By the time the chorus to “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” by The Georgia Satellites came on, I was itching to leave. I had to move or else I would combust. I had shown too much. Put too much pressure on him. I started a beeline toward the door before Dax was in front of me, his warm body stopping me before he bent down and hoisted me over his shoulder in one swift movement.
“Hey! Dax! I was kidding! We’re fine!”
Was I regretting having him listen to a song that basically told him he needed to marry me or I wouldn’t be kissing him any more?
Maybe—even though I already knew that would never happen. I was weak and completely head over heels in love with Dax Miller.
His only sign he heard me as he rummaged around a drawer at the counter was a spank on my rear.
“Dax, put me down!”
“This is your own fault, Caroline,” he replied as he shoved something in his pocket and strode toward the open garage doors and turned toward the marina.
By this point, I was squealing and feeling really ridiculous that he still had me flung across his shoulder. I reached down and spanked him back.
“Better be careful, I could do this all day,” was his only quip before I felt another tap on my butt. I gave up with a secretly delighted huff.
“Put that girl down, Dax Miller!” came a wobbly but screechy voice to our left. “Why don’t you come over here and pick up a real woman?!”
Dax breathed out a laugh at the nosy elderly resident sitting on her walker chair on the grass next door. “You’re too bossy for me, Virginia!” he shouted back, not breaking his stride. “You know that!”
“You be good to that girl, Trouble.”
“Planning on it!”
“Are you?” I asked, my face and stomach flopping against his back as he strode along the boardwalk and onto his boat where the words Sweet Caroline had been freshly painted in scrawling red letters.
He walked me gingerly out onto the middle of the boat, where he bent down and gently placed me on solid ground once more. I had been fully prepared to scold him or kiss him or something when I noticed a small table with a white tablecloth in the back of the boat. The same spot we had spent the last Fourth of July watching the fireworks.
It was set for two with napkins and two glass bottles of Coke. “What is this?” Warm arms locked around me from behind, Dax’s lips nuzzling against my ear.
“I was going to wait and do this tonight. There were going to be two big burgers on those plates and a mountain of fries. I was going to take you for a drive at sunset and play your song.”
I smiled, my entire body bursting with light and happiness, imagining it all happening like he said.
“Can you wait?” the soft voice came again, this time catching my earlobe between his teeth. “Caroline?” Shivers of pleasure ran down my entire central nervous system, feeling warm and safe and loved completely in his arms.
“No,” I said softly, shaking my head. “I can’t wait.”
Dax turned me to face him in his arms, and I immediately erupted in giggles, holding my hands over my mouth. Suddenly, it all felt so overwhelming as I looked at him—looked at the man who showed me every day in words and actions that I was worthy of love, even as imperfect and messy as I ended up being .
Dax bit back a grin and slowly dropped to his knee. When I was able to look at him, I took a breath and found nothing but sweetness in his eyes.
“Caroline Ivy Brooks,” he began, “my impatient but irresistible woman, will you marry me?”
I sank to my knees, throwing my arms around his shoulders, kissing him as soon as he had the words out. He was thrown off balance, and we both went backward, where I proceeded to land on his stomach, causing him to groan in discomfort. After laughing for a few long moments, he kissed me again, pulling me closer until no space existed between us.
“I’m going to take that as a yes.”
I kissed him again. “Good call.”
“I’ve got one more surprise for you.”
“Hmm?” At this point, I was drunk on kisses and high on love when he sat us both up and pointed back toward his shop. It took a minute to find what he was looking at.
On the backside of his shop, on the second story that only people floating on the water would see, was a picture of an open book with a vine of flowers coming out of the spine. It had been spray painted on his building exactly like the temporary tattoo he had given me last year. Underneath the picture, scrawled in bright red, were the words I love Books . The word love was a heart.
“I knew you’d be too chicken to tag a building,” Dax said.
I laughed, my cheeks aflame as I turned back to him. “So my rebel list is finally complete?”
“You’re just getting started.”
And then he was kissing me.
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