Epilogue
JESSE - TWO YEARS LATER
B ecky let herself into our flat with two heavy shopping bags and a smile on her face. Following closely behind her was Rachel, locking the door of the flat across the hall that she had called home for the last year.
“I didn’t call you,” I said to Rachel as she put her keys in her back pocket, walking past me into my kitchen.
“You thought I wasn’t going to notice one of my best friends walking into your flat today of all days? Also, should I be offended that you didn’t call me when I live across the hall?” she said, over her shoulder.
“Offened? No. But there is no way you wouldn’t have read more into the fact that I was messing this up, and I didn’t need that energy in my life today. I am nervous enough as it is,” I said, moving to follow them but stopping when I heard a knock on the door.
“That will be Luce. I needed her to pick up a few things I couldn’t get,” Becky called from the kitchen.
“How are you fucking up a lasagne?” Lucy said the moment I opened the door, laughing as she walked into my flat and headed straight to the kitchen.
“She makes it look so easy. I never really appreciated that there were so many moving parts involved,” I said, mostly to the door as I closed it.
Confident that no one else could knock on the door that wasn’t already here, I joined the girls in the kitchen.
Becky had been in our kitchen for less than five minutes, but she had already managed to clean up the mess that I’d made. And was starting on a new pasta dough with an ease I could only dream of achieving.
“She makes it look so easy because it is easy for her. She has been making it since she could chop an onion. Surely there is something out there that you can make that is as easy as breathing?” Lucy asked as she started unpacking her shopping.
“I can make pizza,” I said.
“So, the obvious question is, why aren’t you making pizzas? Seems like someone is trying to make things as difficult as possible for some reason,” Rachel asked from where she was sat on one of the counters, eating chocolate digestives from Clara’s not-so-secret stash.
My eyes narrowed at her. “That right there is why I didn’t call you about this. But to answer your question, we have pizza all the time. It felt like I needed to make her something special.”
“So you decided to make her signature dish?” Becky asked as she kneaded the dough.
“It’s the thing she makes for special occasions. This feels like a special occasion.”
“Did you practice it at all? That dough you had was a mess. It was never going to make pasta,” Becky said as she wrapped her mound of dough in cling film before throwing it in a bowl and setting it next to Rachel.
“When would I have had the time to practice this dish from start to finish when the person I am making it for is almost always home?”
“We could have dragged her outside if you had just asked,” Rachel said. And, well, she had a point.
“Look, I didn’t think it would be that hard. It’s a lasagne. Who knew it could go so wrong?”
All three of them burst out laughing.
I didn’t have time to be embarrassed about it any further because a pair of arms snaked around my waist, and they all stopped laughing. The arms settled around me shouldn’t have been home right now. When she left ninety minutes ago, she told me she wouldn’t be back until dinnertime. Suddenly, I was very aware of what was in the back pocket of my jeans because I didn’t trust that I would lose it if it wasn’t on my person at all times.
“What is this, Jesse?” Clara’s voice was a whisper in my ear, but it might as well have been a shout given the silence of the room.
No one said anything as Clara unwrapped her arms from around me and moved to look around the kitchen.
She peered into the saucepan that Lucy had been dumping onions into. Because even my ragu sauce was wrong. Then she noticed the milk and cheese on one of the counters. The remnants of flour on the island. She picked up the bowl with the resting pasta dough and then turned to me.
“Where is it?” she asked, her eyes darting around my body. Clearly, she hadn’t been pressed against me as closely as I initially thought, or she would have felt it.
“Are you not supposed to be out with Addie?” I responded.
“People called in sick, and Dad couldn’t find anyone to cover the pass on such short notice, so Addie is doing it.” She dropped the bowl back on the counter. “Where is it?”
The silence in the room felt thick, like everyone was holding their breath.
She walked over to me and stopped when her socked feet met mine. “Come on, just tell me.”
Without meaning to, my hand twitched towards my back pocket. I thought I managed to stop it from moving too far in time, but Clara’s face broke out in a smile of victory.
She pushed herself flush against me and reached her hands around me to my back pockets. She slowly pushed her hands in them, never one to miss the chance to cop a feel, and her right hand settled on the box.
Despite knowing she was going to find something there, I still saw a flicker of surprise cross her face as she pulled the box out. She hesitated for a breath and then pushed the lid open.
Her gasp when she saw the ring was so quiet, I wouldn’t have known about it had I not felt it move through her body.
When I first floated the idea to Darren and Vivi that I wanted to ask Clara to marry me, I had mostly been trying to gauge whether they thought it was a good idea. Before I got my answer, Vivi got up and disappeared, which made an already stressful conversation worse. Vivi returned less than five minutes later with the ring now inside the box in Clara’s hand. It was silver, with a trio of emeralds embedded in it. When Vivi gave it to me, she told me it was the only ring of hers that Clara liked, so I should propose with it. The second it was in my hand, I knew it would look great on her.
And fit in perfectly with the rest of her rings.
“Is this why you told me not to buy that ring the other week?”
I laughed.
“There is barely a finger that doesn’t have a ring on it already, Clo. He was saving you from yourself,” Becky said. I almost forgot they were still there.
Clara looped her right arm around my neck and used it as an anchor as she twisted her body around to look at Becky.
“One finger doesn’t have anything on it,” she replied before twisting back around and locking eyes with me. “What stumped you, the pasta?” She said it so confidently.
“What makes you think something stumped me?”
“The girls are here, and you were leaning against the entrance of the kitchen like Mufasa surveying his kingdom.” She prodded my chest playfully with her left hand.
I noticed instantly that her one bare finger now had a silver ring with three emeralds on it. I didn’t get to look at it for too long before she reached into the bag still strapped across her body and pulled out a black box.
The weight of it felt like the one I had taken from her all those years ago. The contents of that one had been melted down into the ring she now wore on her thumb. I slowly lifted the lid of the one in my hands and saw one cookie and one book looking up at me. Both silver.
“How long?” I asked.
“I got them three weeks ago and then promptly put any plans on hold when I happened to notice that my favourite ring of Mum’s wasn’t in her collection two days later,” she said as she studied the newest addition to her ring collection.
“Anything could have happened to it,” I countered.
“If it was any of her gold ones, I would agree with you. But she hasn’t worn this one in years. It no longer being in her collection could only mean one thing: she deemed someone worthy enough to give it to. How long have you had it?”
“Just under three weeks. I needed to wait for you to leave the house to finally enact my plans.”
She looped her left arm to join the right around my shoulders. “Oh wow, yeah, today would have been perfect if Dad didn’t have an emergency.”
“Yeah, I know. So, are we throwing a party?” I asked, a broad grin breaking out on my face.
“No boring suits,” she said, before a matching smile graced hers.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” I said quietly, moving in closer.
“Then I think it’s a yes to the party, Mr Henry-Bounds,” she said before she almost closed the gap between us.
“I’m confused. Did you just get engaged?” Becky asked somewhere, distantly. Once again, I forgot they were there.
“Yes, I did,” Clara answered loud enough for them to hear.
They started celebrating amongst themselves whilst Clara pressed her lips against mine.