Epilogue WREN
EPILOGUE
WREN
He’s been quiet all night. A little off for a few days, really, and I’ve been chalking it up to the deal at work—he gets like this when something big is closing. I trust him to tell me if something’s actually wrong, so I haven’t pushed.
I press my cheek against his back through his shirt and let the engine vibrate up through me and try not to take his quiet personally.
I tighten my arms around his middle, rest my chin on his shoulder, and watch Brooklyn slide past us in the August dusk.
The bridge comes into view, and the lights start to come on across the East River.
I love this part of every ride.
This bridge is ours. We come here all the time—picnics, sunsets, cannoli runs to Maria’s.
I assume we’re going home, right up until we aren’t.
I lift my chin off his shoulder.
“Jace?”
He doesn’t answer.
He turns the bike down toward the water and pulls into the spot at the edge of Brooklyn Bridge Park—our spot, the one he brought me to the first night, before Maria’s, before any of it. Where the path runs along the East River and the bridge rises lit above us.
He kills the engine.
I smile into his back. Of course. A detour to our spot before home—classic him.
I pull my helmet off and shake my hair out.
“Sunset stop?”
He doesn’t answer.
He pulls his own helmet off, sets it on the handlebar, and gets off the bike.
He turns to face me.
I am still seated.
Jace Carrington is standing in front of me in a black t-shirt and dark jeans with an expression I have never seen on him before.
My stomach drops.
“Jace—”
“Wren.”
Then he goes down on one knee on the path in front of me.
I stop breathing.
He reaches into his pocket.
He pulls out a ring.
A single round diamond on a thin platinum band, a small petal-shaped curl on each side of the stone. Like the diamond is the flower and the band is the stem.
It is so me. He knew. Of course he knew.
“Wren.”
“Oh my god.”
“I’ve had this in my pocket for three weeks. I’ve been trying to figure out how to do this right, and I’m going to tell you the truth, baby—there is no version of this that is good enough for you. There is no place big enough. There is no speech long enough.”
“Jace—”
“So I’m going to keep it simple.”
His green eyes find mine.
“I have loved you since the day you stormed into my building in that yellow dress and told me to stay the hell away from you. You turned around and walked out, and I stood there knowing I never wanted to watch you leave again. I have loved you every day since. I am going to love you every day for the rest of my life.”
I have both hands pressed over my mouth. I can’t speak. I can’t move. My eyes are stinging. I can’t believe this.
He stops. His hand comes to my knee. He looks at me for a second and swallows, and his eyes are bright.
“I don’t care where we live. I don’t care what we do. I don’t care if you want a wedding for four hundred people or four. I want you in my last name and my mornings and my Sundays and my old age.”
His hand is shaking. The man whose hands have not shaken in fifteen years is holding a ring up to me and his hand is shaking.
“Marry me, Wren.”
I am crying.
I am crying on the back of his motorcycle at our spot by the river, the Manhattan skyline behind him and the man I love down on one knee in front of me.
“Yes.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes, Jace. Yes, yes, yes.”
He gets the ring on my finger before I finish saying it the third time.
Then he’s up off his knee, catching my face in both hands, his mouth on mine, his breath shaking against my lips.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too.”
He kisses me, soft, and rests his forehead on mine.
“Let’s go home.”
* * *
We pull into the garage beneath the building.
He parks the bike, takes my hand, and walks me to the elevator.
His thumb finds the ring on my finger and circles it. Once. Slow.
I look up at him.
The doors slide open, and we step in. The second they close, Jace backs me into the wall.
His mouth finds mine, one hand sliding up my thigh beneath my dress, the other braced beside my head.
I laugh against his mouth. “You lasted almost twenty seconds.”
“Terrible night for self-control.”
His mouth drops to my neck, and the laugh turns into something else entirely.
“I can’t get my fiancée home fast enough,” he says against my skin. “Forty-two floors. What was I thinking?”
He pulls back just enough to look at me.
That look. God .
I grin, slow.
“Lucky for you,” I murmur. “I wore a dress this time.”
THE END