Chapter 11 #2
My mouth drops. “That’s my favorite kind of tree.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“A few years ago, you were talking to your coworker and said it. Plus, you have that necklace with the weeping willow on it.”
I haven’t worn that necklace in over a year. I can’t believe he doesn’t remember Honey’s name, but he remembers my favorite tree that I said in passing years ago?
“I suppose I’d want you to know that I’d noticed you,” he says slowly, like he’s working it out as he goes. “Not just the surface details that everyone sees. But the specific things. The things you probably think nobody notices.”
“Like what?" I ask, very quietly.
“Like that in five years you have never once let a person leave your counter without them feeling like someone saw them. Not one person. I would say that seeing you in the morning is the best part of my day. I would tell you how amazing you are, matching two strangers together with only a hunch and a book you’ve never read.
I’d tell you that you laugh differently when something actually surprises you versus when you’re being polite.
And that the first kind is considerably better. ”
He says it so matter-of-factly.
Like it’s data.
Like he hasn’t just told me he has two distinct categories for my laugh stored somewhere in that precise, organized mind of his.
I stare straight ahead as my heart does a little jump.
“And then?” I ask, keeping my voice very casual.
“Then, I’d pull out the ring, get down on one knee, and ask you. Quietly. Just the two of us.”
He glances over.
“Why? Is that wrong?”
“No,” I say, turning to the window. “No, that’s not wrong at all.”
“Then, we’ll say that if asked,” he says, turning back to the road. “I have rings in my backpack.”
“You got rings?” I ask, turning to see. “Where?”
“My brother Jason got them for me,” he says. “They’re in the small front pocket.”
I unzip the pocket and pull them out.
“Is this a real diamond?” I ask with a gasp. “It’s massive.”
“I believe so,” Owen says, glancing over. “It was my grandmother’s engagement ring. My grandfather was quite wealthy until he gambled their fortune away. He never got his hands on her rings though, although Nana said he tried many times.”
“Should I just… slide it on?”
It feels weird to put on someone else’s engagement and wedding ring. Like they’re bad luck or something. Like they may curse my love life.
But Owen just takes the man’s ring out of my palm and slides it on like it’s nothing. I wait for a moment or two for the tire to burst or for lightning to strike him through the windshield, but nothing happens.
I hold my breath and slip the rings on. Nothing happens to me either.
“Do they fit?”
“They’re a little big,” I say, turning them around my finger. “But they’ll do.”
“Just don’t lose them,” he says. “My mother would never let me hear the end of it.”
I look at them on my finger.
Owen’s grandmother wore these rings throughout her whole marriage. His grandparents built a real life together—good parts, hard parts, and all the ordinary parts in between. These rings sat on her finger through all of it.
And now they’re on mine.
“I’ll keep them safe,” I say, rubbing the back of the rings with my thumb. “I promise.”
I’m not generally superstitious. I don’t really believe in curses or bad luck or any of that.
But I do believe in love stories. And wearing someone else’s rings feels like peeking in on something intimate. Like stolen valor. Like reading the last page of a book that isn’t yours.
I close my hand gently around them anyway.
“You know we’re going to have to show each other affection, right?” I say.
He looks at me with an unreadable expression. “Like what?”
“Holding hands,” I say, glancing at his hands on the steering wheel. I always thought Owen had nice hands. “Hugging. If there’s a campfire, I might have to sit on your lap.”
He swallows hard and shifts in his seat. “I never thought of that.”
For some reason, watching him get nervous gives me a tiny thrill.
“And we’ll probably need nicknames for each other too.”
“Nicknames?”
“Yeah, lovers usually have pet names for one another. What would you call me?”
He thinks about it for a long moment. “Bean.”
“Bean?” I say with a surprised laugh. “What? Why?”
“You work in a coffee shop,” he says like it’s a perfectly normal suggestion. “You handle coffee beans every day.”
“Yeah, but it’s supposed to be cute and romantic. Bean makes me think of people passing gas. How about I call you rat because you work in a lab?”
“I don’t work with animals.”
I huff out a breath. “Fine. I guess bean is kind of cute. You have a great last name, I’ll just call you Lavoie.”
“Cool beans, bean,” he says with a grin.
“That’s enough of that, Lavoie.”
The rest of the drive passes without incident, which I'm choosing to take as a good sign.
As we drive north the scenery turns spectacular. The flat farmland turns into tall, jagged rocks, spectacular forests, and so many gorgeous lakes the views keep taking my breath away every time we drive around a bend.