27. Kendall #3
I shove away those thoughts, knowing the spiral I can fall into if I think about those “what-ifs” long enough. James cups the side of my head with his fingers threaded into my hair, and his eyes carry this reverence I’ve never seen before.
“I love you,” he tells me, his voice hoarse.
“I love you too,” I squeak. He abandons the remains of our shared banana bread in the foil from his free hand, and he grips my cheeks.
He kisses me, and I feel the rough crumbs against my skin.
But I don’t care. With how he kisses me, I feel like all of those menial disturbances are blurred, misting away into the background so all I feel are James’s hands on me and his lips on mine.
“And I think you’re incredibly strong for getting through what happened.”
I brush off his words like they aren’t meant for me. They don’t fit. Like a shirt that’s too small or too big. Because I haven’t gotten through anything. I’m still in the thick of it, mournful heart and all. I turn my head, feeling suddenly shy. Like a fraud in my own body.
“Baby, I mean it,” he tells me against my chin, leaving behind another kiss, this time soft and reassuring. “I’m genuinely in awe of you.”
It’s those words that turn something in my heart, flipping it over to reveal the fleshy side that’s ready to heal. No more weeping wounds, just a part that might finally be ready to move on.
“You really love me, don’t you?”
His head rears back. “Of course I do. Why would you say it like it’s up for debate?”
“I just…sometimes, I find it hard to believe—” He starts to interrupt me when I hold my hand up. “Just let me finish.”
“Okay,” he says, gesturing a hand in my direction.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that…thank you for loving me when, at times, I find it difficult to love myself. I think when I see the way you love me, a part of me believes maybe I’m not that hard to love.”
“You aren’t,” he says, jumping at his chance to finally say the words he’s been holding at the tip of his tongue. “You really aren’t hard to love. Loving you has been the most natural and simple thing in the entire world. Like breathing.”
I can’t talk through the balled-up knot in my throat so all I manage is a nod.
“And I…” He huffs a laugh, almost like he can’t believe what he’s saying.
“I had something planned. I had a really nice candlelit dinner at this seaside restaurant where we can watch the sun setting and order a bottle of champagne. They have burrata which I know you love.” He pulls away, taking a few hops to his bag, and I’m left with the crinkled foil holding a small pile of crumbs.
He returns with something clasped in his closed fist. “But I don’t think I can wait. ”
He looks at his hand, and I follow his lead when he unfurls his fingers to reveal a small black velvet box sitting in the center of his palm. He does the dramatic thing of opening it slowly, letting the creaky hinges unveil what’s inside, only for me to find the most beautiful diamond ring.
“You were going to propose while we were here?”
“Uh, Yeah, I—I was,” he stutters with a bashful smile. “I mean, I am.”
I leap into his arms, banana bread crumbs and all, and we fall into the sheets.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes,” I cry between kisses. “I…yes! Of course, yes!”
It’s a fluid motion, the way he slips the ring on my finger as if it was always meant to be there, and we do little to move away from each other. We cling to one another, finding ourselves eventually fighting our sleep with our heads heavy on the pillows.
“I swear I really did have a really nice dinner planned,” he says in a groggy voice through the urge to succumb to sleep. “It’s this really nice restaurant by the water, and Tommy said to ask for a window seat where—”
“Tommy knows?” I interrupt.
He shrugs a shoulder in feigned innocence. “I needed to bring in some reinforcements.”
“Does Sylvia know too?”
“I swore him to secrecy,” he tells me. “Made him promise to name his second born after me if he slips.”
My body relaxes into a laugh that transitions into a lazy yawn. “I prefer this.”
“Prefer what?”
I wave my hand over us. “Just you and me, no big show with people watching. This is perfect.”
“I kinda think so too,” he confesses, placing a wet kiss on the tip of my nose. “And now I can enjoy dinner instead of being nervous the whole time.”
“What were you nervous about?” I ask, my tone accusatory. It’s not like I would’ve said no.
“Just…that I might stumble over my words, or that I might lose the ring, or forget it altogether,” he says, listing off all the things that could’ve possibly gone wrong.
It wouldn’t have mattered. He could’ve proposed with a paper ring made from a straw wrapper, and I would’ve said yes. “And maybe…a little that you’d say no.”
“Not possible,” I whisper, running my hand down his cheek.
“I know. Just my brain playing games.”
“I love you,” I mumble, my hooded gaze pointed at his own set of droopy, languid eyes. I feel his thumb brush over my ring as if he’s making sure it’s still there.
“I love you, too.”