Epilogue
Rowan
Six months later
“Argh.”
I haul myself over the final metre of the steep climb with an aching groan, like a fish who has been dragged from her native water and handed a pair of legs to use for the first time. I thump down onto the nearest bit of flat ground, unclipping my bag.
“That’s my lass.” Angus flops next to me, slinging his arm around my shoulder and pulling me close to press a kiss to my temple. “She always makes it to the top.”
“Christ, Angus. What the fuck was that?”
Angus looks back down the slope with a wide grin. He’s barely sweating, his hair messy in the way I like best, a little longer than usual after travelling for so long. He fishes a handful of nuts out of his bag pocket and hands them to me.
“That was a proper fucking munro.”
“I think I died on the way up. Can you pinch me? See if I’m a ghost?”
Angus runs a hand along my thigh, squeezing gently at its apex, and even in my sweaty, dishevelled state, a twinge ripples through me. I bite back a smile and a squirm, savouring the sensation.
“I think you’re alright, love,” he says into my ear, breath hot on my neck as he kisses the tender skin there. Six months in, and Angus has found every inch of my kryptonite. “You feel pretty alive to me.”
“Babe.” I glance around. His hand is still roving. “We are on the top of a mountain.”
“Aye.” Angus’ eyes are liquid as they catch mine. “Exactly. We’re perfectly alone.”
“The grumpy mountain man needing his solitude again?” I tease. “I’ll head back down, shall I?”
“No.” Angus catches my hand. “You’ll stay right here, with me.”
It’s ridiculous, how much the simplest gesture from him can light me up. The barest glance, a single word. Everything.
“Alright.” I fake reluctance. “If you really need me to.”
“I really do, love,” Angus says seriously. “I always need you.”
I sigh, leaning into his arm as I stare out at the world stretching below.
Peaks upon peaks roll away from us into the sky, surrounding a calm, sapphire-blue lake that winks in the sun.
The van we’ve been travelling in is somewhere down there, parked at the bottom of the endless switchback we’ve just climbed.
I can’t believe we’re here. New Zealand. Literally the furthest place in the world we could be from home. Sitting on a mountain together, under a spotless sky.
“Happy, love?” Angus asks into my silence.
Happy doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel.
Travelling with him makes everything easy.
No matter what I’m freaking out about, there he is.
His calm, unflappable presence eases the panicked beating of my heart.
He’s patient with me, so fucking patient, that sometimes it makes me cry, and then he wipes away my tears with his thumbs, and I end up crying even more.
“I have never been happier,” I reply. “You finally started wearing some colour.”
Angus touches a finger to the hat I bought him in Christchurch.
I started him on something easy – a nice olive green – although admittedly it does have a kiwi bird embroidered on the front and underneath it reads ‘The kiwi to my heart’, which Angus objected to strenuously until I kissed him into submission.
“This is as far as it goes,” he says.
“We’ll see.”
“London,” he growls.
It’s my turn to whisper into his ear, my voice low as I trace his collarbone through his shirt. “I like it when you get stern with me.”
He catches my hand and holds it in his. “Later.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“I suppose we should get going.” I lever myself to my feet, glancing at the other side of the peak. “If we want to be back down in time for dinner.”
We’ve booked a fancy restaurant for tonight overlooking the lake. Our first splurge after weeks of living in the van and cooking our own meals. I want time to shower first. To change into something that isn’t spattered with dust. To have my way with him.
“Angus?”
When I turn back around, Angus isn’t where I expect him to be: sitting on the edge of the mountain, legs swinging in the air. Instead he’s on a single knee, cradling something small in both hands.
“Wh—”
“London,” he says slowly. “I have a question for you.”
“Oh my god.” The words come slow, then fast and all at once.
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god. Is this real? Are you really doing this? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled.
It’s a yes from me, a strong yes, but, fuck me, Angus, I really didn’t expect this.
Not yet. Shit. Where did you even get the ring?
” I catch myself, horror spreading through me.
“Oh no. You are proposing, right? I mean… with the knee and the hands, I assumed, but maybe this is some weird Scottish thing? If so, forget I said anything. I didn’t mean to presume.
Mad of me, really, to think you’d do it so soon… ”
I trail off as Angus’ hands open, revealing what is most definitely a diamond ring in a small blue box balanced carefully in his palms.
“Are you done?”
I nod. “I’m done.”
“Rowan.” Angus takes a deep breath. “I love you. I am overwhelmingly, entirely, completely in love with you. You consume me, from the moment I wake up to the second I go to bed—”
“—I mean, that doesn’t sound entirely pleasant if I’m honest—”
“Love?”
“Yes?”
“Please shut up.”
I nod again. I can’t take my eyes off the ring.
“I’m not really one for big speeches, and you’re not really one for letting me finish them,” he continues, “so I’ll only say this. I love you, Rowan Turner. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you. Will you marry me?”
“Yes.” The word is out my mouth before he’s finished speaking. Time ceases to exist. One moment, Angus is on his knee, then next I’m kissing him and there’s a ring on my finger, and tears are sliding down my cheeks, and he’s rubbing them off in that perfect, tender, kind way he has.
“Rowan.” Angus buries his head in the curve of my neck, his voice muffled with the weight of all the emotions he can’t articulate.
“I love you,” I say. I draw back and look at the ring again. It’s beautiful: a cluster of diamonds in the shape of a rose glinting above a thin, gold band. “Where did you even find this?”
“It was my Ma’s.”
“So that means… Angus. Did you bring this all the way from Scotland?”
That means he’s been keeping the ring in his bag every day for the last six months. That means he packed it before we left. That means he was thinking about marrying me even before we set foot on the first plane.
“I told you, London. I’m done making a mess of this.” Angus tangles his fingers in mine. “This is us now, okay? Forever.”
I like the sound of that word on his tongue.
“Forever.” I try it out myself. The weight of it. A promise. That no matter what comes, we’ll get through it together. It fits just right. Then I laugh. “Just think, by the time we’re eighty, I’ll have you wearing the whole rainbow.”
Angus’ hand tightens on mine. “Don’t make me take the ring back off you.”
“You wouldn’t.” I squeeze back, and he relents.
“No. I wouldn’t. But I won’t be dressing like a unicorn’s vomited on me either, you hear?”
“Uh huh.” I nod in fake agreement, but I’m already mentally planning my next design. Angus will look incredible in a tight-fitting neon-yellow T-shirt. I simply know it.
“Shall we walk back down?” he asks.
“That’s the worst part,” I moan.
Angus laughs. “I thought going up was the worst part.”
“That’s also the worst part.”
“So why do it then?”
“Because,” I finally let go of his hand to swing my bag onto my back, “that’s how you get to the good things, Angus. I thought you knew that?”
“Baby, you’re standing right in front of me, wearing my ring.” Angus takes my head in his hands and pulls me in for a long, lingering kiss. “Of course I know that.”
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