Two Years Later
This is the spot, I think as I stop beneath a canopy of trees and rest my forearms on the handrail, staring out at the sparkling river cutting through the city center and the gleaming skyscrapers along the opposite shore. Brisbane looks particularly gorgeous today. She would have loved it here.
Not just the crystal skies. But the pulsing energy of having the eyes of the entire globe on one city. The marvel of being on the opposite side of the world, everything new and exciting.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the tube of rainbow glitter hidden inside.
It’s a tradition I thought up two years ago, when I first moved to San Diego, as a way to honor Mabel’s memory.
Whenever I go anywhere new, I carry a little bit of biodegradable glitter with me to spread her shine around the world.
Because I can’t change the way she died or how we left things, but I can control how I remember her.
Instead of dwelling on unanswered questions, I can choose to focus on the love that once lived between us and the friendship that helped shape me.
So that’s what I’m doing. Focusing on the good things, because in the end, that’s all that really matters.
I twist off the cap and hold the tube out over the river. Lifting my face to the sky, I let the sun warm my cheeks as I spare a moment to remember her smiling face, her laugh, the way she could make me feel as if anything in the world were possible if I just had the courage to try.
A strong breeze whips my hair into a frenzy as I tilt the tube a little bit more. Sparkling colors dance across the air for a moment, catching the sunlight before they’re carried off on the wind, gone but not forgotten.
“There you are—” Nova pauses to gasp. I spin. But her gaze isn’t on my face. It’s on my hand. Well, my finger, to be exact. “What the fuck is that?”
I glance down, biting my lip.
Not every sparkle vanished in the wind.
“Is that an engagement ring?” She grabs my hand, then lifts it to inspect the massive oval-cut diamond held on my ring finger by a delicate golden band. “Are you engaged!?”
“Not exactly…” I hedge.
She looks up with a very pointed brow. “Spill.”
“It happened two weeks ago, before Nox left for Australia,” I begin, a smile I can’t bite back widening my lips as I think back to that day.
I open the door to our apartment as quietly as I can, careful to muffle the sound of the click as I then slowly close it behind me.
The soft mumble of his voice trickles down the hallway, coming from the bedroom.
I grin. I’m home about four hours earlier than I said I would be, and he clearly has no idea.
Excellent.
I ease out of my shoes and tiptoe along the carpet. When I make it to the door, I peek around the edge, getting ready to jump out and yell, Surprise!
The sight of him stops me.
Nox is on one knee in front of the mirror, his face as serious as I’ve ever seen it, his shoulders back, his expression inscrutable.
What the heck is he doing? Is this some sort of weird pep talk?
I hold back my greeting, way too curious to see what strange shit he’s up to when I’m not around. Positive affirmations? Visualizations?
Wait. I stop and question. Is he jerking off to his own reflection?
“Will you marry me?”
My thoughts suddenly screech to a halt. Wait— Is he— Was that—
“Awful.” Nox makes a face, then rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck before speaking into the mirror again with a different tone. “Will you marry me?”
“WHAT?!” I shriek.
His eyes jerk to mine in the mirror and he whips around in complete shock.
The box I didn’t notice he was holding slips through his fingers.
It arcs across the room and lands with a thud before rolling along the floor to stop practically at my feet.
The ceiling light catches a smooth facet, and the shadowy opening fills with a blinding sparkle. I can’t look away.
“Is that…?”
“No,” he answers immediately.
I glance up, at a loss for words. “Are you…?”
“No.”
“Do not lie to me right now, Nox.”
“Fuck.” He lifts his fist to his mouth, as if to trap the shit he was about to spew. Calculations whirl behind his eyes. “What are you doing home?”
I smile weakly and shrug, holding my hands out. “Surprise.”
“Surprise?”
“I left the lab early so I could have more time with you before your flight,” I hastily explain, then narrow my eyes. “Wait. I know what you’re doing. This isn’t about me. Did you just propose?”
He swallows. “…No?”
“Yes, you did,” I charge. “I heard you.”
“Technically,” he qualifies, “I proposed to my own reflection. I didn’t even know you were here.”
There’s definitely some scarily accurate Narcissus reference I could make right now, but it’s too much for my brain to untangle. I’m still stuck on those four little words I distinctly heard him say. “Are you or are you not asking me to marry you?”
“I am. Just not…” He winces. “Yet.”
Both of our gazes drop to the box at the same time.
He makes a lunge for it, but it’s basically scraping my toes.
I snatch it up before he even has a chance.
An involuntary gasp escapes my lips. The ring is just too beautiful.
A huge oval-cut on a delicate golden band. Exactly what I never knew I wanted.
“Give it back, Clara,” he demands, going for the box.
I turn my back, unwilling to surrender my prize. “It’s too late. I already saw it.”
“Are you kidding me?”
He reaches around me easily with his long arms. I dart out of his embrace, making for the door.
He scoops me up around the middle, literally sweeping me off my feet.
I snap the box shut and hold it in a grip so tight he will have to physically pry my fingers away if he wants it.
And he tries. But I’m resourceful. I reach up with my other hand and start tickling him under the armpit.
He squirms, trying not to laugh. Neither one of us relents.
Rather than drop me or give up, he careens to the side and we crash into the bed, still a tangle of limbs.
“This is not how this was supposed to go,” he says between grunts.
“I don’t know.” I grin and look up at him. “I’m kind of having fun.”
“Clara.” He laughs, the sound unsure if it wants to be aggravated or amused. “I need that back.”
“Fine.” I roll us over so I’m straddling his waist and hold the box over his chest like a peace offering.
When he tries to take it, I twist my arm behind my back and arch my brows.
He stares at me with a frown, digging his hands into my thighs to stave off my escape.
But I’m not trying to run. “First I want to hear why.”
“Why what?” He sighs.
“Why you’re so desperate for a redo, when I know exactly what my answer will always be, no matter how or when or where you ask.”
“I just—” He breaks off with a deep breath. The grip on my legs eases. His expression softens into something vulnerable, like a curtain pulling back, because he knows he never has to hide from me. The confession spills from his lips. “I want to wait until after the Olympics.”
My heart splinters, cracking open at everything he’s not saying.
I still hear it loud and clear. He’s afraid.
He’s worried what happened four years ago might happen again.
He doesn’t want to ask until he knows he’s strong enough to be the man I need.
But I’m not worried. I don’t have to wait.
I already know he is. We’re both different people than we were back then. We’ve pushed one another to be better.
“Okay,” I say, untwisting my arm and holding the box out for him to take. If that’s what he needs, I can give it to him.
Nox looks at the box, then back to me. Then the box, then me. His dimple digs a little farther into his chin as he clenches his jaw, then relaxes. “Keep it.”
I arch my brow, not saying a word.
“This isn’t the proposal.” He rolls his eyes with a smile and shifts his large hands around my hips to palm my ass, nudging me closer. “Just hold on to it for safekeeping, okay? Until it’s time.”
It’s his concession, a way to admit without words that his hesitations are entirely about him and not at all to do with me. He knows I’m not going anywhere. He knows I’m in this.
There’s not a doubt in my mind that he is, too.
“My brother’s an idiot,” Nova mutters when I finish telling her the story. She grips my fingers and pulls them almost to her nose. Then she looks over at me with a grin. “But at least he’s an idiot with great taste.”
“So you didn’t help?” I ask, a little surprised. “I was wondering about that. I meant to ask, but then Nox left for Brisbane and I got caught up with my research and I figured I’d just tell you everything when I saw you. Which I just did. So you can’t be mad.”
“I can’t.” She shrugs far too innocently. “But Willa’s gonna be pissed.”
I groan. “Should we call her?”
“Definitely,” Nova agrees. “But first, I have a question.”
“Yeah?”
“If you’re not exactly engaged, why exactly are you wearing the ring?”
I flash her a guilty smile.
A mischievous twinkle lights her gaze. “You’re scheming.”
“Not scheming, exactly,” I mutter, glancing down at the ring. “But do you by any chance think Nox will be able to see it from the pool?”
Two hours later, I’m questioning my plan entirely. Nova thinks it’s hilarious, which is probably a warning in and of itself, but it’s too late to go back now. We’re already in the stands. Nox is due any minute. And I’m too worried I’ll lose the ring if I take it off now.
“There he is!”