There’ll never be a perfect moment to propose.

It’s what I’ve been thinking about. How today I could face a family emergency, a media fallout, the most bizarre random happening and doomsday—Christ, the man on the moon could come down and try to fuck this up for all I know. But that’s okay if he does.

Because this doesn’t need to be perfect.

Farrow Redford Keene fell in love with the imperfect me. The human me. And whatever happens today, before or after, it’ll probably, most likely be imperfectly human.

At the island of Kythira, we sightsee in the quaint village Mylopotamos, and Farrow and I separate from the family to hike one of the most stunning trails.

Lush plane trees shade a path littered with stone ruins of old watermills. Passing blue-green waterfall after blue-green waterfall, the rushing sound calms the air.

Farrow ducks beneath a branch in his way, not in mine. My durable backpack is strapped to his back, his Yale V-neck suctioning to his chest in the summer heat. And me—I’m carrying a whole lot of nothing. Giving my shoulders a break for once.

I catch Farrow swiveling the knob to a radio on his waistband and I ask, “Turning the volume down on them already?”

His lips rise. “They’re being particularly annoying right now.”

“Who’s they?” I ask for specific names from SFO.

He nearly laughs. “All of them.” He looks deep into me, his eyes smiling with airy light—and I don’t need to ask if he’s happy about rejoining security. There’s nothing more obvious.

Farrow reaches out, and our hands seem to draw together on instinct. It’s the most natural, simple thing: his hand in my hand while we hike a trail. But it means something to me.

Coming up to a lagoon, we slow to a stop. I’ve seen a lot of breathtaking views in my life, but what we reach is fucking majestic. An azure waterfall plunges into a crystal clear, bottomless pool. Mossy stones isolate the oasis, and light dances between the leaves of a sweeping plane tree overhead. Glittering the swimming pond.

“Wow,” Farrow says first, and he pulls off the backpack, setting it on the ground.

Water mists the air and sprays my cheeks. Refreshingly cool. And that deep pond has to be cold, but I’d still swim in it with Farrow.

Near the edge of the green-blue water, I squat down and untie my hiking boot. I’m trying not to overthink here. Just feel what I feel, and it’ll come to me.

And honest to God, as Farrow crouches only a foot in front of me and unzips the backpack, a dragonfly flutters past his shoulders, and then zips past his face.

He’s only watching me. His smile stretching from cheek-to-cheek like he’s fully aware that I’m in love with this place, this damn moment, him.

I lick my lips, not breaking our gazes while I unknot my boot. “I think we’ve made it to Neverland.”

“Neverland,” Farrow repeats, looking me up and down with amusement. His hand descends into the backpack. “Don’t lost boys stay young forever there?”

“Yeah.” I loosen my lace, his eyes swimming against my eyes.

“That’s too bad then,” Farrow says matter-of-factly. “Because I want to grow old with you.”

The strong promise inside those words floods my whole body. I want to grow old with you. It floods my eyes.

I want to grow old with you.

Staying crouched, I’m about to speak, but words catch in my throat as his tattooed hand leaves the backpack. He’s holding a small wooden box.

Farrow lowers his knee to the mossy stone.

Is he…?

Before I say anything, he cups one side of my face with a protective, affectionate hand, and he tilts his head towards my other cheek, his jaw gliding along my jaw.

Until his lips brush softly against my ear.

And very deeply, he whispers, “You’ve been my forever guy. You are my forever guy, wolf scout.” His breath warms my skin, and I curve my bicep around his shoulders, staying close. Hanging on.

Listening to every intimate word as he continues, “And you said you wanted an in-your-face, overjoyed kind of love that knocks you backwards.” He takes a beat. “But our love is that and better. Our love is headstrong. It never yields, never dies. And when it knocks you backwards, it pulls you upright again.”

I pinch my burning eyes, and his hand tightens on my cheek.

I feel his smile rise against my ear, his voice gravel tied in silk as he says, “I promise to give you everything you need and nothing less. Never less. Maximoff…” He draws his head back, just enough for us to look at each other.

My hand falls off my eyes and onto his bent knee. We’re eye-level since I’m crouching, my boot half untied. I don’t know why the fuck I think about that.

His hand runs up through my thick hair, our reddened, welled-up eyes excavating each other.

I’m smiling. For real. I can’t restrain it. I don’t want to. Not now.

He sees, and his own smile stretches wider and wider. He nods a few times, and he whispers, “You want to marry the fuck out of me?”

I nod just as assured, just as overcome. “Yeah.” I reach into my back pocket and pull out a black ring box. “I want to.”

Farrow laughs in surprise, a tear escapes the corner of his eye. Really overwhelmed.

“You had no idea I planned to do this today,” I realize. I thought maybe he got word this morning since I told everyone about the proposal plan at breakfast, including my dad. My mom and Jane kept the secret, so pretty much everyone found out hours ago.

“None.” He wipes his eyes. “But I’m not shocked that I beat you to it.”

“Because I overthink.”

Farrow laughs once, eyeing my smile. “Because you can’t be first at everything, wolf scout.”

It hits me that I’ll hear him tell me that for the rest of our lives. And then it washes over me. Fills me to the brim.

And we rise to our feet together.

Both of us standing close, I hold the back of his neck, and our heads dip towards each other. “Since you beat me to it, does this mean I can’t ask—”

“Ask me,” Farrow says strongly, and I hear the unsaid words: there are no rules, Maximoff.

I blink, and a couple tears slide down my face. And I just say, “There’s no one else, Farrow. You’re it. You’re the one, the only one.”

His chest rises against my chest, and he nods, knowing.

Feeling.

And I ask him, “Marry me?”

“Yeah,” he says like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “I’ll marry you, wolf scout.”

Our mouths meet with emotion swelling up inside, water misting around us and light streaming through treetops.

I’ve never been happier and more in love.

After a long swelling moment, we pull back. And I look between the ring boxes that we both still clutch.

“Let’s do this,” Farrow says like he’s about to share a plan. But he just pops open the wooden box. He plucks out the wedding band that he bought me, and he pinches the ring between two fingers. Showing me the simple gray band, grooved like a tree. “It’s not sterling silver. It’s titanium and didn’t cost a lot.”

He knows that makes me love it even more. And now I’m trying hard not to smile, but it’s a losing battle.

Farrow slips my titanium wedding band on his own ring finger. Off my confusion, he explains, “I’ll wear yours and you’ll wear mine as engagement rings. And then on our wedding day, I’ll take the ring off and finally put it on your finger.”

Alright, my brain is obsessed with this plan. Like way too damn much. “Did you just think of this on the spot?”

“I’d love to say I did, but no.” He waves me on to open the black box. “It’s something I thought about when I realized we were the same ring size.”

Before I open the box, I ask him, “How’d you get the ring without the media knowing?”

He pulls out his comms earpiece, as though remembering the radio connection. Even if it’s muted. And he answers, “Oscar and Donnelly.”

“Your best friends,” I define.

Farrow surprises me by just raising his brows in a teasing wave. Not denying how close those two guys are to him. And his gaze falls to my hands.

I open the box and pull out a sleek black tungsten band. “You should know, man. It took me a solid millisecond to pick this out.”

He grins like I’m full of shit, and he’s about to say something—probably, sure or okay—but he notices the engraving on the inside of the band. His smile softens as he takes the ring from me. Just for a closer look.

“Dum spiro, spero,” he reads the Cicero quote. His eyes well up again.

On a day that rocked us both, he said he loved that quote. It was a quiet moment inside a storm. The memory is as tranquil as the quote itself.

While I breathe, I hope.

Farrow nods a few times, tears rising. “Here.” He places the black band in my palm, not wanting to slip a ring on my finger yet. “It’s perfect, wolf scout.” And with another growing smile, he adds, “Especially since you took forever to pick it out.”

I grimace. “You can’t know that one-hundred percent,” I contend and slip the black band on my ring finger.

“I do know that one-hundred percent,” Farrow says. “Because I know you one-hundred percent.”

* * *

Our last day in Greece has snuck up on us, and Farrow and I have left the yacht to spend the night in Corfu. Alone, together, both of us soaking in the peaceful quiet before we return to a media frenzy in Philly.

We’re not hiding our engagement.

So when we’re back home, whatever paparazzi presence existed before may be infinitely larger, more aggressive, invasive—we don’t know. Because I’m the first to be engaged out of my siblings and cousins.

I’m paving the way.

But not even the media can deter my brain from replaying the proposal. It’s on loop. And I remember how my whole family and SFO joined us at the lagoon. Farrow asked them to hike the same trail about thirty minutes after us, and I had no clue.

Janie, my best friend, ma moitié—when she saw me, she had her hand to her heart like she could feel mine swelling.

Having all of them there was everything.

Warm water rains down on me in a stone shower, made to look outdoors with a fogged skylight, but I’m inside our hotel bathroom. Private. As safe as it can be, and I’m not scared.

My muscles slacken with the warmth and gathering steam. I stand right beneath the downpour, my bare skin flush from the heat. I rub soap on my abs, picturing Farrow coming in behind me, my number one fantasy.

I go lower with the washcloth, hot breath ejecting from me. And hanging up the cloth on a hook, I rest my left hand on the stone slab wall. Whatever I planned to do suddenly flits away. Because the black ring on that hand is staring back at me.

I’m wearing his ring.

My eyes burn.

And then I hear the shower door swing open. In my peripheral, I see that it’s him. So I don’t turn back around. I wait, and his six-foot-three build pushes warmly up against me—God, this is real. His arm curves around my abs, chest melded firmly to my back.

I stare straight ahead. I feel Farrow, his left arm extending across the top of my arm. And he interlaces our fingers on the stone slab wall. His hand sheathing my hand, our rings on our fingers are in perfect sight together.

Farrow presses a burning kiss to my shoulder blade. And as his other hand descends to a place of need and want, his mouth travels to my ear. In my fantasy, I never hear what he whispers. He knows this is what I wouldn’t let myself dream of.

And as he kisses the nape of my neck, the line of my jaw, I wait and wait, and softly, so damn softly and huskily, Farrow whispers, “I love you.”

Light bursts in me, and I spin on him, our hands instantly grip each other in starved yearning. We kiss like we haven’t kissed in eons. Heat blistered and raw, we wrestle in the shower for the lead.

And goddamn, we’re both smiling.