Two Months Later
“It looks great,” Alicia told her mom.
Her mom stepped back from the wall where she’d hung a row of framed pictures of pressed wildflowers. Her own artwork. It had taken them all week to get moved into her mom’s new condo, and now Alicia had to finish cleaning out their old house before the new owners moved in.
Even though her mom had encouraged her to stay in the extra bedroom at the condo, Alicia had decided to rent a room in Gwen’s place. Jeff kept offering his place as well, but Alicia wasn’t about to commit to him that much . . . unless they were married. But she wasn’t about to tell Jeff that. She didn’t want to force him into anything.
“Thanks for all of your help,” her mom said, looping an arm about Alicia’s shoulders.
The affection from her mom was definitely a new thing. And Alicia wasn’t complaining. Her mom had come a long way since last summer.
“Do you need anything else done?” Alicia asked.
“No, I’m good,” her mom said. “Beth is coming over tonight—she says she has a house-warming gift for me.”
“That sounds nice,” Alicia said. She took another look around before leaving. Several boxes were still waiting to be unpacked, but most of the place was put together. The couches were cute yellow-and-white plaid, and the white walls and blue area rug made the place bright and cheery. Her mom had only kept the necessities after going through a two-week purge that took both Mrs. Finch and Alicia helping.
The compromise they’d reached was taking pictures of all of her mom’s stuff, putting the pictures into photo albums, and the stuff could only be given to the assisted living center or Goodwill. Nothing could be thrown away. Alicia suspected that Goodwill had thrown away at least a third of the stuff.
Otherwise, her mom’s therapist had encouraged her mom to become a collector of three things only. Her mom could buy as much of the three as she wanted, and it was no one else’s business.
So, her mom had chosen decorative roosters, hot pads, and ceramic mugs to collect. It was fine with Alicia. She wasn’t going to be living with her mom anyway.
As she left her mom’s condo, Alicia texted Jeff. On my way.
His reply came as she climbed in her car. I’ll meet you there.
Alicia smiled to herself, relishing the butterflies tumbling in her stomach every time she was with Jeff. They’d been officially in a relationship for two months now, since that day at the arts and crafts fair. But they’d only told their families about a month ago. Things had been great. Things had been better than great. Alicia knew she was in love with Jeff, and on one level it scared her to death. On another level, she’d never been happier.
By the time she reached her old house, Jeff’s SUV was parked at the curb. He was sitting inside, talking on the phone. She pulled into the driveway and climbed out of her car. Jeff held up his hand, as if to say, just a minute. So Alicia walked to the porch and unlocked the door. It still had the musty smell of old junk. But now the place was all cleaned out, for the most part.
Alicia still had to do the nitty gritty, like wash down the cupboards and scrub baseboards. Jeff had told her he’d help her out today. She flipped on lights and looked around, assessing what the final things were to be done. She checked the single bathroom. It was still clean from the last time she’d cleaned it. While waiting, she walked from room to room. Her mom’s bedroom had been the worst to clean out, but now it had an eerie empty feel to it. The spare bedroom, turned office, turned junk room, had also been cleaned out. Nail holes dotted the walls, and there were cobwebs in the corners.
They’d have to be cleaned off.
Next she moved to her bedroom. It was strange being in her childhood bedroom for what might be the last time. She’d gone through a lot of growing up and emotions in this room. She’d dreamed, cried, laughed, and found new purpose.
The front door opened, and Alicia stepped out into the hallway. Jeff came inside, carrying a couple bags.
“Hi.” He held up the bags. “I brought cleaning supplies.”
“Great,” Alicia said, walking toward him. He was wearing jeans and a dark t-shirt, so he must have changed after work. His t-shirt pulled across his broad shoulders, and his forearms were already tanned with the warming weather. He set the bags on the floor and scooped her up into a hug.
“Mmm,” she said against his neck, inhaling his clean spice scent. “How do you always smell so good?”
He chuckled and kissed her cheek. She turned her head so he could kiss her mouth too, which he did.
“Ready to get to work?” she asked after a moment.
He sighed. “I’m at your command,” he said in a teasing voice.
“Okay, great,” she said, reluctantly stepping out of his embrace, although he kept his hands loosely at her hips. “We need to finish up the spare room and the living room. I think everything else is good.”
“I’ll work out here if you want to do the spare room,” Jeff said, his fingers tugging at the hem of her shirt. “I think it will be a lot less distracting.”
“You’re probably right,” Alicia said. His touch and his blue eyes could easily make her forget quite a few things.
She stepped back and went through his bags. “Ah, perfect,” she said, pulling out a cloth duster. “Can you get the cobwebs first?”
He laughed and took the duster. “You’re going to owe me . . . something good.”
She followed him to the spare room. “I’m already in debt to you.”
He smiled and moved about the room, sweeping off the cobwebs. She got to work on the baseboards. Thankfully the place had been thoroughly vacuumed by Jeff’s mom a couple of days ago. The carpet was still pretty scary though. Jeff moved into the next room, and the next hour went by quickly as Alicia cleaned. When she’d finished the spare room and done the baseboards of the other two bedrooms, she found Jeff in the living room, talking to someone at the door—a food delivery kid.
“You ordered takeout?” she said as he came back inside.
“Yeah, I figured we could say goodbye to this place properly.”
“Are we sitting on the floor?”
He handed her the sack of food. “We’re going in the backyard.” He picked up another bag from the floor she hadn’t noticed before, along with a thick blanket. “I brought something to sit on.”
“We’ll need it,” Alicia said. Even though she’d done a bunch of work to get the house ready to sell, the backyard had been long neglected. The grass was cut, but it was thick with weeds, and the bushes outlining the yard probably needed to be trimmed again. At least the mature trees offered plenty of shade, blocking the late-afternoon sun.
While she held the bag of food, Jeff spread out the blanket, then pulled some other things out of the bag. Water bottles, plates, forks, napkins.
“It’s like a real picnic,” Alicia said with a laugh. She knelt down. “I hope you ordered chicken cashew, that’s my favorite.”
He grinned. “I know. And I ordered it.”
She opened the containers of Chinese food, smelling each one as she went. “I must be starving. Everything looks delicious.”
Jeff sat opposite of her and scooped some food from every container onto a plate. “Remember we used to play that game of double dare, or something. You had to try something new every time we ate someplace?”
“Yeah,” she said. “But that was at like McDonalds, when everything pretty much tastes the same.”
“Well, you have to try everything I ordered,” he said, handing over her plate.
“I’m not trying this limp zucchini,” Alicia said. “It looks overcooked.”
Jeff shrugged. “If you don’t try everything you won’t get a fortune cookie.”
“That’s mean,” she said. “Fortune cookies are my favorite.”
He leaned on his side, propped up on one elbow. He picked a fortune cookie out of a plastic container, then moved the container behind him. He cracked open his cookie and ate one of the halves.
“Why do you get to eat the cookies first?”
“I bought the food, so I get to make the rules.” Jeff spread out the strip of paper. “Today your life will change.”
“Hmm, sounds very mysterious,” she said. She took a bite of everything that was familiar.
She noticed that Jeff didn’t try everything, he mostly stuck to the sweet and sour chicken.
“Okay, here goes,” she said. With Jeff watching her, she took a small bite of the limp zucchini. She made a face. “Not terrible, but I’m not eating anymore.”
Jeff laughed. “I guess you earned a cookie.”
“Good, I need to get the taste out of my mouth.” Alicia drank from her water bottle, then held out her hand. “Cookie, please.”
Jeff handed her a cookie, and she broke it open.
She popped the cookie into her mouth as she read the fortune: “Dear Alicia: Someone will ask you a very important question today.” She looked at Jeff. “It has my name on it.”
He just looked at her, as if he wasn’t surprised at all.
“Jeff, what is this?” she held up the slip of paper. Then she realized that not only did it have her name on it, but it was referring to an ‘important question.’ A dozen thoughts ran through her mind—the primary one being that she had just been cleaning cobwebs and baseboards for an hour. She was sweaty, her hair was a mess, and she probably didn’t smell too nice.
Jeff handed her another cookie.
“What’s in this one?” she asked, her pulse drumming.
Jeff just raised his brows, not answering.
Her hands shook as she broke open the cookie. When a ring tumbled out onto the blanket, she gasped. For a moment, she just stared at the diamond band. Then she looked up to see Jeff kneeling next to her and gazing at her with that look of his that made her feel like she was his whole world.
She blinked at the sudden tears in her eyes.
“Jeff,” she whispered.
He picked up the ring. “Marry me, Alicia,” he said. “I will always watch over you. I will always love you. And I’ll always be there for you.”
Her tears fell, and she took a shaky breath. “This is really fast. I—” She looked down at the ring. “I mean, I didn’t expect this . . . so soon . . .”
“I didn’t either,” he said, “but I feel like I’ve been waiting a long time. And even if you want to wait, I’m okay with that too. I’ll wait as long as you need. Just don’t make it ten years.”
Alicia’s heart thumped like mad as she looked into his eyes. She felt like she was in a dream, a good dream, a very good dream. Jeff was the only man she wanted to be with, to marry, to spend the rest of her life with. Would another month make a difference? Would a year change her mind? She knew it wouldn’t.
She exhaled. “I don’t want to wait either.”
Jeff whooped and pulled her into his arms, squeezing her tight.
Alicia laughed. “I can’t breathe.”
He released her just enough to kiss her hard. “I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too,” she whispered against his mouth. They tumbled onto the blanket together, a tangle of arms and legs as Jeff continued to kiss her.
Alicia couldn’t think of a better way to spend the afternoon than kissing her fiancé. She pulled him closer, breathing in this man who had become her whole world. She ran her fingers over his shoulder then down his arm, stopping at his hand resting on her waist. “What did you do with the ring?” she asked.
He lifted his head. “What?”
“Where’s the ring?”
He disentangled himself from her and sat up. “Oh, no.”
She sat up, too, and they started to search the blanket and the food containers. Then she saw something sparkling in the grass a couple of feet away. She reached over and picked it up.
“Found it,” she said.
Jeff moved next to her. “Maybe we should put it on where it belongs.”
She smirked and held out her hand so he could slide the ring on her finger. It was beautiful and actually fit. Jeff brought her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss on her ring finger. “That’s better.”
“When did you plan all of this?” she asked.
“About twelve years ago,” he said. “I always thought if I was going to marry you, I’d ask you in your backyard.”
She stared at him. “Twelve years?”
He grinned as he cleaned up the remains of the food. When he had it all shoved back into the bag, he stood and held out his hand. “It took me longer than I thought to work up the courage.”
Alicia put her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet. “I’m glad you finally did.”
His arms slid around her waist. “I’m a lucky man, and I’m glad you decided I was worth the risk.”
Alicia settled her hands on his shoulders. Then she kissed him, knowing in her heart that he would always be worth the risk. When she drew away, she said, “We probably shouldn’t wait to tell our families this news.”
“Probably not,” Jeff said. “The sooner we tell them, the sooner we can make wedding plans. And then you can finally be my roommate.”
She laughed. “That sounds good to me.” They walked into her childhood home together, and Alicia knew she was finally ready to say goodbye to her old life and start a new one with Jeff.