Epilogue
“How do we have so much stuff?” Kayla complained, making a circle in her brand-new living room surrounded by boxes.
“I’m pretty sure half this shit is Liam’s tools.”
“Damn it, Aiden, I told you not to swear in front of Zane,” Aiden’s girlfriend, Zoe, said, clapping her hands over her ten-year-old’s ears.
“You just said damn it,” Aiden replied, throwing his hands in the air.
Aiden had started dating Zoe a few months ago. No one was more surprised than Kayla that Zoe and her son had seemed to be the kind of calming influence Aiden had been in desperate need of.
And, even stranger, Mrs. Patrick had warmed up to Kayla considerably in those few months as well. She still tended to overstep and ask Liam for things that weren’t necessarily fair, but any time Liam was uncertain, he came to her and they talked.
Kayla had always trusted Liam, but she could admit now in retrospect she’d been careful in those first few months after they’d gotten back together. She’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Liam to overextend himself again.
He hadn’t. There’d been those few unfair requests from his mother, but he always came right to her. And it wasn’t like he was asking for her permission or approval, or like she was checking up on everything they did. It was a conversation. It was a partnership.
She’d come to the realization one night she’d been hanging out with Dinah helping with wedding plans that she was just . . . happy, and it was silly to undermine that with doubts.
And since then, everything had been a little easier, even the disagreements. Even spending time with his family. She wasn’t afraid anymore, and that made things with Aiden and Mrs. Patrick easier too.
“All right, my big strong men, now that we’ve unloaded everything, who wants to go get some dinner?” Mrs. Patrick asked, linking arms with Aiden and Zane.
“You guys go ahead. We’ll see you Sunday at Grandma’s,” Liam said.
Both Liam’s parents looked at him kind of funny, and Kayla couldn’t help but look at him a little funny herself. They’d been moving stuff from her place and his all day, and she was starving.
But Aiden and his crew, and Liam’s parents, filed out, leaving Kayla and Liam alone in their house.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t so bad. They’d picked out a house closer to her job, and with a huge backyard that would eventually allow them to build Liam a workshop. It was a little rundown, but both she and Liam had already put in a lot of work.
“You and Dinah did a great job with all the painting,” Liam said, winding his way around the array of boxes, closer to her.
Kayla looked around. “We did, didn’t we.” She grinned at him. “You better have some food around here.”
“I do,” he replied. “I just wanted to get something out of the way first.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m all for christening the house with sex, but I am starving.”
He chuckled, pulling something out of his pocket. “I didn’t mean sex. Yet.”
“Then what did you . . .” She stopped abruptly as he pulled the little velvet box out of his pocket and placed it in the center of one of the boxes between them. “Oh.” She swallowed at the sudden lump in her throat. “That’s a ring box.”
“Yes.”
“You’re proposing.”
“Well, you know my grandmother is losing her shit over us living in sin, so I thought I’d make it official.”
“For your grandmother?” she replied, trying to scowl at him even though she knew he was joking.
“Yes. No other reason at all,” he replied deadpan, but then he softened. “I would have done it that night you took me back this spring, but I wanted a real ring. The perfect ring, and I needed to save up a little for that.”
“You didn’t go overboard, did you?”
“No, I said perfect, not overboard. Now, are you going to open it or what?”
She frowned but took the box with shaking hands. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, but it was still a moment. A big one. She opened the box and then glared at Liam as she pulled the contents out. “This is my smiling bear, not a ring.”
He grinned. “Oh, is it?” He patted down his pockets. “Whoops. A little mix-up.” He pulled a silver band from his pocket, the small but—he was right—perfect diamond winking at the top. He moved through the maze of boxes until he was in front of her, and then he got down on one knee.
She’d done a very admirable job of not crying yet, but that about did it. Him on his knee, holding the ring out to her, looking up at her with all the love in the world on his face.
“Kayla Gallagher, I love you. I want to build a life with you—a marriage, a family. Will you marry me?” he asked, and all joking and feigned casualness were gone from his expression, from his voice. His throat worked and he held out that beautiful ring, this wonderful man who’d been waiting for her.
Just as she’d been waiting for him. “Yes,” she managed to squeak out. “I want all of those things with you.”
He slid the ring onto her finger and then was up on his feet, taking her mouth with his. The kiss was hard and a little desperate, as if he’d been nervous. She smoothed her hands over his beard, accepting that harshness with all the softness and love she had.
“You sure we need to eat before we do the christening?” he murmured against her mouth.
“Well . . . maybe eating can wait.” Before she even got the full sentence out of her mouth, he’d lifted her up and was carrying her through the maze of boxes to their bedroom—theirs—and to their future.