Chapter 26

Skinny girls shouldn’t be in charge of the thermostat. You need a middle-aged woman, thirty pounds overweight, with hot flashes named Bertha.

-Rules to live by

Naomi

I looked at Sean warily.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

In answer, he wrapped his arms around me and placed a wet kiss on my mouth.

Then he pushed me onto the bed and walked away from me, disappearing into the closet.

“What…”

He was back before I could ask him more, and in his hand was a black box that looked like a ring box.

“Sean…”

He dropped down to his knee in front of me, and I forgot how to freakin’ breathe.

“Sean…”

“Naomi, two years ago, I didn’t believe that I’d ever be here,” he said softly, looking down at the ring box that he had in his hand. “I’d been waiting to find the woman I was meant to spend my life with for so long, that I was starting to believe I’d never find her. I’d tried to give my heart away a few times, but no one seemed to want it. Now I know, though, that it was because all along it was meant for you. He looked up. “I didn’t know that you were out there, but you have the power to bring me to my knees. But now that I do know how my life can be with you, I don’t want to spend another minute without you being tied to me in every single way possible.”

Tears started to burn my throat.

“Sean…”

“When you nearly died…when our baby was taken from us,” his voice broke. “I nearly followed you.”

“Sean, no.” I lifted my hand to cup his cheek.

“I want to marry you. I want to have a family with you. I want to build our house, fill it with kids, and scream at them the way my dad and mom used to do to me.”

A sob caught in my throat.

“And I want you to be there with me, every step of the way.”

I nodded, tears flowing freely down my cheeks.

“Do you want my babies?” he asked. “I would understand if not after…”

“Yes.” I placed a kiss on his mouth and pulled back, waiting to see what he said next.

“Do you want to marry me?”

I nodded my head.

“Yes.”

“Can we get married tomorrow?”

I started to laugh.

“Yes,” I said. “I can call my mom and Aspen right now. They’ll all come up here.”

His eyes closed.

“I love you, Naomi.”

“I didn’t break, you know,” I said to him quietly.

His eyes opened.

“I didn’t break after we lost our baby, because of you. It was your strength, your love, that got me through. Yes, it still hurts sometimes, but I have you. There’s not a lot of room in here for pain, because you’ve filled it full with love.” I patted my chest, directly over my heart. “You fought off all my demons, and you replaced all my nightmares with hopes and dreams.”

He held his arms open wide, and I launched myself into them.

“Do I get to see the ring now?” I asked him, looking down at him from where I’d pushed him to the floor.

He nodded and held up the box.

I snatched it from him, opened it, and my breath caught.

“It’s beautiful, Sean.”

“It was my mother’s.”

Tears ran uninhibited down my cheeks.

“I love it.”

He took the box out of my hand, slipped the ring from it, and then pushed it onto my finger.

Where it would stay for the rest of our lives if I had anything to say about it.

My eyes caught his, and I saw triumph in them before he hooked his hand around my neck, brought my lips to his, and finally, finally, kissed me like he meant it.

Butterfinger growled from somewhere across the room, but I didn’t bother looking at her. This moment was mine and Sean’s, and I wouldn’t let her ruin it.

The bitch.

***

Sean

18 hours later

“Test, test…testicles.”

I sighed and looked over at Truth.

“Really?” I asked him, yelling across the hall.

He shrugged.

“It’s time for the best man speech,” he said.

I wanted to smack him. “You’re not the best man.”

That was lost on him.

“So?”

I rolled my eyes, pulled my wife into my arms and smashed my lips down onto hers.

“I’m going to kill him.”

Naomi’s answering smile was enough to make my breath catch in my chest.

“Sean.”

I looked over to find Dante standing there, his eyes haunted, but a genuine smile on his lips.

“Hey, man,” I said, offering him my hand. “You headed out?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Got a business to run, and employees that think it’s okay to jack around when I’m not there.”

My lips twitched.

“Then I guess I can understand,” I said, dropping his hand. “Don’t be a stranger.”

He nodded once, then left without another word. Not even to the men who had come with him.

“That’s so sad.”

It was.

Dante looked like a man who was only existing.

I’d nearly lost Naomi, but that man had lost so much more, it was a wonder that he was still standing.

“You’ll watch out for him?”

Naomi’s words brought my eyes to hers.

“Yeah, we’ll watch out for Dante. I know where he lives.”

“Hey, it’s time to release her for a dance.”

I looked up to find Naomi’s brother standing there, his face a mask of unease, and released Naomi. “Go dance with your brother, baby. He looks like he needs it.”

And as Naomi got up and walked away, heading to the dance floor with her brother who had shown up with a whipped look about him, I looked around the room at all of our family and friends.

New and old.

And realized rather quickly that I was one truly blessed man.

Standing up, I reached for the microphone that was sitting on top of the speaker, and then reached over and shut the radio off.

Everyone in the vicinity turned my way.

***

Naomi

“A year ago, I was not in a good place. I was a shell of the man that I used to be, and I didn’t even realize it.”

Sean’s words made me turn, and my eyes widened as I looked at my brother.

“I think you’re wanted back,” he teased.

I pressed a kiss to my brother’s cheek, then turned to find Sean staring at me over the length of the half-assed dance floor.

“When you wrote this note to me,” Sean cleared his throat. “I was so freakin’ mad at you. Had been for weeks. But you just kept chipping away at that hard shell around my heart until you finally broke through. But with this note, you broke me.”

I hadn’t realized that he’d carried it around with him ever since. I hadn’t even been sure that he even found it.

That made my heart sing.

The note wasn’t really great. But I’d written the words in a last-ditch effort to get past the wall he’d erected. I’d left it for him as I was leaving. I’d placed it on his motorcycle seat with a Hershey’s Kiss to hold it down.

I don’t want you to be mad at me anymore. I was being stupid. I’m a girl, and we do stupid things sometimes. But ever since I’ve gotten out of the hospital, you’ve broken my heart a little more each day. It hurts. I miss my friend. Don’t be mad at me.

“I hadn’t realized I’d been so mean,” he said, talking only to me now, as if there were no one else in the room.

I didn’t want him to know that he’d broken my heart with his words and actions over and over again those few weeks I’d stayed with his dad. It’d been torturous and wonderful all at once, and it was something I’d meant to hold on to.

But then I’d seen him talking to his ex and I’d written the note out of desperation.

“You’re the only woman I want, and if you leave me all alone on this earth, I’ll be like your friend. Lonely and lost, with my heart missing, and the only thing making me put one foot in front of the other would be my inability to disappoint my father.”

Brady and Sean were a lot alike, and as I walked across the dance floor to him, I knew that I’d love him as hard as he would let me. Forever and always.

***

Ghost

My heart hurt.