STELLA
He’d called that morning to say he was on his way home. His bus was arriving in an hour, and I was just about to leave my apartment so I could be there when he arrived. My hands were shaking so hard, I thought I was going to have to ask Roxie to put my mascara on for me. Somehow, though, I managed to do it on my own, and I didn’t even poke myself in the eye. I looked at myself in the mirror and tried to take a few calming breaths. It didn’t work at all.
I checked my phone again. I was one minute closer to seeing him. I roughed up my curls and thought about lipstick, but then realized it really had been a miracle that I’d gotten the mascara on without impaling myself. Lipstick was much too risky with my hands shaking so hard.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in!” I said, expecting to see Roxie offering up yet another potential outfit change. Or Ruth, offering me another cup of some sort of odd-smelling calming tea. But the door didn’t open, and nobody was there when I looked out into the hall. Of course they weren’t here, I realized, feeling like a dummy. They’d gone out together, to put a down payment on a commercial space now for sale . . . once known as Pony Up, it was soon to be Ohm Sweet Ohm.
Little had we known that the Texan was on his third strike. So we hadn’t just dinged him—we’d ruined him. And now, he’d be spending the rest of his days at a medium-security facility on charges of tax evasion, money laundering, and running an illegal gambling ring. Pony Up had gone on the market after he’d been arraigned. Ruth and Roxie had the business plan all prepared: Meditation and yoga at night, and job counseling during the day. As a small-business owner, Roxie had been able to get a loan for a mortgage on a two-bedroom with a backyard. Right down the street from her son’s school.
We’d done it. Together. The stars were ours at last.
If Ruth and Roxie weren’t here, though, I must have imagined the knocking. Nerves, I thought. Just nerves. I smoothed my shirt and spun around to make sure everything looked as good as I could make it.
Except there it was again—I hadn’t imagined it. The knocking was coming from the bathroom window. My heart cartwheeled in my chest. I slid the frosted glass panel up and looked out. There was nobody there at all. I poked my head out and looked left to right, with my fingers on the sill. Still nobody.
But when I looked down, my heart jumped like a shooting star across the galaxy. Sitting on the adobe sill was the delicate gold ring that I’d said I liked so much at the pawnshop when we’d gone shopping for rings. And sitting inside it was a purple candy conversation heart that said MARRY ME.
The joy was so overpowering that I thought I would topple right over. But then everything became clear and steady. Because I heard the thump-clink-thump of his motorcycle boots. And there he was. He was beaming, his smile even more brilliant now that it was set off by his thicker, darker, oh-so-sexy beard.
Tears of relief and overwhelming happiness at having him home safe tumbled down my cheeks. Blurry eyed, I scrambled onto the toilet and climbed as far out of the window as I could. I wrapped my arms around him and held him close and got lost in the feelings that had been so familiar but had, for all those months, seemed like a dream. And now it was a dream that would never have to end. “I missed you so much.”
“I’m never saying goodbye to you again,” he said, his voice gravelly with tears too. We let go of one another just enough to look into the other’s eyes. Like we were memorizing the thing we had always been waiting to see.
For so long I had told myself I didn’t want a hero. But I did. And those were my hero’s eyes. All mine forever.
“You stuck?” he asked, smiling so hard that I felt his cheeks tighten against mine.
I shook my head. “Not this time,” I said, and slid back into the bathroom a little, still on my knees on the top of the toilet.
“Good. Because I’ve got a question to ask you,” he said. He took the ring from the windowsill. He wiggled off the wedding band I’d worn for the heist and slipped the delicate band onto my finger. “This is the last gamble I’m ever going to make. You ready?”
I didn’t know about ready. What I did know was that in my life, I had seen all sorts of beautiful things. But I had never laid eyes on anything as beautiful as Nick’s face as he gave me that tiny, elegant strip of gold. I blinked back my tears, and he swept them off my cheeks.
He pressed his forehead against mine, still with my hand in his. He took a deep breath, and then he said, “I’m lost without you, Stella. Will you marry me?”
He was my big wide open. He was my dream that would never end. He had stolen my heart, and I never wanted it back. “Yes,” I whispered, with my nose nestled against him, our cheeks wet with our tears. “One million times yes.”