I’m hungry.”
“Oh my God. I hate you,” I told him with an exasperated laugh. “Fine. But when you die of a heart attack, I’m going to say I told you so.”
“As long as you do a shot of whiskey over my casket, it’s all good.”
“Don’t die,” I said, suddenly serious. “Don’t leave me.”
His expression changed, too, and he shook his head solemnly. “I won’t leave you. Trust me, that is the last thing in the world I want.”
After getting yelled at by my boss at the end of my shift, I had to promise that my boyfriend would never show up at the restaurant again. Then I went into the parking lot, Riley’s car idling as he waited for me.
“I got bitched out,” I told him as a greeting. “Apparently other customers don’t think they should have to wait for their dinner while you and I work out our personal shit.”
“Selfish bastards,” he said, before leaning over and giving me a soft kiss. “Sorry. I really am. For everything.”
“I know.” I did.
“I want to show you something before we go home,” he said. “Do you mind?”
Suspicious, I eyed him. “Is it perverted?”
“No. It’s fucking romantic, that’s what it is.”
I pressed my lips together, wanting to laugh. “Well, in that case, absolutely.”
He pulled out and started to drive out of Hyde Park, a neighborhood of families where the chain restaurant was, and up the winding streets of Mt. Adams, an artsy area of young professionals. My friends and I never went there because it was for the martini and Ann Taylor crowd, tapas bars and top-shelf liquor. I started to worry that Riley was trying to impress me with a nice dinner out or something, though I couldn’t imagine where we could eat at eleven at night. I was in no way dressed for public. I wasn’t even dressed to clean the house. I had on skinny jeans, a white T-shirt with a marinara stain on it, and the Converse that were pinching my feet.
“Where are we going?”
“Don’t sound so scared.” Riley glanced over at me. “We’re going somewhere private. I never told you about my grandmother, did I?” he asked, in a total change of subject.
“No.”
“My grandmother was this tiny Irish woman who was the toughest woman I ever met. She worked two jobs and she buried two alcoholic husbands.” He shot me a rueful glance. “I guess addiction runs in the family. But she was fair and loving and even though she died when I was seven, I think she taught me more about being a decent person in that short time than my mom did in my whole life.”
“That’s awesome. It’s good you had her in your life.”
“She was Catholic, even though I didn’t know what that meant exactly when I was a kid. I just thought it meant you had to wave your hand around your face when something bad happened. It also meant you got to drink wine at church. But anyway, she lived in the neighborhood we live in now, but before every Easter, on Good Friday, she would take me to the church here, in Mt. Adams, for what they call Praying the Steps. People climb the ninety-some steps to the church starting at midnight, praying the rosary or the stations of the cross. I didn’t know what any of that meant, and frankly, I still don’t.” Riley pulled the car over and pointed. “Those are the stairs. See how steep they are? Picture being five years old and seeing thousands of people winding up those steps, murmuring. It was how I first understood what it means to believe in something. Because that was faith.”
I nodded, my throat tight. “I know exactly what you mean. It must have been beautiful.”
“It was.” He turned off the car and studied me, his hand brushing my cheek. “I want you to know that what I believe in is us. You and me. Will you walk up the stairs with me? The view up there is amazing. The whole city.”
“Yes,” I said, understanding that he was asking more of me than that. He was asking if I was in, with him. “I would love to.” My throat was tight, my heart pounding. Riley had taken a risk, coming to work, bringing me here. He had believed deeply enough in his feelings to expose them to me, and I was overwhelmed by how amazing that was. I wanted to give him that back, to try to figure out how to crack open my heart and display it for him.
I wasn’t sure I knew how, but I was going to try.
He came over and held his hand out for me. I took it, and we strolled up the stairs, the night air blissfully lacking in humidity, a warm breeze rising off the river. My thighs started to burn by the twentieth or so step, but I didn’t care.
“This is such a cool view,” I said, hair blowing across my face. The air smelled like summer, like trees and a faint tinge of something sweet that I couldn’t identify.
“It’s even better at the top.”
It was. When we finally reached the last step, me panting a little from the effort, the lights of the city were spread out in front of us, reflecting off the river. “Wow, it’s amazing.”
“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” Riley took me onto the platform in front of the church and we leaned against the railings. “When I’m up here, it’s a whole different perspective on the world. Down there.” He pointed in the direction of his neighborhood. “It’s not a pretty place on the ground. Life gets a little ugly in the details, but up here, taken as a whole, you realize the world can be pretty awesome. When I need to remember that, I come here and climb these steps.”
“I can see that,” I said, my fingers gripping the railing, eyes following the curve of the river, the water shimmering and softly lapping against the shore.
“I’m not a deep guy,” he told me. “I have my GED and I’d rather talk about music than politics, and I have a temper that I try to control, but sometimes it gets the best of me. I’m not really a good catch for a girl like you, I know that. But . . .”
“No, don’t say that.” I put my hand over his mouth to stop those words, knowing they weren’t true, but Riley caught my hand in his and pulled it down.
His brow furrowed with the serious determination of his words. “I may not have a college degree or a six- figure income, but I will love and respect and cherish you with everything inside me, and when I fuck up, I will apologize. So what I’m saying is that I was wrong, and I have no right to be jealous. What happened before me is none of my business. I acknowledge that, I understand that.”
“Thank you. And for a guy who claims to not be very deep, you have an amazing way with words.” Something was happening in me. With each word he spoke, he removed a brick from the wall I’d built over my heart. I was breathing hard, sucking air in and out of my lungs almost like I was having a panic attack, but it wasn’t that.
I realized that I knew exactly what it was. I was in love. I had gone and fallen completely in love with Riley and the swelling inside me, the tidal wave of emotion that was overwhelming me, was the single most profound experience of my life. It felt . . . epic.
“Riley . . .” I took his face in my hands and I stared up at him, wanting to memorize this moment, to take in every tiny detail of his face, his mouth, his eyes. “I love you.”
I had never told anyone that. Sure, I said “love you!” to my besties and on very rare occasions to my parents. But never to a guy. Not once. It felt like I just delivered myself into his care with those words. Like I had given him everything of value that I owned.
“Jessica,” he breathed, taking my mouth in a soft kiss. “I love you, too. Will you marry me?”
I’m not sure who was more shocked—me or him. I gasped and he started. Riley Mann wanted to marry me. He wanted to be with me forever. He thought I was worthy of being his. It made me feel like everything in me was rising and swelling with pure joy.
“I didn’t actually know I was going to say that,” he said, with a little laugh.
I started laughing, too, my heart beating fast in a way that couldn’t be healthy. I was giddy, and I asked, “Are you taking it back?” It didn’t matter to me if he did. I was just glad that he’d said it. He loved me, that was totally obvious.
“No, absolutely not! We should get married. It’s the best idea I’ve ever had, besides letting you stay in the house when the boys were gone.”
“That wasn’t your idea.”
“Shh.” He kissed the corners of my mouth. “Don’t ruin the romance.”
