“Oh, this is my day to help Uncle Austin and Aunt Holly. I get to come over here and help with baby Easton all by myself.”
“Really? I didn’t know that. Do you help Aunt Brooklyn and Aunt Savannah too?”
“No. Only Aunt Holly.”
“Interesting.”
In truth, Calista is here because Juno told me she was coming here today and I’m using Calista to get my plan in motion. I’ve had the idea for a long time, but I wanted to make sure it was a surprise and limit the number of Baileys included because this is just for us.
“Oh, I have to go to the bathroom.” I hope Calista becomes an actress, because she’s born for it. “I’ll be right back. You go up.”
“I can wait,” Juno says.
“No. I’ll be a few minutes. It’s number two. You go.”
I stifle a chuckle. This is the chancy part of the plan, but if I know Juno as well as I think I do, she’ll come up here just to reminisce before Calista comes back.
Just as I thought, Juno climbs the ladder while I peek out the window and watch Calista run back to the house.
My heart feels as if it’s beating in my throat. This is the moment. Our moment to take our future in our hands.
Her head pops up. “Colton?” She scrunches her forehead. “I thought you were working?”
Then she looks around at the twinkle lights and the pictures hanging off the cords I strung around the inside perimeter of the treehouse. Us at six in the sandbox at my house—the first playdate our moms had together. At seven, when we went to the fair in town and got to ride the Tilt-A-Whirl. At eight, when our families went camping together and we were out in a canoe in the middle of the lake by ourselves and our dads had to come fetch us because we ventured out too far. All the way up to sixteen when we got our licenses, our high school graduations, my college graduation. And there’s an entire wall of the treehouse dedicated to the last six months when we became more than just best friends.
“Colton.” She sighs, her hand at her mouth as she soaks up all the memories. “We were so young.” Her fingers graze a picture of when we were nine, learning to ride quads.
Then she spots the box in my hand and I fall to bended knee.
“No, Colton.” She shakes her head, looking a little frantic.
“Yes, it’s time. I know you’re scared, but I’m here and I’ll always catch you. Make all my dreams come true and do me the honor of being my wife? Will you marry me, Juno?”
She smiles and her hand runs along my cheek. A move she does when I’ve pleaded a good case. She did it right before agreeing to leave a few things at my house in a drawer. Or when I bought her a toothbrush to keep at my house.
Then she looks at the worn floorboards and the smile strips from her face and her hand leaves my skin. “I’m sorry, Colton, I can’t.” She shuts the ring box.
“What?” All the breath leaves my body.
“We’re happy, aren’t we? We don’t need rings and a legal piece of paper.”
“I do,” I say, anger growing inside me.
“Why?” she asks innocently, as if it’s an everyday question.
“Because I want us to build a life, and for me, that includes a wife. Not a girlfriend. Not a live-in roommate. Actually.” My eyes go wide. “I don’t even have a live-in roommate because you won’t move in with me.”
“I told you. It’s hard for me. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want something to happen to you.”
“Nothing is going to happen to me because you marry me. Why do you think just because I’m in your life and you’re happy, something bad is going to happen?”
She stares at her hands. “Can we please just go back to the way things have been? We’re happy. Why mess that up?”
“Because we can be happier. Because we can commit our futures to one another.”
“I am committed to you.”
I shake my head, the crease between my eyebrows deepening. “You’re not.”
“I am. You can’t say I’m not.” Her voice rises to match mine. “Not wanting a marriage says nothing about my commitment.”
“To me it does. I get that there are couples out there who don’t care about the piece of paper or shared names, and that’s great for them. They got what they wanted. But I want a wife. I want a Mrs. Stone. I want my kids and my wife to share the same name as me. I want to promise to the entire world that I will cherish you all the days of my life. I want us to sleep in the same bed every night.”
“We do sleep in the same bed every night.”
I shove the ring box in my pocket. “You have to be fucking kidding me. I gotta go.”
“Don’t leave.” She grabs my arm, but I go around her, climbing down the ladder.
I stop when I’m chest level with the floorboards. “Just so you know, when you want to blame someone for us not working out, look in the mirror, Juno. Look in the mirror.”
I climb the rest of the way down the ladder and walk around the side of the house.
Austin meets me on the other side of the garage with Easton strapped to his chest. He probably heard me.
“Hey, Colt,” he says, reaching for my arm. “Let’s just talk this out. Let me speak with her. She loves you. I know she does.”
I turn around and toss him the ring box before climbing into my truck. “Tell Juno she can get her stuff out of my house because I’ll be gone for the rest of the weekend.”
“No. Don’t go saying something like that because you’re angry.” Austin follows me. “Come on, you’re like a brother to me. Let me just give Easton to Holly and we can talk.”
“I can’t. I gotta
