“Baby—”
“I am,” she assures me. “But that’s okay. I’m okay with acknowledging that, with accepting that. It means I can fix it. Like you said, when things are broken. . .”
“You fix them,” I finish when she doesn’t.
“It won’t be easy,” she blurts out. “But if you love me as I love you, I hope you’ll give me, give us,” she corrects, “another chance.”
A shaky breath of laughter bubbles from my throat, and I tip my head up to the sky.
“You’re laughing.” She drops to her bottom. “Oh God. You’re laughing.”
Grabbing her face in both hands, I pull her to me, slamming my lips to hers in a long hard kiss.
“I love you.” I kiss. “For keeps. For fucking always.”
Arms around my neck, she kisses me back. “And I love you. For keeps. For always.”
Pulling her in closer, she squeals, falling forward with enough force to shift our grip on our rock. Falling backward, I land on my back on the soft earth, Henley’s body laying over mine.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” she whispers against my mouth.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I tell her.
Digging into the pocket of my jacket, I grab the box, holding it up between us. “I’ve been carrying this around for a few months.”
She looks at the small velvet box held loosely between my index finger and thumb, her brows knitting together in confusion.
“I bought it the day after you told me you didn’t want us anymore.”
She coughs to clear her already tender throat. “Why?”
“I promised myself that next time we were in the same space, I’d give it to you and hope like hell you’d accept it. Life without you isn’t worth it to me, Henley.”
My jaw tightens, fear and emotion wanting to hold me hostage. The line of my throat aches as I swallow thickly. “I’ve asked you more than once to uproot your life for me. But you’ve never asked the same.”
The defined line of her brows pulls together, and I lift a thumb to soothe it.
“I didn’t think it was an option.”
I turn my focus to the flowing river, considering how many times I’ve fucked this up. Henley and I. How many times she’s sabotaged our happy ending out of fear. We were hell-bent on carving our own nightmare, and I refuse to let us get lost in that any longer.
I take a breath of relief, turning to let my eyes drift across her face lovingly.
I feel as drawn to her today as I did the day I met her.
“I’m sorry for asking you to change your life for me. I feel like the world’s biggest asshole for not putting as much belief in your dreams as I have mine. I didn’t even realize that was what I was doing until you called me out on it, Squirrel.”
Her head tips sideways, only slightly, but enough for her long hair to fall heavily over her shoulder, drifting along the sleeve of my shirt.
“You were right. I became the two people I vowed I would never be to you. I put myself above them because I loved you, but it didn’t stop me from hurting you.”
Hand to my chest, she pauses over my heart, feeling it beat steadily against her palm.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her softly. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Her fingers clench at my chest before relaxing again, sliding up to cup my jaw.
“I didn’t ask you to stay with me because I didn’t want you to give your life up for me,” she argues quietly. “You had a good life, have a good life,” she corrects herself. “To sacrifice that—”
“Being with you wouldn’t be a sacrifice to me,” I cut her off. “I just needed to know you wanted that.”
“Brooks.”
I shake my head.
“This means what you want it to, Squirrel. Marriage? Done. A simple promise of us? It’s yours. Anything you want this to mean.” I open the box, a simple solitaire pear cut diamond ring balanced inside. “It’s yours.”
Completely still, her body rigid atop of mine, her eyes are lost in the brilliance of the ring. “I thought you hated promises.”
“If my heart is gonna be broken, I’d only ever want you to be the cause. It’s taken me a while to realize that, but handing your heart over involves a gamble. I’m willing if you are.”
She sits up, straddling my hips quietly.
“I love you, Henley Wright. From the moment you accused me of stealing this very rock, you were my endgame. Whether I knew it at the time or not.”
“I love you, too,” she whispers. “But I’d never ask you to give up your life for me.”
I bark out a laugh, pushing myself up so we’re nose to nose. “Don’t you get it?” I kiss her. “Living without you is giving up my life.”
She holds the ring box to her chest. “All my minutes are yours. Every sixty seconds from here on out, I’m where you are.”
Epilogue
HENLEY: FIVE YEARS LATER
When I was a young girl, the concept of family was starkly different for me than it was for my peers. Quite frankly, the notion was almost frightening. Jacinta and Derrick were steadfast in their shortcomings. Loyalty didn’t exist between them. Selflessness was an ideology that was drowned out by their narcissistic nature. Genuine love, care, and concern just weren’t part of their make-up.
Following Derrick’s death, I considered mending my relationship with Jacinta. I spent hours deliberating over the possibility. In the end, Brooks broke it down for me so poetically, I knew my answer was no.
“Baby, this one’s an easy one. Think about you as a mother, holding our baby.”
I’d envisaged it so clearly. A tiny dark-haired bundle wrapped up in my arms. A miniature version of the man who I trekked through heaven and hell to find.
“Would you want Jacinta to help shape them as a person?”
The answer was a resounding no. Absolutely fucking not.
My deliberation over mended bridges closed the moment I’d come to that realization.
She called me after Derrick’s funeral. Of course, she did. She saw dollar signs. An opportunity
