“I wasnakedwhen I promised,” I whine. “And being asked questions while being dicked-down does not make the answers legally binding.”
Logan snorts. “Too bad. You’re committed now.”
I flop dramatically onto my back. “It’s February, Pookie. The sun doesn’tdeserveto be seen before 7 a.m.”
He leans over me, palms braced on either side of my pillow, and kisses my forehead. “Get dressed. Layers. And shoes you can walk in.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
“Barely.”
He smirks and straightens, tossing my leggings and a hoodie onto the bed. “Five minutes.”
Somehow, I get vertical and mostly dressed in that timeframe. Then I’m being shuffled out the front door with a travel mug pressed into my hand and Dusty practically vibrating with excitement at my side.
I squint back at the house as we leave, but Logan places his hand on the small of my back and promises me more matcha at the lookout spot.
Whatever. He’s lucky he’s hot.
The sun’s rays are only just peeking out from the horizon by the time we reach the top of the hill, the sky streaked with pink and soft orange.
Dusty jolts off ahead, flopping dramatically into a patch of half-melted snow and then immediately regretting his life choices. Logan laughs from behind me, and tightens his arm around my waist, pulling me in against his chest.
It’s warmer like this. Tucked into him, his chin resting on my shoulder, both of us watching the light shift across the trees.
“You awake yet?” he murmurs.
“No,” I mumble, watching Dusty set off on a mini adventure through he bushes. “But I hate you slightly less.”
“Progress.”
He kisses the side of my head, then slowly pulls away. I expect him to reach for his coffee or Dusty’s leash or maybe his phone to take a picture—he always takes pictures up here now. But instead, as I turn to him, he slides a hand into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulls a flash of pink out.
Then he drops to one knee, and my breath catches when I see it.
“Oh my god.” I half-gasp, half-choke “You didnotkeep that stupid ring!”
He holds it up, grinning now, the ridiculous pink plastic diamond glinting in the sunrise. “Didn’t think it’d become a family heirloom, did you?”
I press a hand to my mouth, still laughing—but something trembles underneath it, because I remember.
That night at Charlie’s bachelorette, in the middle of all the noise and dares and dancing, he’d knelt down in front of me and held that exact ring between his fingers. Grinning. Teasing. Playing it off like the joke it was.
But it hadn’t felt like a joke, not to me.
And now, looking at him here with the sunrise lighting his face, snow clinging to the edges of his boots and his hoodie sleeves shoved up, something in me tips over.
Becausethis man. This grumpy, ridiculous, quiet, kind, and deeply inconvenient man.
He kept it.
Logan’s grin softens and his voice drops. “That night, it was supposed to be a stupid dare. But I knelt down and looked up at you and everything in me knew right there.”
I bite my lip, willing the sting in my eyes to subside.
“I didn’t know what to do with it back then, didn’t know how to say it. But I knew I was already completely in love with you.” He swallows hard, the words scraping. “You’re the only wish I’ve ever made, Lulu, and somehow, it came true. And I really,reallywant to keep this one.”
