“You can stand. Or faint. Dealer’s choice.”
Then he dropped to one knee.
The room tilted. The tree lights glowed brighter somehow, or maybe that was just me forgetting how to breathe.
“Drew—”
“Shh,” he said, holding up a hand. “I have a very well-rehearsed, poorly planned speech.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth, already tearing up. “Oh my gosh.”
He grinned, the corner of his mouth quirking.
“So, this is… not the proposal I imagined. There’s no crowd. No big Christmas event. No fireworks, though I did briefly consider setting off the ones in Callum’s garage until Lydia threatened to move out.”
“Wise,” I managed.
“Right?” he said. “So instead, I figured I’d do this where it all started with the chaos, the cookies, the coffee you pretend isn’t eighty percent sugar and our song in the background. Because this house feels like us. It’s cozy and messy and smells like burnt gingerbread half the time.”
I laughed through tears, and he smiled wider.
“And the truth is,” he went on, “I didn’t fall in love with you in one big movie moment. It wasn’t the snow or the song or even the kiss under the world’s least secure mistletoe. It was every little thing after. The way you laugh when you think no one’s listening. The way you talk to your students like they’re already your favorite people. The way you somehow made Reckless River feel new again.”
My throat tightened. “Drew…”
“Let me finish,” he said softly, eyes flicking up to mine. “I got that compass tattoo because I needed something that pointed me home. I just didn’t realize home wasn’t a place. It was you. It’s always been you.”
I didn’t even bother wiping my tears this time.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. There was no flashy velvet, just a simple wooden one, the kind I’d seen in the shop downtown. When he opened it, a delicate gold ringcaught the light with two vines meeting in the middle, and a diamond bigger than I imagined nestled at the center.
Simple, beautiful. Perfectly us.
“Melanie,” he said, voice shaking just a little, “will you marry me? Will you keep making a mess of Christmas cookies with me and yelling at me for burning breakfast and laughing at every dumb joke I make for the rest of our lives?”
I let out something between a laugh and a sob. “Are you kidding me right now?”
“Not even a little,” he said, grinning now, though his eyes shone. “I was going for sincere with just a touch of please say yes before my leg goes numb.”
I laughed, tears spilling over, and threw my arms around him. “Yes! Oh my god, yes.”
He exhaled a sound halfway between a laugh and a prayer, wrapping his arms around my waist and burying his face in my shoulder. When he pulled back, he was smiling that wide, boyish smile that had wrecked me from the start.
“Yeah?” he said, eyes searching mine.
“Yeah,” I whispered, cupping his face. “A thousand times yes.”
He slid the ring onto my finger, and the moment it settled there, something inside me did too.
It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t planned. It was ours, exactly as it should be.
Drew stood, pulling me into his arms and kissing me like he was trying to memorize the moment. When we broke apart, both of us were breathless and smiling like fools.
“You realize we’re going to have to tell Lydia and Callum,” I said.
He groaned. “Oh, she already knows. She’s been leaving not-so-subtle hints since August when I bought the ring. I’m pretty sure she’s got a Pinterest board.”
“She’s definitely planning the wedding already,” I said, laughing.
