He didn’t try to explain it away, didn’t make a big show of it. He just pulled my hand and stepped up to the porch. The wood creaked faintly beneath our feet as he turned the lock and pushed the door open.
Warm light spilled across the floor from the tall front windows. The inside still smelled faintly of sawdust and lemon cleaner and something else I couldn’t name—something that smelled like possibility.
Like new dreams.
Austin turned to me and, with the gentlest smile, held the door wide. “Come inside.”
I stepped through the doorway, the hinges groaning gently as the door closed behind me.
The house wasn’t finished—not yet—but it already felt like it had a soul. Hardwood floors stretched across the open living space, still dusty in the corners. The walls were primed but not yet painted, pale like the start of a canvas. Exposed light bulbs dangled from the ceiling, and in the far corner the makings of a kitchen took shape—cabinets without hardware, counters still waiting to be installed. But there was light streaming through the windows, and warmth beneath the quiet.
Austin tucked his hands in his jacket pockets like he didn’t know what to do with them.
“I know it’s not done,” he said. “But when I walked through it the first time, I couldn’t stop thinking about the three of us here. Movie nights in that corner.” He pointed. “Winnie’s art project explosions all over the kitchen. You stealing my side of the bed upstairs. The whole third floor can be converted into a restoration space for you. Winnie will still go to her same school. It just ... felt right.”
I turned slowly, taking it all in. The unfinished walls. The wide-open promise of it. “Austin ...”
He stepped forward, eyes locked on mine. “I can’t promise I’ll never screw up,” he said, voice thick with emotion. “But I can promise I’ll never stop showing up. You and Winnie—you’re it for me. You’re my home.”
My breath caught.
He reached into his jacket again—this time pulling out a small box. His hands didn’t shake, but mine did as I raised them to my mouth.
“Selene,” he said, sinking to one knee on the bare wood floor, “for most of my life, I didn’t know what it meant to feel safewith someone. To feel chosen. To choose back. But you ... you cracked me open. You gave me a reason to try. I want to build something with you that doesn’t fall apart the second it gets hard.”
He flipped the box open—inside was a ring that looked like it belonged under moonlight and stars. The ring had a delicate, vintage setting—an antique-style gold band etched with tiny, imperfect scrollwork, like something pulled from the pages of a forgotten fairy tale. At its center sat an old European-cut diamond, soft and warm in the light, not flashy but full of quiet fire. The kind of ring that had history. The kind of ring that had been loved before—and was ready to be loved again.
“I want it all,” he said. “The hard parts, the boring parts, the magic. I want coffee in the mornings and brushing our teeth side by side and putting together furniture and falling asleep with your cold feet against my leg. I want to build a life with you.”
My vision blurred.
“I love you,” he said simply. “And I’d really, really like to marry you.”
Something cracked in me then. The last of the walls I’d been holding up. The ones built out of fear and years of telling myself not to need too much.
I dropped to my knees in front of him, laughing through tears as I cupped his face in my hands.
“I love you too,” I whispered. I had been too scared to say it out loud, but once I did, I had never been more certain of anything else.
Austin exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for years. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me in as I kissed him—desperate, real, full of everything I hadn’t known how to say until this moment.
Our kiss was messy, tear-damp, and perfect.
He pressed his forehead to mine, smiling so widely I could feel it against my skin. “So... is that a yes?”
I nodded, still breathless. “That’s ahellyes.”
His laugh rumbled through his chest as he wrapped me up, holding me close on the floor of our not-yet-finished home.
We stayed there for a while—just us and the dust and the light—and I didn’t care that the house wasn’t done yet.
It already had everything we needed.
EPILOGUE
Selene
Sunlight spilledthrough the wide kitchen windows, warming the countertops and painting golden streaks across the floor. The porch swing outside creaked, keeping time with the breeze that drifted through the screens.
