CALLIOPE
Three months later
The best part about the spring was the fact that I got to ride on the back of Jasper’s bike as much as I wanted.
The weather was pretty consistent now temperature-wise, but it still rained at the drop of a hat.
Hence our hasty appearance under the first overpass that we’d gotten to. Luckily, it was one rarely traveled, and there had only been a trickle of cars going through since we’d pulled under it fifteen minutes ago.
I was standing next to the bike, my fingers breaking apart a chocolate chip cookie that we’d just gone to pick up from Mr. Winthrop, when Jasper shifted.
At first, I paid him no mind because the cookie was just that good, but then he cleared his throat, causing me to look at him.
“Oh,” I gasped. “Jasper, you’re kneeling in the water!”
His grin spread wide over his face. “I’m not worried about the water right now, Cal.”
I could see that.
I swallowed hard and moved closer, abandoning my cookie on the seat of his bike before walking right up to him and holding out my left hand.
He plucked the ring from the box and tossed it to the ground before sliding the ring onto my finger.
It wasn’t a traditional ring.
It was a princess cut, bright pink stone that fit me and my personality perfectly.
Once it was in place, he picked the box back up and pulled out a chain, which he stood up and looped around my head.
“When you’re working, you can put the ring on your necklace,” he explained.
I trembled as I tried and failed to keep my tears at bay.
Only when the necklace was in place did he bend down and lift me into his arms.
“I was going to wait,” he said between kisses. “Was going to take you out to the lake and do it at one of our favorite spots. But it’ll be shit out there right now. And that ring was burning a hole in my pocket. Keeping things from you is damn near impossible, you little mail stealer.”
I cupped his face and kissed him long and hard before saying, “If you didn’t want me opening your mail, you should’ve told me so.”
“I couldn’t care less.” He sat me down onto the concrete ledge directly behind me and walked himself between my spread legs. Both of his hands went on either side of my hips and he leaned in to nuzzle my cleavage. “You can open my mail, eat my food, and decorate my house for the rest of your life and it’ll be not enough. I want you to marry me. I want you to drop by my work. I want you to spend every Christmas and holiday with me, even those weird ones that only exist on Apple Calendar. I want to wake up beside you. I want to pull your hair out of my ass crack. I want to walk into my closet and find none of my hoodies. I want to pull out the milk and find a thimbleful left. I want everything that comes with having you in my life, permanently etched into my heart, until I die of old age.”
She leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine. So softly that it was feather light.
Then she spoke. “You paint me out to be a pain in your ass, Jas.”
I grinned, bringing her lips with mine as I did. “You are. But you’re the prettiest pain in the ass I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.”
“You’re incorrigible,” she grumbled. “Are you sure you want to do this? I work some crazy hours. I have no clue when or if I want to have kids. And I’m fairly sure that I caused at least six of those gray hairs you have growing out of your head this week.”
I pulled her even tighter against me before saying, “Turn ’em all gray, baby. I’m yours to do with as you please.”
She wound her arms around my neck, then squeezed for all she was worth. Which, might I add, wasn’t all that much due to her small stature. “I love you, Jasper.”
I brushed my lips against the side of her neck as I said, “I am overly obsessed, never going to live without you ever again, so in love with you that I can barely think sometimes.”
“Sounds painful,” she teased.
“Sounds pretty magical to me.”
