“You said a lot of things yesterday.”I tilt my head up.
“I said I’d drive myself home.”
I smile.“Yes.I was there.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that.About home.”
He gently steps back, his fingers still laced with mine.The lights catch his face, and I know.I know before he even moves.My heart stumbles like it’s bracing itself.
He drops to one knee.
Just like that.
No fireworks.No champagne.No crowd holding up signs.
Just the man I love, kneeling on our land, surrounded by fairy lights, crickets, and the life we’ve slowly built with blood, sweat, eggs from our chickens, and more than a few burned casseroles.
“I’m taking this one home—metaphorically speaking.”
His voice trembles.A little.Enough.
“I want this to be home.Not the place.You.Us.I want a forever that includes powdered milk, root cellars, late-night piano concerts in the barn, and you yelling at me when I forget to close the damn chicken coop.”
My eyes are burning now.My throat goes tight.
“I want a life with you, and I want it in all the ways I never thought I was allowed to want things.I want the small moments.The hard ones.The boring ones.I want all of them with you.”
He pulls something from his pocket.
A small velvet box.It’s worn around the corners like he’s been carrying it for a while, waiting for the right moment.His fingers tremble a little as he opens it, and nestled inside is a ring.
It’s a princess cut—delicate, square, and glittering like it knows exactly what this moment means.It’s elegant in its simplicity.Honest in a way that makes my chest ache.
It says:I see you.I choose you.I’m here for good.
And I don’t even need to slip it on to know it’s perfect.It’s not about the cut or the size—it’s about the hands that held it.The nights he probably stared at it, wondering if he was ready or if we were ready.
He looks up at me, his eyes glinting with nerves and something that might be hope.And then he speaks—really speaks.
“Kit ...I don’t have a big speech.I don’t have poetry or music or some sweeping line from a movie.But I have this life.This one.And I want to spend the rest of it showing you what it means to love someone the right way.”
My breath catches.
“I want the long days and the bad ones.I want the mornings when we hug and kiss but don’t talk until coffee.I want the fights and the making up.I want all the years we didn’t get before.And every version of you that shows up tomorrow or in forty years—I want to wake up and choose her, over and over.”
He pauses, like the air around us has gone still.
“Marry me, Kit.Not because it’s perfect.But because it’s ours.And I don’t want to do any of it without you.”
And then my knees give out.
I sink to the ground before him because standing isn’t just impossible—it feels wrong.Like the only place I’m supposed to be right now is eye-level with the man who just offered me forever, bare and imperfect and everything I’ve ever wanted.
I cup his face.His skin is warm, and he looks wrecked—in that soft, vulnerable way only I get to see.
I kiss him like the answer’s already written in the sky.
“Yes.”My voice cracks, and I don’t care.“Yes, you impossible, wonderful human.Of course, yes.”
