My eyes opened and I lifted my head to realize that everyone else on the floor had stopped, forming a loose circle around Rowan and me. Confused, and maybe even a little freaked out, I looked up at my boyfriend’s face, seeing nothing short of pure adoration there.
And that’s when I recognized it. It was the same song that had played on our first date, when we danced together so entranced that we hadn’t noticed the storm breaking right over our heads until the sky cracked open. There was no description for the deluge of emotions that filled my heart or the thoughts and memories that flooded my mind all at the same time.
So much had happened since then, both of us growing and maturing as individuals but also together. I couldn’t believe it. And yet when I looked into my lover’s amethyst gaze, I knew we had so many more years of it as well.
“Naomi,” Rowan said, and there was something about the tone of his voice that made me gasp. In one hell of a delayed response, my brain finally fully recognized thateveryonewho was close to us, who was important to us, were the closest, Carolina armed with a camera.
Oh…
OH!
There was no way! There’s no way this is happening!
And yet it was, because Rowan sank down to one knee, somehow making my heart thunder along with everything else going on with it. If I wasn’t careful, the entire organ might turn into a Rube Goldberg machine.
“You are, hands down, the most incredible woman I’ve ever met, in any time and of any species. Your kindness hasn’t just touched me, but also the lives of everyone around us. I truly believe you make the world a better place, and I would love nothing more than the honor of being your right-hand man, to stand at your side and support you in whatever way you need to make those things happen.
“Forever is a long time to promise, and yet I cannot imagine any other lifetime I’d want. So, Naomi Bracken, will you do the honor of marrying me?”
It IS happening!
“Yes!” I cried, jumping up and down, my hands going between trying to grip Rowan, trying to clap, and trying to calmly extend my fingers so the engagement ring could be placed where it was supposed to go. “Yes, yes, yesyesyesyesyes!”
Was it the most eloquent response I could have dropped? No. But who the fuck cared? The love of my life, my immortal soulmate, wasproposing!
Cheers rose up all around us, and although I could barely see my friends through my tears, I knew they were there. That they were witnessing one of the brightest moments of my life.
Somehow, Rowan managed to slide the ring onto my quaking finger, then he stood and pulled me into a kiss. And oh, how wekissed.I liked to think it was the culmination of every kiss that had been stolen from us at the beginning of our journey together, and every other kiss we’d managed to land. So much love, adoration, and relief all poured into it as we clung to each other.
To be honest, once Rowan and I had spoken about the differences in our perception of time, I’d come to terms with perhaps never getting married, at least not legally, as it opened a whole can of worms for a citizen of the US who immigrated in the 1930s and never died, but Rowan getting down on one knee and proposing anyway told me that I was worth it.
And I wouldalwaysbe worth it. Whether I took the bite or not. Whether I turned old and gray or walked into the night with him for the rest of our existence, that wasn’t what was important to him. What he cared about wasme,in whatever form I chose.
God, I was so in love.
So, in love, I needed to say it out loud.
“I love you, Rowan Solomon Vincent. From the bottom of my heart. It would make me the happiest woman in the world to marry you.Forever.”
The grin that split his features was just beautiful. Or as my beau would say it,resplendent.“Forever sounds just right.”
We kissed again, our peers still celebrating and whooping around us. And as I shared the joy of my happily ever after with those I loved, I couldn’t help but be glad I’d never fit in before. Because if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have become the woman I had, and I never would have met Rowan.
A fate worse than death, in my opinion.
But there was no death here. No isolation. No being unworthy. There was just me and the amazing people surrounding me, thecommunitythat we had all built together.
And an entire future to keep on loving, keep on improving.
I couldn’t wait!
EPILOGUE
ROWAN
It was only midnight, and yet, it’d already been a long night.
“I don’t suppose you have any words of encouragement, Brammy?” I asked, looking to his usual perch in his cat tree, only to see that he had vanished during the two or three arduous hours that I’d been stuck staring at my computer screens.
