Took me years to get to the point where I treated everything as a function—eating, working, traveling, breathing, fucking. Living. Took me a lot less to reach the point where everything in me lived and breathed again—eating, working, traveling. Loving.
I wasn’t likehim.
Oliver Twisted never existed. I was someone’s Oliforever.
Not just someone—January’s.
I picked up the compass and chafed my thumb over the inscription.
I had houses, but for the first time, I knew my way home.
Chapter 33
January
Jamie was right. It was a great place to hold a wedding in.
It was my second time getting married pregnant, a discovery we had made the week before.
It was my first time marrying a man I loved.
We wanted a small wedding and went for it. My family, including Stephanie and her parents, and her beautiful silver ring which she refused to take off even when I helped Will buy a better one. The money Vi had left me was enough to cover part of my debts, so I took less shifts at the home and registered to complete my degree in the nearby Cuesta College. Marrying Oliver could have solved all my financial strife, but while knowing I had his support, I wanted to pay my debts myself. I was able to do it now without facing the same dire consequences. And because I was doing a lot more driving now, I let Pretty finally rest and allowed Oliver to buy me a newer car but insisted on the same make and model. I even agreed to a few weeks honeymoon in Europe, and Oliver surprised me further by inviting my mom and sons to join us for a week in London.
But before the honeymoon, we had a wedding to hold.
We invited a few of my colleagues, my manager, and a few friends. Patty Delaney and Marcia Beaumont kind of invited themselves—they were hard women to say no to—and I considered them to be from Oliver’s side.
There was really no one from Oliver’s side. I offered he’d invite someone, old friends, Blanche even, but he refused.
I entwined my fingers with his when everyone arrived. “They’re all yours now, flaws and all.”
“I’ll take it,” he said with a lopsided smile.
I pressed his palm. He now had the extended family he never had, and the nuclear family he never had. And the love he had never had.
He gave me the kind of love and care thatIhad never had.
He had proposed to me soon after returning from London with a ring he had bought there.
We were strolling the beach one night. The full moon was a huge bright sphere that made the lights coming from the houses lining the beach unnecessary.
At some point, I noticed that Oliver had lagged a few feet behind me. I swung around. “Are you coming?”
Oliver took a few steps forward on the soft sand then got down on one knee.
“Oliver!” His name was all I could utter. He was holding a ring. It sparkled in the moonlight.
“January Raine,” he said, his eyes locked on mine, “do you agree to officially be my everything, always?”
Instead of answering, I closed the distance between us, stood before him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and pressed him to my abdomen. Oliver wrapped his arms around my waist.
I slid down to my knees, and we were face-to-face, both kneeling down in the sand, the sound of the waves our soundtrack.
“You know I do,” I said. “Do you agree to let me and be mine?”
“You know I do.”
We were already saying I do, maybe because it was long overdue.
