"So I'm asking again. Not because I can't wait. Because I don't want to waste another minute of the rest of our lives."
The ring was beautiful. Three stones set in a delicate band. The center diamond, I recognized it. The same modest stone he'd given me eight years ago.
But now it was flanked by two smaller diamonds, the whole thing transformed into something new.
"The diamond in the center is the same one I gave you the first time. I wanted to keep it. Because that's part of our story too." His voice cracked. "The years we had. The years we lost. The years we're going to have together."
He held my gaze.
"Forever, Sloane. That's what I'm asking for."
I was crying.
Of course I was crying. The tears were streaming down my face before I even registered them, blurring the sunset into gold and pink.
"Yes." The word came out broken. Raw. "Yes. Yes, yes, yes."
He slid the ring onto my finger. It fit perfectly.
Then he was kissing me, and I was kissing him back, and the whole city was spread out below us but none of it mattered.
Just his hands on my face. His mouth on mine. Salt from my tears and the warmth of him. Solid and real and mine.
"I love you," he said against my lips.
"I love you too." I laughed through my tears. "I never stopped. Not for one day."
"Neither did I."
We stood there on the bridge, holding each other. The ring glinting on my finger in the fading light. Somewhere behind us, someone cheered. The violin player shifted into something bright and celebratory.
Eight years of waiting.
Finally over.
We barely made it through the apartment door.
His mouth was on my neck before I got my keys out of the lock, his hands sliding under my jacket, pulling me closer. I turned in his arms and kissed him properly. Deep. Desperate. All the wanting I'd been holding back finally given permission.
"Garrett—"
"I know." He walked me backward toward the bedroom, his lips never leaving mine. "I know."
We'd been together for months. Intimate. Learning each other again.
But this was different. This was after. After the ring. After the yes. After the promise of forever that changed everything.
He backed me against the bedroom door before we even got it open. His mouth found mine, and I laughed against his lips, this breathless, ridiculous sound I barely recognized.
"The ring." Between kisses. "I'm going to lose the ring."
"You're not going to lose the ring." He reached behind me, turned the doorknob. We stumbled through together.
He caught my left hand. Brought it to his mouth. Kissed the ring, then my knuckle, then my wrist where my pulse was hammering.
"It's not going anywhere," he said. "Neither am I."
Something about the way he said it, low, certain, like a vow before the vows, flipped a switch in my chest. I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled.
