Thirty-four
Becca
We’re engaged.Engaged. I’m still stunned by how well the whole finale went, by the fact that not only did the show not villainize us but made us their celebrated love story. What makes me really feel like I’m floating, though, is being with him and knowing that it’s official—we’re going to get married. We’re going to be a family, him andThea and Rosie and I, for the rest of our lives.
I can’t stop smiling. I feel like I never will, and that’s totally okay with me. I also think that now that I’ve had a moment to look at my gorgeous, sparkly ring, I am never taking it off, cooking be damned.
“Did you like the surprise?” Nate asks. We’re offstage again, tucked away from the crew members, many of whom said things to Nate like “Way to go, man!” Mustache Dan gave him a really awkward high-five.
But right at this moment, while Swiss is out there introducing next season’s Prince Charming to a still-captivated audience, we have a tiny reprieve, and Nate’s arms are looped around me. No matter how many times I’ve been in his arms like this—which has been many, many times over the last couple months—it still never fails to make me feel so safe and just . . . right. He feels like home.
“Um,” I say. “Were my feelings not clear, what with shouting ‘Yes!’ and tackling you?”
“That’s usually a good sign you’re pretty happy.”
I grin up at him. “I can’t wait to tell the girls about this.The engagement, I mean.Though I’m sureThea would appreciate hearing about Madison whipping Preston in the face with a bunch of flowers.” Neither of the girls know about Preston proposing to me yet—I trustThea more with secrets, especially given what she kept to herself about her father, but I’ve had to remind Rosie before school every day not to tell anyone about Nate living with us. I didn’t want to add more she needed to keep from blurting out to the entire kindergarten class.
“Well,” he says, twisting his lips to the side. “Thea may already know I was going to propose to you soon. I showed her the ring a couple days ago.”
My eyes widen. “Seriously?” Wow, she really is good at keeping secrets. “I bet she was pretty excited.”
“She was. She gave me this huge hug. And then had to be high and mighty about how she never liked Preston andtoldme I was the hero of this story.”
I laugh. “She’s a smart girl. I’m guessing Rosie still doesn’t know, though.”
“God, no. I wasn’t about to show that girl a diamond ring and not expectthatto get back to you.” He pulls me tighter. “Maybe when we tell her, though, she’ll toss another mountain of glitter at you in celebration.”
“That is what does it for you, isn’t it? Me covered in glitter.”
“Maybe. And maybe the thought of helping you wash it off in the shower afterwards.”
“Mmmm,” is all I can manage. Because damn, that definitely does it for me, too.
He tips my chin up and leans in, and once again, I’m kissing the man of my dreams.The man I love so much more than I ever thought I could love anyone but my girls.The man who loves me right back with everything in him.
I still struggle with feeling worthy of a love like this—something I desperately wanted but never thought I could have, if I even believed it existed at all before him. I’m still afraid sometimes that all of this will crumble beneath me, but I’m not going to let that fear take over. I’m going to trust him that he wants this future with me every bit as much as I do, and I’m not going to push him away, not ever again.
His phone buzzes about a hundred times in his pocket and he reluctantly pulls away to check it. We both figured as we walked off of that stage that we’d have about ten minutes before getting bombarded with whoever from the press manages to get a hold of our numbers first. But instead of the expected grimace, he chuckles.
“So, my parents both say ‘Congratulations’ and my sister is mad she wasn’t here for this and expects us to reenact the whole thing for her in person and my brother says doing that would be super weird—which I agree with, for the record—but he’s really happy for us.”
I grin. I’ve only met his family once, at his niece’s birthday party—like he said, they just don’t get together very often—but their immediate welcoming of my girls and I, even after they’d heard the story about our rough patch on the show, was incredible. And his mom has emailed me about a dozen Dominican recipes, a couple of which I’m seriously considering for the restaurant.
Nate chuckles, still looking down at his phone. “We’ve also got a group text with Jason and Emily. Jason says ‘Hell yeah.’ And then Emily says she’s so excited for us and also that this will make her job a hell of a lot easier.”
“Oh my god, it seriously will,” I say. Emily is a social media and PR consultant and was going to help us get out of the pile of shit the negative press was going to bury us in. But I imagine it’s going to be a lot easier to guide us through all this if the press is actually on our side.
The phone buzzes again. “Jason says that we will still need to pay her back in lifelong free meals at your restaurant. For both of them.” Nate shakes his head. “I’m not sure we should agree to that.The dude caneat.”
“They want free meals forever?They’ve got it.” Jason and Emily have both been so incredibly supportive of us, not only in wholeheartedly becoming my friends, but in eagerly joining Nate and me in brainstorming how best to get my restaurant off the ground—when I actually finish business school and have a restaurant to launch, that is. Between Emily’s social media skills and Jason and Nate’s YouTube platform (“It won’t be the first time I’ve climbed a restaurant on air,” Jason said with a shrug) and all the famous contacts they have, getting the attention of the public isn’t going to be a problem. And Jason’s already planning to pitch a second season of his upcoming show,Jason Builds Sh!t, in which he and Nate and their friend Brendan remodel a restaurant.
Now that the attention of the public won’t be mostly filled with hate, it seems even more like my dream will one day become a reality.
So many of those are turning out that way, now that I have Nate. His unconditional love and support and just . . . him.
He looks around furtively and then back at me. “You know, I think I saw a coffee shop a couple blocks away. Maybe I can buy my future wife a muffin? Do you think she’ll accept?”
I tug my lower lip between my teeth, fighting another smile. “Well, if she doesn’t, you end up with a muffin, so I guess you win either way.”
He laughs and kisses the top of my head, and as we hear the applause and cheers from the show ending, we sneak out the back of the studio before we can get bombarded.The finale was live, but we figure the people at the coffee shop right at this moment won’t have seen it, so we drive there and get a seat in the back, and for now, at least, no one seems to recognize us at all. We laugh and cuddle and talk about our future and the girls and that insane show.
And yeah, we got here in Nate’s Honda Accord, not a carriage. We’re eating muffins in a Starbucks in Los Angeles, not caviar in some European castle.
But this is way better than any of that. It’s us and our story.
And no fairy tale can ever compare to that.
