I began to chuckle, but her expression remained serious. My eyes shot down to her left hand. It was bare, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Ri had always been unconventional. “Wait, did he ask you to marry him?”
“Not yet. But he’s going to,” she said with a straight face.
“Hold on, are you serious?” Ri had never talked about getting married before. She’d always maintained that she loved her freedom too much and would never give it up.
“Yes.”
“But…” I shook my head. “Youneverwanted to get married.”
“I know. And youalwaysdid. It looks like we both changed our minds.”
I had always wanted to get married, have kids, and live happily ever after. But after I had Callie, I’d given that dream up. Or at least, I thought I had.
“I didn’t change my mind. I still want that.”
“Okay, so what’s the problem? It’s obvious that Nick is in love with you, and you are totally in love with him.”
I sighed and took another drink of wine. “It’s not that simple.”
“Do you love him?” she asked.
“Yes,” I admitted.
“Have you told him that?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t matter how I feel.”
“Are you being irritatingly vague on purpose?”
I sighed and told Ri everything. I told her how much I loved him. I told her why it would never work. And then I played her the voicemail he’d left last night.
When it finished playing, she was frozen in disbelief before blinking slowly. “Holy shit. That is rom-com-level cuteness.”
Cute hadn’t been the word that had sprung to mind when I’d heard it, but I saw what she meant.
“Wait, so what did you say when you called him back?”
“I didn’t.”
She just stared at me with a blank expression. “So let me get this straight: San Francisco’s Most Eligible Bachelor, who happens to be smoking hot, stupid rich, an amazing dad, and the person you are madly in love with, confesses his love for you, tells you that he’s never loved anyone before you, that you are his peace, his calm, his home, and you’reghostinghim?”
“I’m not ghosting him, but I’m not going to call him back.”
“Why not?!”
“Because I told you. He only feels that way because of how we met and what we went through.”
“So?”
“So that’s not sustainable. And it’s wrong. It would always be in the back of my mind that I’d taken advantage of the situation.”
“Did you tell him that?”
“What?”
