“Then we’d better not screw it up.”
As I looked around his office, our office, our home, our life, I realized that Jude was right about everything. I was using his death as an excuse to be scared, pushing away the very thing he died wanting me to have.
But not anymore. I was done running from love, done hiding from the possibility of happiness just because it came with the risk of loss.
My brother taught me to be brave. Now it was time to prove I paid attention.
20KIERAN
I was sittingbehind my desk when Willa came into my home office. She didn’t hesitate. She walked straight to me and settled into my lap, as if she had always belonged there.
“I can’t sleep,” she said simply.
“Bad dreams?”
“Good ones.”
“Dreams about the future. About us. About all the things Jude wanted me to be brave enough to have.”
I wrapped my arms around her, still marveling at the fact that she was letting me hold her again. Three days since she had read her brother’s letter, three days since she chose love over fear, and I was still half-convinced I might wake up to find her barricaded in the guest room again.
“What kind of future?” I asked, pressing a kiss to her temple.
“The kind where we stop being careful with each other. The kind where we stop waiting for the other shoe to drop.” She turned in my arms to face me, her eyes serious in the dim light. “The kind where we finally admit that what we have is worth fighting for.”
“I thought we already admitted that.”
“We have. But I want more than admissions. I want promises.”
Something shifted in the air between us, charged with possibility and the weight of everything we’d survived to get to this moment. “What kind of promises?”
“The kind that lasts forever. The kind that means we stop being scared of how much we love each other.”
I studied her face, seeing not just the woman she had become but the girl she had been—the seventeen-year-old who kissed me in a college quad and changed the trajectory of my entire life. The woman who survived abuse, betrayal, and the kind of grief that could destroy people. The survivor who’d chosen to keep fighting, keep loving, keep believing in happiness even when the world tried to convince her it wasn’t worth the risk.
“Are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?”
She smiled, the expression transforming her entire face. “I’m asking you to stop waiting for the right moment and make this moment right.”
I kissed her then, deep and desperate and full of three years of wanting and weeks of nearly losing her. When we broke apart, both of us breathing hard, I rested my forehead against hers.
“I don’t have a ring,” I said.
“I don’t need a ring. I need you to ask me properly.”
“Here? Now? In my office at midnight?”
“Here. Now. In your office at midnight. Because this is where we figured out how to love each other without being afraid of it.”
I looked into her eyes and saw everything I ever wanted reflected in me. Not just love, but partnership. Not just passion, but the kind of deep, steady commitment that could weather anything life threw at us.
“Willa Winslow,” I said, my voice rough with emotion. “Will you marry me? Will you build a life with me that’s big enoughfor all our broken pieces and strong enough to honor what we’ve lost? Will you let me love you for the rest of our lives?”
“Yes,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. “Yes to all of it. To the broken pieces and the healing. To love and life, and the future we’re going to build together.”
“Even knowing what I do for a living? The risks that come with it?”
“Especially knowing that. Because the alternative is losing you anyway, just more slowly and with more regret.”
