Page 58 of Coming Home

"I need to buy him a gift," I said, panic rising in my chest, my words rushing out in a breathless flurry of anxiety. "I need to find something absolutely perfect because I haven't been to his birthday in three years, Ralph. I can't just walk into that house after all my silence and not bring something that says 'I'm so sorry, and I love you, and I know I don't deserve this space but please let me stay.'"

"Emma." He reached out, his long, warm fingers gently cupping my jaw, his thumb smoothing over my skin with a tenderness that made my eyes sting. "Your father would be ecstatic if you showed up carrying a melted gas station candy bar. The gift is you breathing the same air as him. The gift is you walking through the door."

"I'm still buying him the entire world," I whispered stubbornly, leaning into his palm.

We went to the high-end department store downtown that afternoon. To avoid the local sports press, Ralph wore a black baseball cap pulled low over his eyes and a sleek black medical mask. Instead of making him look incognito, the combination made him look like an incredibly tall, lethally attractive criminal attempting a very high-fashion heist.

He'd kept his reading glasses on to check the labels, and the sight of those dark frames tucked beneath the brim of his cap, paired with the broad sweep of his shoulders, had two women in the cologne aisle doing double-takes that suggested they were rethinking their afternoon itineraries.

I was an absolute psychological disaster. I picked up a cashmere scarf, tensed, put it down, circled a leather watch case four times, and spent fifteen minutes agonizing over whether my father would prefer a personalized fountain pen or a leather-bound journal.

Ralph trailed me through the aisles with his arms full of my rejects, offering zero unsolicited commentary unless I specifically begged for it. I could see what it cost him. His jaw kept working, and twice he opened his mouth, thought better of it, and shut it again, physically swallowing the opinion a man used to being obeyed so badly wanted to hand me.

"The journal," I muttered, pulling at my hair. "No, the pen. No, both. I'll get both. And the scarf. And that vintage book on fly-fishing because he mentioned wanting to try it back in 2022."

"Emma, sweetheart, you're currently purchasing the entire inventory of the Pacific Northwest." He chuckled behind the mask, his eyes crinkling at the corners behind his glasses.

"He deserves the inventory, Ralph."

"He deserves his daughter. The rest of this is just expensive kindling."

I ignored him, adding a rare bottle of small-batch bourbon to the mounting pile. By the time we reached the pristine glass cash wrap, I was a ball of exposed nerves.

I reached frantically into my purse for my wallet, but Ralph's movement was a lightning-fast blur. His black titanium card was out and tapped against the electronic reader before my fingers could even find my zipper.

"Ralph, no!" I lunged for the machine, my hand brushing his solid forearm. "Stop it!"

"Too late," the sales clerk said with a dreamlike sigh, the receipt already printing.

Ralph pocketed his card with an unbothered, masterful calm that made me want to jump him and strangle him simultaneously.

"I was explicitly going to pay for that," I snapped, my face flushing hot. "That was my penance."

"I'm fully aware." He leaned down, his chest pressing lightly against my shoulder as he whispered directly into my ear, his breath scorching my skin. "But I happen to thoroughly enjoy spoiling my girlfriend. So deal with it."

The word detonated in the center of my chest like a synchronized firework show.

Girlfriend.

"Girlfriend?" I repeated, my voice a tiny, breathless squeak.

"If you'll have me," he said. "I wanted to do this with an actual script, Emma. Somewhere grander than a fluorescent checkout line next to the designer socks. But you keep making me lose my mind with impatience."

Behind the register, the middle-aged sales clerk suddenly pressed both of her hands over her mouth, her eyes instantly welling with heavy tears. She looked like a woman who had been selling luxury goods for twenty years and had never once witnessed a real-time romantic surrender between the gift-wrap and the cologne section.

"Oh my god," she whispered, aggressively fanning her face with a promotional flyer. "Do not keep that man waiting. Say yes right now, honey, or I'm going to faint."

I looked back at Ralph. My eyes were burning fiercely, my chest filling with a warm, expanding joy that made it impossible to breathe. Slow, happy tears blurred my vision. Ralph reached up with one hand, sliding the black mask down past his chin, exposing the sharp, magnificent line of his jaw and his beautifully parted lips. He looked so hopeful, so terrified of my answer, standing exposed in the middle of a crowded store.

I stepped straight into his space, burying my face into the solid, warm muscle of his chest. My arms wrapped tight around his waist, the department store bags crinkling loudly between our bodies.

"It's perfect," I sobbed happily against his black T-shirt, my heart overflowing. "Yes. Yes, Ralph. It's absolutely perfect."

His massive arms locked around me, pulling me off my feet as he buried his face into my hair, inhaling deeply. The sales clerk was openly weeping into a tissue. The woman behind us in line was aggressively pretending to check her calendar but was clearly recording a video with her phone. Ralph pulled his mask back up, his low chuckle rumbling against my ribs, and steered me toward the exit with his heavy arm slung possessively around my shoulders while I sniffled and laughed against his side.

"That woman is one hundred percent uploading that to social media within the hour," I muttered, wiping my nose.

"I'll have Theo issue a legal cease-and-desist," he murmured back, kissing my temple.