“And then I’d want you to marry me.”
My heart did a flip. “What? Like, down the road, you mean.” He was messing with me, of course, but my pulse was skyrocketing nonetheless.
JC tightened his grip around my fingers. “No. I mean now.”
I froze, panic edging in under my bravado. “You can’t be serious.”
He met my wide eyes with a look that said he wasn’t backing down. “We said pick up where we left off.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no.” I pushed his hand away and tried to wriggle out of the tangled bed sheet. “We’ve done this before. Next you’ll be talking about meeting you in Vegas and—”
He pulled me back to him, cutting me off. “It’s on my wish list. That’s all. And I don’t mean Vegas. I mean the traditional engagement that leads to a wedding thing that isn’t too far in the future but isn’t that day.”
That first time he’d asked me, before he’d gotten to the details of his crazy proposal, I’d felt this same crazy rush of adrenaline—half fear, half elation, woven with strands of affection and yearning and possibility. A blaring siren went off in my head, telling me to halt and end the conversation pronto.
But what was the harm in just talking?
I silenced the alarm. “A wedding thing with friends and family and bridesmaids and the whatnot?”
“Yes. Especially a lot of whatnot.”
Whatnot sounded intriguing, and I could picture JC in a tux waiting for me in front of a minister who looked vaguely like the one in the video he’d sent me.
Another siren went off, more urgent, causing me to cock my head suspiciously. “Why? Do you have to go into hiding again or something?”
“No. Jesus. Do you really not understand that I love you?” He waited a beat then fell to his back, running a frustrated hand through his hair.
I stayed on my side, not moving, the forcefulness of his words cocooning me like a bug trapped in molasses. I stretched a tentative arm out toward him. “JC…”
He captured my hand and rolled back to face me. “I love you, Gwen. I love you, and I want to be with you. Yes, I had other reasons to pop the question last time, but I would never have asked you if I didn’t really want to make a life with you. I wanted to marry you. I wanted to make vows and do the whole whatnot. The timing and execution of my proposal was not ideal. I know that. But if you had shown up, I would have done everything in my power to show you how much it meant to me. I booked that chapel for you.”
My head was spinning. He’d said so much, and all I could do was gape at him, not knowing what to process first or how.
“I even bought a ring,” he added to my heap of confusion.
This shocked my voice into returning. “You bought a ring? When?”
“On the way to the airport.”
“Where is it now? Did you return it?” The mention of a ring was probably one of the least weighty things he’d said, but it was the thing that felt most concrete to me. The one that somehow proved all the other things.
“No. I still have it.” He studied me carefully, intensely. “It’s in my jacket actually. I was a little nervous you’d look in the inside pocket when you were wearing it last night.”
I sat up. “It’s in your jacket? You carry it with you?” My heart was pounding so hard now I thought it might beat right out of my chest. It was momentous that he’d bought it in the first place. That he still had it, that he kept it with him…?
I couldn’t even.
“I did last night.” He lowered his eyes and admitted timorously, “Maybe I hoped you’d find it.”
I clutched the sheet to my chest and wondered if it would have been more or less shocking to discover it on my own. “If I had, I would have assumed it was Corinne’s and that you carried it as a keepsake or something.”
“Cori was buried with hers.” He sat up and leaned his back against the headboard. “And that ring was awful. Gawdy and too big. She picked it out herself though, so.” He shrugged.
A sort of hateful glee blistered inside of me. It was shameful—finding pleasure in the fact that he’d chosen my ring himself, and he hadn’t chosen hers.
What did I think it meant, anyway? It wasn’t evidence of the depth of his feelings for either of us.
But, he’d bought a ring. For me. And that was evidence of something. “Can I see it?” I asked.
“Your ring?” He sneered at me with mock disgust. “No way. You aren’t seeing that ring until I’m down on one knee.”
I sat in the wake of his words, absorbing them. He planned to propose. It shouldn’t be so stunning considering he’d already done it once before, but it was. Because this time, there wasn’t anything pushing him to it except his own feelings. He’d said his heart was open, and I’d thought mine was too, but was it this open? So open that I could reveal my greatest hopes and desires without being terrified?