He lifted his lip into a half smile. “See? Scared you.”
Scared me, yes. But he’d also given me an awakening jolt, as though he’d strung electric cables from the part of him that believed in seizing the day to the part of me that thought my wants should blend with conventional norms, and then revved the engine. I didn’t think I was ready to consider marriage, but I wasn’t quite able to not consider it either.
Maybe I didn’t really know what I was saying. Maybe I was truly just overcome with curiosity. Or maybe I understood exactly what it meant when I straightened my spine and said, “Show it to me.”
He hesitated for a fraction of a second. Then he bolted up from the bed, not bothering to cover up before disappearing from my room.
Anxiousness trilled through my nerves. I wrapped the sheet around me, as if that would make me feel less vulnerable or more secure, and moved to my knees, tucking my feet underneath me. A hundred heartbeats seemed to pass.
Then he was back, his hand held out in front of him to display the diamond ring pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
I started to sit up to see it better when JC dropped to the floor, one knee on the ground, the other bent in front of him.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!
“Marry me, Gwen.”
“Oh. My. God.” I was way too excited about this than I should be, since I only wanted to see the ring. JC was excited too, in an entirely different way, his hard-on from earlier fighting as much for my attention as the ring. “Jesus. Get up!” I exclaimed through a fit of giggles. “You look ridiculous.”
He leapt from the floor and pounced, throwing me backward on the bed with the length of his body. “Is this better?”
“I’m…not sure.” Because, though his naked body no longer pulled my gaze, it was just as distracting pressed against mine.
And the ring…
Now he was holding it in front of my face, and I could see its details up close. It wasn’t as blingy as the diamond I’d seen on Corinne’s finger in their engagement pictures, but it was more intricate, the round brilliant stone set within ribbons of smaller diamonds. It was beautiful and perfect and exactly the kind of thing I’d wear and how the hell had he picked something so quintessentially me when he didn’t even know me?
Maybe he knew me better than I gave him credit for.
God, I just wasn’t sure.
“Well, I’m sure.” He shifted, taking me with him so that we were both lying on our sides, facing each other. “It’s okay if you’re not ready for this. I can keep this ring in my pocket for as long as you want. But I need you to know that I am ready. Maybe it’s unconventional to ask when we’ve been apart so long. Call me crazy. Call me impulsive. Really, it’s just that I know what it feels like to look back and say, ‘I wish I had.’”
He slipped the ring—my ring—onto the tip of his thumb and cupped my cheek with his palm, his eyes searching mine, or urging them to search his. “There’s so much that I wish I had with you, Gwen.” His voice was raw, each syllable he spoke licking at me with the pleasant roughness of a cat’s tongue. “You wanted to do things differently this time? So do I. This time I don’t want you to go a day without knowing where I stand. I love you.”
My eyes were already stinging when he brought his hand down to find mine. I watched intently while he poised the ring at the top of my finger, and then the diamond doubled in its shine as tears covered my vision.
“Marry me,” JC said, sliding the band down over one joint, then the next. “Just…marry me.”
I blinked and blinked again, my attention fixed on the token of JC’s love. A billion different thoughts clamored in my head. Everything from caution to he loves me to why the fuck am I even considering this? There was no reason to rush. But what were the reasons to wait? Because I didn’t know him? Because I loved him but maybe I didn’t love him enough? Because he might never love me as much as the woman he’d loved before?
If I did marry him, I’d get to be one thing that she never was—his wife.
That thought I shooed away immediately, but it only quieted, refusing to hush up all together.
Through all the noise, there was one thought that screamed louder than the rest, resounding so raucously that it vibrated in my bones. I have I wish I hads with him too. And even though it wasn’t particularly useful to play Monday morning quarterback with the decisions I’d made the year before, but if I knew then what I knew now—how miserable and lonely I’d be without JC, how much I’d still want him after so much time—then I would have said yes.