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“Take a walk with me?” he asked, a question in his eyes I didn’t quite know how to answer.
I nodded and he led me out of the house and away from everything that waited back home for us.
“Whew, sorry, I needed some air,” he said when we made it out of the yard.
I led him down toward the school’s swings without thinking, since that was always my escape spot. Only this time, it wasn’t with Patrick, I was with the love of my life.
“Pretty sure if I bring you back without a ring on your finger your dad’s going to kill me,” he said nonchalantly.
“My dad will get over it.”
There was another pause, and he let go of my hand to put his fists in his trouser pockets.
“We never talked about this before. It all feels wrong to have these conversations about marriage and rings and shit without having talked to you first.”
“What’s there to talk about?” I asked back.
“Are you even ready to get married?” he countered. “You’re fucking twenty-three.”
“And? How old were you when you and Paula got married?”
“Oh fuck, don’t use us as an example. We screwed all that stuff up.”
“Are you afraid marrying me is a mistake?”
The idea cut deep.
“No, no, of course not,” he rushed, stopping and grabbing my hand. “I’m not afraid you’re a mistake. I’m afraid that…”
He licked his lips and looked away. The sun was already setting and it left an orange cast over the world around us.
“What are you afraid of then?”
“I’m afraid of getting hurt again,” he whispered. “I mean, I’m twenty years older than you. If, say, we got married, do you want more kids? I’d be fucking sixty when they left the house, and you’d only be forty. And when you reach sixty, I’ll be eighty. That’s a huge fucking difference. It might not seem like it now, but by the time ten, twenty years pass…would you even still want me anymore?”
The raw pain seeping from him broke me in a way I never would have imagined.
“Yes,” I breathed, pressing my palms to his face to force him to see the truth in my face. “Yes, I will want you. I want you now, and in twenty years, and in fifty years, if you can hold it together ‘til ninety. I want you now and forever, and nothing as stupid as age will change that.”
He bit his lip for a moment, then moved his face out of my hands and toward mine where he stole a kiss so heartbreaking and beautiful, it took my breath away.
“Mia?” he breathed against my lips. “I want to marry you.”
Chapter 27
-Owen-
I wasn’t sure what possessed me to bring along the ring, but it sat in my pocket, burning an excruciating hole while I wanted nothing more than to give it to her and beg her to be with me forever.
“I want to marry you too,” she murmured with hopeful eyes. “I love you, Owen.”
“We need time to settle in and for the boys to get to know you better, but I was really hoping that maybe…”
My hands trembled as I pulled the ring from my pocket and showed it to her.
She gasped. Like, a legitimate keeling over in surprise kind of gasp.
“What?” she choked, staring at the ring, then up at me, then back to the ring.
