She grinds against me, her mouth hot, wet heaven.
“You’re so perfect,” I whisper against her lips. “So impossibly good.”
“Um, before you say that, I kinda wanted you to drown in an acid bath until now.”
I pull away and blink at her, lost until she bursts out laughing.
Between kisses, we laugh, dragging my mouth along her temple.
“I would’ve deserved it. Glad you held off on melting my skin.”
“Me too!” Her hands tighten in my hair as she rocks against me again. “…are you that hard?”
“Weeks without you, Hattie. It’s practically a state of being.”
She laughs brightly, and goddamn, do I savor it.
I never thought I’d win that laugh back.
“So will you?” I whisper. “Will you marry me?”
“Ethan.” Her voice breaks around my name. “Yes! You know I will.”
“Thank fuck,” I breathe, pulling her back in for another sweltering kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” she says, sniffing back tears. “I thought for sure you didn’t. Or if you did, I never thought you’d say it.”
I smooth the hair back from her face.
“I did my idiot best not to. But I was lying to myself. I was scared what loving you would mean. Not anymore. This life with you—that’s all I’ll ever need.”
She looks at me with her chin tilted down, green eyes shining from under those long lashes.
“Then let’s do it. Let’s do everything!”
I kiss her giddy little soul out again until a loud whistle from behind us snaps me out of my trance.
Margot holds up four coffees in a cardboard carrier.
“Holy smokes. Good thing I went with iced coffee when I made the caffeine run.”
Hattie stiffens on my lap.
I tighten my hold on her.
Partly to hide my raging hard-on, partly because I don’t want her going anywhere. Not when she’s found her way back to me.
“Since you’re interrupting like usual, we have an announcement,” I say.
Margot isn’t listening. She sets the coffee down on the empty space next to us and pulls out two. She turns and hands one to Julia. I blink in surprise.
“Oh, right. Mom was with us when we drove down,” Hattie explains, her hands still laced around my neck. “She was just finding somewhere to park. Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetie,” Julia says.
She’s not as brash as usual, hanging back and accepting the coffee. Her eyes, the same forest green as Hattie’s, flit to me and away again.
I clear my throat awkwardly, wondering if I owe her an apology too. But Pages shoots first.
