The silence stretches on.
“You have the worst possible timing,” she says finally, “you know that? You passed out on a set of stairs four hours ago, and now you’re asking me to marry you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You're currently being held together by David’s doctoring and pure spite you know.”
“I’m aware.” I tell her, “You’re avoiding my question.”
She looks at me for a long time, and I see the moment her brain stops trying to justify running and decides to stay.
“Yes,” she finally says. Then again, almost as if she doesn’t believe she said it aloud, “Yes. I’ll marry you.”
I pull her into me, kissing her softly, and for the first time, she gives to me without resistance. She kisses me back with a warmth beyond what I thought she was capable of.
Just as my hands find their way beneath her shirt, the warmth of her soft skin against my palms sending heat up my arms, the door bursts open and Evie rushes in. Instantly, we put space between us, a blush across her face.
"You're okay," she says. Not a question. A conclusion, or maybe a reassurance.
She crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed on my other side and looks at me with serious eyes.
"David said it was bad," she says.
"David worries too much," I say.
“He was pretty calm actually, which he said means it was bad.”
I look at Alex, who is watching us from beside me with her hand still in mine, and the expression she gets when something is happening that she didn't entirely plan for and has decided she doesn't want to stop.
I look back at Evie.
"I have something to tell you," I say. “I am going to marry Alex, and this is going to be your home now. Both of yours. For as long as you want it." I pause. "I wanted you to hear it from me."
Evie looks at Alex. Alex looks at Evie. Something passes between them. An acceptance, a sort of mutual agreement.
At least I think so.
Then Evie looks back at me.
"Took you long enough.”
That makes both Alex and me laugh. And for the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel genuinely happy. When the laughter subsides, I wrap an arm around each of their shoulders, pulling them against my chest as I place a kiss on the top of their heads.
"Welcome home," I tell them. “Both of you.”
Epilogue
Alex
Istare at my reflection in the mirror; the dress costs more than three months of café shifts combined.
It fit perfectly. That’s the part that gets me — not the cost, not the bright white of the fabric, or the way the hand beading caught the light when I moved. The fact that it fits perfectly, as if I’d been poured into it. I had never gone to the store for a fitting; I’d simply picked a dress, and it had appeared in my room one day. Tailored to my measurements.
It was then that I realized that Victor had been thinking about this day far longer than I had known. He’d been imagining me in a white dress while I had been deciding whether to trust him, and he had never said a word.
He had arranged for everyone to stay at a hotel two blocks from the venue. And by everyone, I mean anyone, and everyone important to us, including my friends from the café. Rosa spentan hour on my hair and makeup, and I was desperately trying not to undo it as tears of joy threatened to fall from my eyes.
“You look incredible,” she says, standing behind me, her reflection joining mine in the mirror. “And no crying.”
