“What’s going on with you?” Boone asked softly now. “You look worried. Today was a hit. An indication that everything will be alright. Take the win, love.”
Demarien opened his mouth, closed it again, and looked down at the wet sand. He’d rehearsed this speech for weeks while working on the inn, while making coffee, while lying awake at night beside him. Every carefully planned sentence had disappeared.
Instead, he said, “Do you remember the first time we came here?”
Boone smiled immediately. “When we met Casanova for the first time?”
“Yeah.” Demarien laughed, shaking his head. The nervousness loosened just enough for him to breathe. “You gave me that shell and told me a lovely story.”
Boone’s expression softened.
“I knew then,” Demarien continued quietly. “Not all at once, maybe. But enough to scare me.”
The waves hissed across the shore between them.
“You make every place feel like home,” Demarien said. “I could be anywhere with you, and it would still feel right. You’re part of my dream now. A real part. The most important part.”
Boone looked stunned into silence now, his eyes already beginning to shine.
Demarien swallowed hard and reached into his jacket pocket. His fingers nearly fumbled the small velvet box.
“Oh my god,” Boone whispered.
“Yeah,” Demarien breathed, laughing nervously. “Yeah, okay, now I’m terrified.” He stepped closer until the water curled around both their feet. “I know life won’t always be easy,” he said. “We’ll probably make punny dad jokes until we’re eighty. I’ll keep stealing the blankets. You’ll keep pretending you don’t cry during movies.”
“I don’t cry during movies.”
“You absolutely cry during movies.”
“Constantly,” Boone admitted. He laughed through the tears gathering in his eyes.
“But I want all of it,” Demarien said. “Every stupid, beautiful part. With you.”
Then he lowered himself onto one knee in the wet sand. For a second, the world seemed to stop moving entirely.
Boone’s crooked grin was the only thing Demarien could see. How could he not have realized that this man had always been his dream and would always be?
“Boone Harding,” Demarien said, his voice shaking, “will you marry me?”
The only sound was the ocean.
Then Boone let out something between a laugh and a sob and dropped to his knees too, grabbing Demarien’s face with cold hands. “Yes,” he said immediately. “Yes, obviously yes.”
Demarien barely had time to open the ring box before Boone kissed him hard enough to nearly knock them both sideways into the sand.
They laughed against each other’s mouths, breathless and overwhelmed.
“You ruined my proposal speech,” Demarien murmured.
“You were taking too long.”
Demarien slid the ring onto Boone’s trembling finger. It caught the last light of the sunset like fire. The band was simple, platinum with three small diamonds. “This was Dad’s. He had it resized and brought it with him today. He knew before I did.”
“God, I love that man,” Boone said, laughing.
For a long moment, they stayed there, kneeling in the surf together, foreheads pressed close while the ocean moved endlessly around them, Brownie and the small crab playing in the water beside them.
Demarien’s dream finally felt real.
