“Penelope loves you too,” he says. “She misses you. She asked me yesterday morning if I loved you, and when I said yes, she told me I had to try more, then.”
A broken little laugh slips out of me before I can stop it.He told Pen.
“So this is me trying more,” he says. “No one made me come here. Cole helped because I asked him to. Zoe lied to your face because she loves you but she is terrible under pressure.”
I hiccup a wet, broken laugh.
“And Penelope may have given me some strategy,” he adds, his lips pulling into a soft little grin. “But this is me. I chose this. I am choosing you.”
He takes another step closer, closing the distance little by little, slow enough that I have every chance to move away. I don’t.
“I know I hurt you,” he rasps, stopping in front of me. “I know loving you doesn’t erase that. I know an apology doesn’t magically repair trust, and I’m not asking you to pretend it does. I will work on myself. I will talk to someone if that’s what I need to do. I will learn how to never punish you again for wounds you didn’t give me, and I will happily spend the rest of my life proving to you that what happened will never happen again.”
A tear slides down my cheek, and I wipe it with the back of my hand, confusion swirling in my mind. “The rest of your?—?”
“I don’t want you because I’m lonely,” he continues, barreling through, his voice tightening. I notice, then, that his hand is shaking before he buries it into his pocket. “I don’t want you because you’re good with Pen or because you made my house easier or because you fit into my life. I want you because you changed it. You changed me. And, god, I don’t want to go back to who I was before you.”
He takes a deep, stuttered breath, his gaze locking on mine and pinning me to the spot.
“I know what I’m doing is insane,” he murmurs.
Two things happen at once. One of them is that Grayson pulls a tiny wooden box from the pocket of his slacks and clutches it in his trembling hand.
The other is that he lowers himself to one knee in front of me.
For a second, my brain refuses to understand what my eyes are seeing, but then the lid opens, and I forget how to breathe entirely.
“Oh my god,” I croak, but the words come out shredded, barely more than air.
Inside is a ring.
Aring.
Not an apology gift, not flowers, not some pretty thing meant to make it up to me before I drive two hours south and pretend my heart isn’t still in Boulder.
A ring.
The sight of it hits me so hard my knees genuinely weaken, and I have to press one hand to my chest like I can physically holdmyself together. It’s beautiful in a way that feels perfect to me — an oval diamond set in gold, with tiny stones along the band like glistening frost. It’s not gaudy or absurdly expensive-looking. It’s almost too perfect.
“But I don’t fucking care that it’s insane,” he continues. “I don’t?—”
A tiny gasp comes from behind somewhere in the back. “Bad word!”
My head whips toward the door Zoe went through. It doesn’t move, but there is absolutely, unmistakably a four-year-old behind it.
A startled laugh punches through my crying so hard that I press the back of my hand to my mouth.
Grayson closes his eyes for half a second, looking like he’s praying for patience. “Sorry, bug,” he calls out.
Another muffled voice follows. “Kid’s got a point, Gray.”
“Oh my God,” I whisper, chuckling through the tears.
Grayson looks back up at me, and a slightly sheepish, helpless smile pulls at his lips.“This isn’t exactly how I pictured this part,” he says.
“You pictured this?” I ask, my voice wrecked and weak and full of far too much emotion.
“Yes,” he says immediately.
