“I’m extremely happy.” She disappears into the bathroom and I hear her make a sound I usually only hear in much better circumstances. “Banksy! Come look at this tub.”
The tub is the size of a small vehicle. Deep andwhite and already being eyed by Winnie the way she eyes the last piece of food on a plate—like she has a plan for it.
“Draw a bath with me,” she says, which is not a question.
Half an hour later we’re in it, her back against my chest, the lights are dimmed low, and I’m looking at the city through the window and thinking about spiders and French presses and the fact that I packed a ring and it’s been in the interior pocket of my bag ever since, waiting for a moment that felt right.
I thought it would be the cabin. The firelight, the quiet, the woods—that was the plan. No distractions. Just us.
But she’s here, warm against me, laughing at something on her phone that she’s reading me out loud, her wet hair pushed over one shoulder, and she looks—she looks like mine. Completely and entirely mine, in a hotel suite we ended up in because of a spider, in a city we love, in a life I didn’t think I was allowed to want.
The ring is in my bag across the room.
I could get it. Or I could wait until later…
She sets her phone on the edge of the tub and tips her head back against my shoulder. “This was a good idea.”
“The hotel or the bath?”
“Both. The whole weekend, actually. Even the cabin.” She pauses. “Well. The first five hours of the cabin.”
I chuckle. “High praise.”
“The fire was nice.” She turns her face towardmine, her cheek against my jaw. “And the walk. I liked the walk.”
“I know you did.” I press my mouth to her temple. “Stay here.”
She lifts her head. “What?”
“Just—stay here.”
I get out of the tub, grab a towel and wrap it around my hips. I cross to my bag before she can ask what I’m doing. The ring box is exactly where I put it, small and certain in my palm. I stand there for a second holding it, and I’m not nervous, which surprises me. I thought I’d be nervous. Instead, I just feel—ready. The way I feel at the start of a game I know we’re going to win.
I turn around.
She’s watching me from the tub with her arms folded on the edge, her chin resting on them, and her expression goes from curious to very still when she sees what’s in my hand.
“Banks—”
“I had a whole plan,” I tell her, crossing back to her, crouching down at the edge of the tub. “The cabin. The fireplace. I had it worked out.”
“You had a plan,” she repeats slowly, like she’s making sure she’s hearing this right.
“The spider ruined it.”
She makes a sound that’s either a laugh or a sob, probably both, her hand coming up to cover her mouth.
“I’ve been carrying this around for six days,” I say, opening the box. The ring catches the light— simple, clean, exactly what I thought she’d want, though I had Tori verify three times to be sure. “And I keep waiting for the right moment, but I think—I think any moment with you is the right one.” I look at her. Her eyes are wet and she’s not even trying to stop it. “Marry me, Win. I want the house in the suburbs filled with chaos and kids. I want all of it, but only if it’s with you.”
She’s crying fully now, which I expected, and she’s laughing at the same time, which I didn’t expect.
She reaches out and cups my face in her wet hand, and I lean into it, and she looks at me the way she does sometimes—like I’m a thing she can’t quite believe is real.
“Yes,” she says. “Obviously yes, you idiot.”
I slide the ring onto her finger. She looks at it for a second, then at me, and then she yanks off my towel and pulls me back into the tub, water sloshing everywhere, and I let her because I’d let her do just about anything, and she kisses me like we’ve got all the time in the world.
I guess we do.
