Page 136 of Finding Noah

“Jack,” I said, refreshing her memory.

She exhaled. “Right. Jack. Yeah, we were together then. I was with him for a while—”

“But you wanted me,” I countered. “You thought about me. And that's why, when we were here, at work, you spent every single lunch break with me. Not with him. Me. You might’ve been dating him, but …” I shook my head, my gaze holding hers. “You were never his.”

Meg's lips fell open, but she said nothing.

“So, no, to go back to what you were saying … I don't care about first dates or any other formalities,” I said, leaning in closer to trace her nose with mine. “Not with you. Not when I've seen us as … us for a long time. But if you want that, if you need a first date, I'll take you on the best first date of your life. Because I love you, and—”

“Wait, wait, wait.” She laid both hands against my chest, her gaze holding mine.

“Huh?” I bit back a grin, feigning cluelessness.

“You love me?”

“Wait, did I say that?”

Meg lifted her palms to hold my face. “Do you really love me? You're serious?”

“Babe, I thought I'd been making that pretty obvious for the past … how many years?”

“No, but you mean that,” she said, stroking her thumbs against my cheeks. “You really … God, you really love me.”

I swallowed, all ability to joke and tease flying out the window. “My heart doesn’t know peace without yours,” I uttered quietly, as if we were in a room full of people and I didn't want anyone but her to hear. “I wouldn't know who I was if I didn't have you to love.”

***

AGE TWENTY-TWO

“So, do you know how you're gonna propose?” Dad asked after I showed him and Mom the ring I'd bought for Meg—an emerald encircled by tiny diamonds on a gold band that I'd found at the local antique shop.

It wasn't the most expensive ring, nor was it the biggest or flashiest, but it was what I could afford. And more importantly, it was the first and only one I'd seen that reminded me of her. It was the one I could imagine her wearing.

“I don't know,” I muttered with a shrug as I tucked the velvet box back into my jacket pocket. “I've been trying to come up with a good plan, but …”

Across from me at the table, Mom offered a smile, her eyes twinkling with tears.

God, I hoped she wouldn't cry. I hated when Mom cried—from happiness or otherwise. It reminded me too much of times I preferred to forget.

“You know how Dad proposed to me?”

As unbelievable as it was, I didn't have any clue, so I shook my head. “No, I don't think I’ve heard that story.”

“What?” Dad exclaimed, disbelieving. “You weren't there?”

“He wasn't there,” Mom told him, before returning her attention to me. “Dad was so hopped up on painkillers at the time that he probably didn't even remember his own name.”

Ah, so it must've been while Dad was in the hospital, recovering from one of his several surgeries after being shot by my sperm donor.

“I wasn't that strung out,” Dad muttered in my direction.

“He was,” Mom assured me with a nod. “He had just woken up after being out for a while. And he looked at me and said, 'You know what I should do when I get out of this mess?' And I said, ‘What?’ And he said, 'I should make you my wife, and then I should adopt Noah.' And I nodded and said, ‘That sounds like a good idea.’ So, that's exactly what we did. As soon as he got out and could walk on his own, we got married. There was no big proposal or big party or anything. We just … did what we were meant to do.”

Like me being with Meg, I thought. It was what I was meant to do.

My angel on the other line.

“So,” Dad said, laying a hand on my shoulder, “the point is, buddy, just do what feels right. It doesn't have to be this big, grand gesture or anything if you don't want it to be.”