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I gave a little laugh and smiled. But man, it didn’t feel all that happy. So much was riding on this conversation, and I knew neither of us could keep living in this limbo of torture much longer. We were either going to work things out or we weren’t, but this was probably the last chance. “I was just happy to be sitting next to you,” I told her honestly, the ache so deep from missing her, it had settled into my bones.
She looked away quickly, like she wasn’t expecting it, and sucked in a huge gulp of air.
“Why’d you pick this place?” I asked and she shrugged.
“It seemed appropriate.”
“Appropriate?” I didn’t understand.
“Appropriate,” she confirmed. “I feel like the ending scene in movies always happens in some pivotal location where they can take aerial shots of the whole thing. And I didn’t think they could fit a helicopter in either one of our apartments.”
I smiled again, and this time, I felt it in places other than my face. Lola had been picturing our happy ending.
“Yeah. You’re right. Pretty sure I’d have needed the two-bedroom.”
“Why are we here?” she asked, and in that moment, it was simple. All of the complication and expectation fell away, and all that was left was love. My love for her, and hers for me.
“Because you and I are better together.”
She sighed, and I wasn’t sure if she didn’t believe me or wanted something different, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t leaving here without her.
Turning to face her directly, I put two fingers to her chin and forced her to do the same. “We are, LoLo. My life is infinitely better than what it was, now that you’re in it. You make me laugh and reconsider, and hell, you make me forget to be such a thinker and just live.”
“I need you to do things—”
“And I plan to do them,” I promised. I didn’t care what they were. “Pencil them in on my calendar.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t have a calendar. Are you kidding me?”
“I’ll get one,” I teased. “It’ll have your picture on the front, and hey, maybe a naked picture of you on each month.”
She shoved me hard enough that the box fell off my legs, and I laughed. “Hey, watch it. You’re going to ruin your present.”
“Present?” Her whole demeanor perked up, and I was hit with the memory of mindlessly walking the streets of Chinatown hand in hand with Lola. It’d been a fun afternoon, perusing trinkets inside the various gift shops. And once she’d set her sights on this obscure little porcelain cat, she had been fixated. Lola had loved that kitschy little souvenir, and since I loved her, I’d purchased it on a whim when she wasn’t paying attention.
The present would’ve been inconsequential to anyone else. But not Lola. She’d been so damn excited, bouncing around and screeching her happiness like an adorable little ball of quirky.
I took in her curious eyes, and my heart made itself known with each pounding thump thump thump inside my chest. I needed her. I wanted her. I loved her more than I’d ever loved anything in my life.
Her eyes glanced down at the box and then back up at me. She was all but vibrating with impatience to know what was hidden inside.
“Do you want to open it?” I smiled, and there was no denying my heart was honestly in my eyes. It belonged to her.
She searched my face, and I saw the instant realization set in. She shook her head in an attempt to regain her composure—and her distance. “Reed—”
I wasn’t ready for her to get either of them back. “Just open it,” I interrupted. “I’m pretty sure it’ll answer all those questions swirling in your eyes, and I won’t even have to strain my voice.”
Swiping the box from my lap, she pulled off the lid and gasped.
“Oh, my God!”
I didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but I was ninety-nine percent positive it wasn’t that.
“Yep,” I confirmed.
“Oh, my God!” she shrieked again.
“Yep,” I repeated through a laugh.
“It’s—”
“Us.”
“A really fucking creepy version,” she muttered. You couldn’t have melted the smile off of my face with a microwave.
“I know. Aren’t they great?”
She stared down at them, shock turning to wistfulness, but everything else about her was frustratingly quiet. “Lo?”
“You got us marionette puppets,” she whispered roughly.
“I did.”
“Of us.”
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“At eighty years old.”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, my God.”
I pulled the old man puppet version of me out of the box and handed it to her. “Now, I know your dream was to have one of yourself, and you still can if that’s what you decide…”
“But?”
“But I think this is better.” I shrugged and spoke around the emotion clogging my throat. “My strings are yours to pull, Lo.”
Her hand went to her mouth, but I pulled it away and linked it with mine, trapping the other one against her thigh with the weight of my own. “I should have gone with you to Santa Cruz. I should have really listened when you asked, and I should have known that when it comes to you and me, none of the rules I’d created for myself on my own would apply. New us, new rules.”
“Reed,” she whispered, and the way she said it filled me with everything I needed to know I’d done it. I’d broken through the barrier I’d made with stupidity, and I had no plans to ever build it back.
“I thought I knew best, but as it turns out, Sex really does say.”
She melted at the mention of my unused column. “I loved the column.”
I shrugged. I didn’t care about the column, but I did care about her. “I love you.”
Her lips hit mine, and I had just leaned in to enjoy it when she pulled away, grabbed both puppets, and ran up to stand on the brick wall overlooking the flowers.
I stood and watched her.
“Come here,” she demanded with a gesture of both full arms and a jerk of her head.
“I’m good right here,” I told her with a smile, settling into my spot and crossing my arms over my chest.
“You’re so weird sometimes,” she called back, and I laughed.
That was really rich coming from her. My weirdo.
“Come up here and look at the fucking view.”
“I am,” I replied.
She tilted her head in annoyance.
I was actually surprised she didn’t get it. But I was more than willing to tell her. “Don’t you know, Lo? The best view includes you.”
The best view includes you.
I looked down at Reed.
I looked out at the breathtaking view.
And then, I looked at the ridiculous marionettes hanging down at my feet from their strings. They were miniature versions of exactly what I imagined the old, eighty-year-old Reed and Lola would look like. With their too big smiles and painted-on wrinkles and beady little eyes, I couldn’t deny these damn puppets were a far cry from being easy on the eyes.
In fact, they were downright frightening.
But, despite their faces’ ability to possibly give nightmares, they were the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for me. Because these marionettes weren’t just marionettes—they were a symbol of something more. They were fitting of me, the thirty-two-year-old roller skating, pigtailed woman from San Francisco, the extremely eccentric version of the ultimate gesture. Let’s spend our lives together, they said.
A declaration of love.
A promise of more, of everything, that had come straight from Reed’s heart.
And I knew that’s exactly why he had done this. It wasn’t just for me and my crazy life goal of feeding squirrels in the park with my mini-me marionette.
It was for us. Reed and Lola. And a proposal to be standing there together, still doing this obscenely absurd thing, when we were old and gray.
When I looked up to find him again, he wasn’t more than a foot away. His blue eyes searched mine, and I didn’t hide what I was feeling—surprise, warmth, acceptance. I didn’t hide the happy tears his gesture had spurred, and I definitely did not hide my love.
Vulnerable and exposed, my heart was on my sleeve, and for the first time in my life, there wasn’t any fear or uncertainty. No discomfort or tightening inside my chest.
Just happiness.
And love.
Sweet, sweet love.
“I can’t believe you did this,” I whispered.
“I can.” His hands cupped my cheeks, thumbs sweeping out to disturb the perfect, tiny rivers of tears.
“This is what a man, who is hopelessly, endlessly, and deeply in love, does for the weird, whimsical woman he is hopelessly, endlessly, and deeply in love with.” His blue eyes shone with tenderness. “And, Lola, I love you.”
“I love you too,” I whispered through a fresh batch of tears. This time, they carved a path across his hands like river rocks.
No words. No hesitation. Just his gaze and mine, open and willing and in love. We stayed like that for an unknown amount of time, until he finally broke the sweet silence.
“Lola?” Reed asked, and he softly brushed his lips across mine.
“Yeah?”
His lips locked with mine, an unspoken I’m going to kiss the hell out of you in answer to my yeah, and right there, with one of the most incredible buildings I’d ever seen behind us—and two really creepy marionettes watching us—Reed Luca sealed his commitment to me with the sweetest, most tender kiss.
