Page 158 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

Miles: You know, I HAVE been wondering what it would look like there. Thanks, sis.

We both tuck our phones away. The sky over the water is beginning to change, the blues slowly changing into gold and pink. I stand and tug Miles with me. “Come on, I say, leading him toward the bow. “We finally got to the sunset part of the cruise.”

“Are you impressed?” Miles asks. “No emergencies materialized, and no one passed a kidney stone or had a baby.”

“And no one even kidnapped me. Yes, I’m deeply impressed.”

“Reese,” Miles says.

“I’m kidding.” We reach the railing, and I turn toward the horizon. “But I am impressed. The sky is really looking like it’s going to go all out for this sunset.”

“Yeah.”

Something in his voice sounds different, so I look over and see that Miles has gotten down on one knee.

For maybe the first time in my entire life, my brain produces absolutely nothing. No side story, no joke, no theories. All it can take in is Miles, holding a ring box. “Oh,” I say.

His smile is nervous.

Miles. Nervous. About me.

“Ever since that second Tuesday in the library, I’ve kept showing up because I wanted to be with you.”

My eyes immediately fill with tears.

“And I want to keep showing up every Tuesday. And Wednesday, and Thursday and every other day. I want ordinary days with you, Reese. Ridiculous ones. Hard ones. Beautiful ones. The ones that don’t go remotely according to plan.”

A laugh comes out through my tears.

“I want them all.”

Miles opens the ring box, and inside is a ring with a center diamond surrounded by little sapphires in pink, blue, yellow, and green. All different shapes and sizes, arranged in a way that should probably look chaotic, but somehow doesn’t. Of course Miles bought me a ring that looks like organized chaos.

It’s so beautiful and perfect and more exactly me than I thought a ring could possibly be that a fresh wave of tears blurs it before Miles gets out the words, “Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” I say, my voice coming out somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “Yes! Obviously, yes.”

People around us cheer, and I start laughing harder because Beachy Button-down is clapping enthusiastically, Orchid Smuggler has both hands over her heart, and Disgraced Rock Drummer whistles loud enough to startle half the boat.

Miles slides the ring onto my finger and stands, smiling at me with damp eyes and wind-tossed hair, and I have the wildly satisfying realization that this ridiculously attractive man is now my fiancé. I throw my arms around his neck. “I completely forgot all these people were here.”

“I gathered.”

Then he kisses me. It’s a long, glorious kiss, and the people we falsely accused of assorted felonies cheer again.

Later, I stand at the bow with Miles’s arms around me, my left hand resting over his. I just can’t stop staring at the ring. I didn’t even know one so perfect for me existed, and I’m still blown away that he found it.

And then I look back into the eyes of the man who knows me so well that he knew this ring was the one. I’ve always known ours is the kind of friendship people spend years trying to find, and most people never do.

And I once thought that when you have something this good, you don’t mess with it. Apparently, I was very wrong. We messed with it. Spectacularly. And somehow, being in love with Miles only made the best friendship I’ve ever had even better.

Now, I can’t wait to find out how much better it is when I get to call him my husband.

We both look out over the bow of the ship, and this time, we don’t miss the sunset.

EPILOGUE TWO

AFTER HOURS DENTISTRY