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“Do you wish…” My throat closes over the question. “Do you wish you weren’t…do you wish you hadn’t been hurt?”
“Not if it meant losing this.” He kisses my forehead. “I’m not as selfless as you.”
“Oh, Gabriel.”
“My mom would agree with me. She was like that. She’d want all of us together and safe even if she couldn’t be here. And now we are.”
“It wasn’t that simple, though.” I put a hand on his abs just to feel the warmth of him, and the strength.
“I did indeed get a little more fucked-up than anticipated, but that’s okay. You still want me.”
“I, too, got sort of screwed up, so I’m glad you get it.”
Gabriel rolls over, propping himself above me on his elbows. “I like the broken pieces of you. They’re…very attractive.”
“Allthe pieces of you are attractive.”
“All the broken pieces of me make sense when you’re here. A fucked-up sense, sometimes, but they fit. They don’t seem so wrong and horrifying. I don’t feel like a walking shameful secret.”
Gabriel brushes a lock of hair out of my face. I don’t know what to say. All my love has risen and risen until it’s spilling out of my veins like bread dough that doesn’t know when to stop.
“I love how it feels to look at you, and hold you, and be with you. I love how it feels when you see me. I told myself that love like that was something I couldn’t have, like…cake. Or joy. But fuck, Elise, I want those things. I want them so much. And you gave them to me, even when I was a jackass.”
“Gabriel, I—”
“Stay with me forever. Do all the hard things with me forever. Make me eat cake and hang out with my family and let my guard down forever.”
“What’s happening?”
“I’m proposing,” he whispers. Then he leans over to the bedside table and pulls something out of the drawer. Gabriel holds up a ring between us. “This belonged to my mother.”
“Oh—you can’t give that to me. I know how long it took for Mason to find—”
“My brother spent a long-ass time searching for her jewelry, which is why it’s perfect. He couldn’t just buy this. He had to work for it. He had to do all the hard things in order to find her collection. That’s what I want to do with you. All the hard things. All the good things. Except this time, we get the prize first.”
“What’s the—the prize?”
“Each other, obviously.”
A wild laugh takes me off guard. “I think we worked pretty hard for each other, though.”
“And all to get to the starting line, which is…well, it could be right here, if you wanted.” Gabriel clears his throat. “With this ring, which belonged to my mother.” Emotion sings through his voice. “There are two tiny diamonds on either side of a round setting of imperial jade, which I gather is very rare, but that’s not why she loved it.”
“Why?” I put my hands to his face and drink in the happy tears in his eyes. The sadness of remembering his mom. The joy that we’re doing this together.
“She said she loved it because it was the color of my father’s eyes, and it made her feel good every time she looked at it.”
Gabriel has his father’s eyes. I can’t say a word, because I’m already crying. He gives me a wavering grin.
“Elise Bettencourt, I love you so much I’d jump out of ten thousand buildings for you. I would be so honored to have you as my wife. Will you marry me?”
“Yes!” My answer is a super-undignified squeak, but Gabriel lets out a loudwhoopthat probably wakes up the whole neighborhood and kisses me like a horny teenager and not a man who just got engaged.
Multiple fists pound on the bedroom door. “What’s going on, big guy?” shouts Nate. He sounds high. “Is someone doing breaking and entering on you? Should I get a knife?”
“We got engaged,” calls Gabriel, and slips the ring onto my finger. “I proposed, and Elise said yes.”
“You screamed like a girl.”
