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Once she’s sitting down, I feel even better.
Until she glances down at the box, and I glance down at it too, and that can’t-breathe-holy-fuck feeling returns in full force.
August looks over his shoulder and beckons. Julien comes to the bench, and then it’s the four of us in a little huddle. Another burst of signing, this one only for Julien, and then August sort of crouches down to be on our level. He pauses, glancing between both of us, and off his hands go.
“Let’s be real with one another.” Julien’s lowered his voice. “It’s my impression that you had a non-traditional proposal.”
“Oh,definitely,” Lily says. She puts her hand over mine—the one clutching the ring box for dear life. “Highly non-traditional.”
“Have you seen the ring?” Julien asks for August.
She shakes her head, her cheeks going pink under her frankly perfect makeup.
“Okay.” Julien again, August’s hands flashing. “You don’t have to act surprised. In fact, neither of you need to say anything at all. Jameson, sit up a little straighter. Like that. What you’re going to do is open the box and show her the ring. And Lily—”
“I’m going to look at it, then look at him instead?”
August beams.
“These are mostly close-up details,” Julien says. “I’m not going to focus much on your faces. Think of these as candids. Pretend I’m not here.”
Then August waves him away andkeepswaving people away until our family is in a half-circle that’s so far across the stretch of grass that it’s like they’re onlookers who just happened to walk by.
“He’s totally lying,” Lily whispers.
“About what?”
August comes back across the grass, adjusts some camera settings, and takes a few photos, fast enough that they’re probably warm-up shots.
“He’s going to take pictures of our faces. He just wants us to be comfortable.”
“I’m completely at home.”
Lily smiles at me, and for a second this doesn’t seem like a bizarre staged engagement session, it just feels like we’re into parks.
She’s so fucking beautiful. Her hair is swept back from her face like she just walked off the screen in an old movie, and Charlotte dressed her, and I’m lucky to be on this bench with her at all.
Lily rests her hand on my neck and takes a deep breath. “Okay. Show me. I want to see.”
I stare into her eyes, resisting the urge to make a dick joke with every single nerve and brain cell in my body.
“I don’t mean your dick,” she whispers. “I mean the ring.”
“I fucking love you.”
The entire world goes silent.
Lily’s hand is on my neck, and I have one hand on her waist, and my other hand has the ring box in it, and I have no fucking idea when she leaned in, looking so radiant it hurts, but it means I can see every detail of her face lighting up. I can see her eyes going wide and her lips parting and the deep color that goes down her neck and I couldn’t look away from her for all the money in the world.
And I can’t tell her I didn’t mean it.
Fuck.
Do I mean it?
Having a non-traditional engagement is one thing, but there is absolutely no way I’m going to tell Lily that I take it back in front of that guy. I would never live it down.
And I don’t want to take it back.
