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He sighs. “At the risk of sounding like I’m making a case for you to be with Price, I have to say that it’s possible he was pursuing you for that whole summer twelve years ago, but you were too caught up in your young mind to see it. Maybe you were too ‘in the moment’ to imagine a future. He probably wanted to love you the way I want to love you.”
Rubbing my lips together, I sort through his words. Does he have a point?
“Marriage has nothing to do with love.”
Koen narrows his eyes. “I’ll concede that you don’t have to love someone to marry them, and you don’t have to marry someone to prove that you love them. But I’m not sure it’s one hundred percent accurate to say marriage has nothing to do with love.”
“So why do you want to marry me if you don’t have to marry someone to prove that you love them?”
“I was raised to buy the cow before taking the milk.”
“Stop it.” I brush past him to the back room to hide my grin and retrieve the broom.
“Can I be honest with you?” he asks when I return.
I laugh. “When have you not been?”
“If I don’t factor in my life going off the rails— sending me spiraling downward with addiction for a good year—I’m a traditionalist at heart. I’m a descendant of Herb Sikes. I’m not a purist, but I’ve spent many Sundays in church with my mom and grandfather. I want a wife who wants to have children. I wantusto raise our children—to witness their first steps and words. And I’m willing to work as hard as necessary to provide for my family and to be a good husband and father. I want sleepless nights and a minivan with sticky seats and snacks littering the floor. I want handprints on the windows and markers on the walls. I want to bust my ass to get my kids into bed before my wife falls asleep so that we can have time alone every day. I want to have the family stickers on our minivan’s window, the one with lots of kids. The one where the people in the vehicle behind us count the number of kid stickers and conclude that I need to stay the fuck off my wife for a while.
“And saying all of this to you scares the life out of me because I’m afraid it will suffocate every last ounce of your feminism.And that’s not what I want to do at all. We wouldn’t be equals. Nope.Youwould be the harder worker. You would be the one deserving the praise. Your part of this would be much harder than mine, but I want to believe it would be more rewarding, too. My mom stayed home with me and my brother until we were in school. And I can go weeks without thinking about my father, but I love my mom. I call her every day. And I want to be a great dad, unlike my father. But more than anything, I want my kids to love their mother to the ends of the earth.”
Whoa … just … whoa …
If he told me he lived on another planet and recently descended upon Earth, I would not be more shocked than I am right now. The look on his face is the epitome of honesty and raw vulnerability. He put itallout there.
“We’re over. Aren’t we?” He cringes.
It takes me a few more seconds to piece together my thoughts. Koen has dreamed of his future. I have not, at least not to this level of detail.
I slowly shake my head. “No. Uh … we’re not over. I’m just …” I continue to shake my head. “I’m trying to imagine it. What if I can’t have children?”
“Would you adopt?” he asks.
I don’t know, even though I’ve considered the possibility that I can’t have children. But I’ve never considered the part that comes after that. I’ve never had a reason to consider it.
“Scottie, say something.”
My gaze flits to his. Do I want to marry Koen and have a family with him?
“You want me to be a stay-at-home mom?”
He presses his lips together for a beat before nodding.
“I see.” I clear my throat. “I’m not sure what the definition of feminism is anymore. I think it’s changed, or perhaps it’s different for everyone. Mine is pretty basic. Women are equal tomen; therefore, we should have equal rights and opportunities. Feminism should include all choices women make for their lives.”
“But?” he says.
“But nothing. I appreciate your honesty. There’s a long list of things I’ve come to love about you, but your honesty and transparency top the list. You’re unapologetically yourself. You own your mistakes and don’t hide what you want in life. There are no buts. What you said about your mother is so beautiful.”
Koen slides his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and lifts his gaze to the ceiling for several seconds. “I’m sure that sounded like I want you to be barefoot and pregnant for the next twenty years while chasing kids and canning tomatoes. But that’s not?—”
“You didn’t mention canning tomatoes.” The harder I try to hold in my laughter, the more it escapes as an unattractive snort despite my hand over my mouth.
He looks at me with heartbreaking vulnerability. “I love you, Scottie. And I don’t care if it’s been two decades, years, months, days, minutes, or seconds. This love I have for you is here to stay. And I don’t want you to compromise who you are or your dreams, but if you can imagine sharing even a fraction of my dreams with me, then marry me, because I would be the luckiest man alive to be part of yours.”
Crickets.
What doesthe girlsay tothe boyafter he says all that?
