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“Brute force.”
“I don’t mind the sound of that.”
“Flynn.”
He smiles bashfully and then sighs. “Okay. Fine.” He reaches into the basket and produces a small velvet box. It takes me a moment to realize what it is. “I was going to wait, but –”
“Did I just –” I feel my heart racing. “Did I just force a proposal out of you?”
Flynn sighs. “It was going to come out at some point. While we’re gone, Cash and Colin are setting up a whole romantic setting for when we get back, but knowing we were going to be out here, I just knew I couldn’t wait.”
My jaw drops.
“I can get on my knee if you want, but…” he glances at Phoebe. She’s sound asleep. Any rocking of the dock might wake her.
“You’re proposing,” I say again as if realizing this for the first time.
“Are you surprised?”
My lower lip quivers and I nod. I didn’t expect it at all. Of course, it’s been on our minds since before Phoebe was born. We took things as slowly as we could, but preparing to have a baby together really condenses a timeline for romance. Once she came, the idea of marriage just wasn’t a priority anymore.
At least not a spoken one.
Flynn crawls to sit in front of me. “Stella. My star.”
I smile. Waterworks are imminent.
“We might have strange origins, but you’ve made my world so bright. Every day, I look forward to the adventures we’ll have together. Every day, I realize as if for the first time how lucky I am that you have chosen me. Given me the greatest gift a person can be given.” He gazes down at Phoebe, the best thing either of us has ever done. “We’re already a family, marriage or not. But I want to do this for us.”
Flynn opens the ring box. An emerald flanked by two brilliant diamonds. It’salmosttoo much for my taste, but not quite. It’s absolutely perfect.
“Will you marry me?”
I’m about to answer when Phoebe lets out a wail out of nowhere. Her whole body jostles. Flynn and I both go into parent mode. I scoop her up in my arms, bouncing her softly. She immediately quiets down. “Were you scared? Were you having a bad dream?”
Phoebe’s chunky hands settle around my neck, her head nestled into my shoulder.
Flynn rubs her back softly. “She really knows how to be the center of attention, huh?”
I kiss her forehead and then look at Flynn. “Yes,” I say.
Flynn frowns.
“Yes, to your first question.”
He shakes his head, his mind clearing. “Oh! Yes. Right.”
I laugh as he pulls the ring out, hand shaking as he slips it on my finger. “Don’t drop it, or else it belongs to the grotto.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
The ring settles onto the base of my finger. “Fits perfectly.”
Flynn takes my hand, kisses it, and then holds it to his chest. “Looks perfect too.”
I delicately turn my palm into his cheek. He rests his face right there tenderly.
We spend the rest of the afternoon entangled together, the three of us. At once nothing has changed, and everything has changed. We’re the same three we used to be, but now, something bonds us just that much tighter.
