Just an hour ago, we stepped into a little antique shop on Walnut Road. The owner kept leading us toward the jewelry case, and Love didn’t say much, but I saw her gaze wander toward a silver ring with a milky pearl stone in the middle and a halo of diamonds around it.
The owner told us it once belonged to the wife of the town’s founder, who managed to keep it in the family for a couple of generations until the Great Depression hit. After that, the ring bounced from local family to local family, but it always seemed to come back.
“That’s too bad,” Love said. “It’s so pretty. It deserves a good home.”
“That it does,” the owner said to her as he winked at me.
I waited until she sauntered off to some corner of the shop filled with vintage china sets before slipping the guy some cash. He counted it out, nodded, and then quietly took the ring out from its case and polished it with a dry cloth. A moment later, he slipped it into a small wooden box with navy blue velvet inside. When we were both sure she wasn’t looking, he slid it across the glass counter, and I shoved it in my pocket.
We’ve only been together (officially) a year, but already I know I want to spend the rest of my life with this woman. But if I married her, she’d lose her alimony—assuming there’s much of anything left after his trial and all the negative publicity, and I wouldn’t do that to her or to her business. Things have been going exceedingly well for Agenda W this past year. So well, in fact, that she plans to open sister locations in each of the boroughs over the next five years.
“Oh! There’s the fountain I wanted to show you,” Love pulls me across a blacktop street toward a sculpture of what appears to be a bronze mermaid. “It wasn’t here last time. I guess they share it with some town in Denmark? Anyway, this is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Mermaid. My dad used to take me here all the time for coin tossing contests when I was a kid.”
Love’s radiant eyes match the wide beam claiming her face.
“Ten points for hitting her tail. Twenty for the seashell necklace,” she says, moving closer to the fountain. Stooping low, she scoops her hand across the top of the water, like she couldn’t resist. A moment later, she turns back toward me. “Hey, do you have any—” Love’s hands cup her gaping mouth. “What is … what is this? What are you doing?”
Her gaze turns glassy as she takes two steps toward me, then another, and another.
“This isn’t a marriage proposal,” I say, despite the fact that I’m down on one knee with a ring box propped in my hand.
“Okay?” She’s laughing and crying, her hands flitting around her face. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not asking you to marry me, Love. I’m asking you to spend the rest of your life with me.” My chest swells and my throat is tight, but I carry on. “I don’t care about labels and papers. I don’t care about making it legal or official. All I care about is you. Nothing more. Nothing less. So will you spend the rest of your life with me?”
Her tear-brimmed eyes move toward the pearl ring resting in the wooden case in my hand, and she takes it from me.
“When did you … how did you?”
“I never knew how adorable you are when you get flustered.” I wink. “So what do you say?”
She slips the vintage jewel over her left ring finger with ease, and I rise, towering over her and pulling her into my arms.
“So is that a yes?” I ask.
Rising on her toes, she cups my face in her sweet hands and kisses me soft and slow, like she never wants this moment to end.
“That’s a yes.”
* * *
THE END
Dream Cast
Love Aldridge – Michelle Williams
Jude Warner – Justin Hartley
Tierney Castle – JoAnna Garcia
Lo Warner – Emma Stone
Hunter LeGrand – Josh Henderson
Cameo Aldridge – Beth Behrs