“What?”
“The part where you said ‘our beach’ and didn’t have to elaborate for me to know exactly which beach you were talking about.” I brush my lips across his, lingering there for a long moment. “We’ve been to so many beaches I can’t count them, and we’ve loved most of them, but still, I knew which beach you meant as soon as you said those two words.”
“That’s because it is our beach.”
I smile and shake my head. “No, Jack, it’s because I know your heart.”
“Fuck,” he rasps. “Say yes, sweetheart. Tell me you’ll spend the rest of your life with me.”
“You haven’t actually asked me yet.”
Before I know what’s happening, he’s got me off his lap and positioned on the couch, and he’s off, up the stairs. He disappears for a couple of minutes, and when he returns, he has a ring box in his hand.
Dropping to his knee in front of me, he says, “The day I found you on our beach was the best damn day of my life. I screwed us up, but I’ve come to the belief that maybe we had to go through everything we have because I’m not sure we’d be the people we are today if we hadn’t. You are the absolute best woman I know, Jessica, and I don’t want to do any more days in my life without you. I want to renovate bathrooms with you. I want to kill spiders for you. I want to be in charge of buying you cake. I want to own all your grumpy moods. I want you to boss me into changing my passwords. I want to hold your ass every day. I want to get you all bothered with my shirts. I want to love you, and cherish you, and fuss over you.” He opens the ring box. “I want to be your front runner, and I want you to be mine for every day of the rest of our lives. Will you marry me, sweetheart?”
The ring he bought me is the most beautiful ring I’ve ever seen—a light pink, oval diamond set in pave diamonds and rose gold—but it’s not what I’m staring at.
I’m staring at the man I love open his heart to me and tell me all the ways he wants to love me. If I thought he made me swoon before, I didn’t know how next level he could take this.
I cup his face and kiss him.
I kiss him in such a way that he will know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I want to be his front runner for life. And when I finally let his lips go, I say, “You are the absolute best man I know, Jack. Yes, I will marry you.”
Epilogue
Jack
One Month Later
I watch my wife as she talks with my best friend across the room. I take in the long, white dress she’s covered her curves with; the slit in that dress that reveals a long, toned leg; and the tiny belt at her waist that meets the long dip in the front of the dress. Mostly though, I take in the way her smile finds her eyes and never lets them go.
I didn’t expect Jessica to choose a white dress to marry me in. I didn’t think she’d opt for any tradition today. It turns out my wife knows how to surprise me.
My wife.
Mrs Kingsley.
I will never grow tired of calling her these things.
Lorelei joins Jessica and Ashton, and Jessica laughs at something she says. As she laughs, she turns her face, and her eyes meet mine.
She stills and watches me for a moment.
She then lifts her phone and taps something into it.
A second later, my phone sounds with a text.
Jessica: I have a vibe in my clutch.
Jack: Fuck, my wife is a filthy woman.
Jessica: You wanna fuck me, Mr Kingsley?
Jack: I always want to do that.
Ashton says something to her, dragging her attention from her phone.
I watch and wait.
Lorelei keeps her talking, and then Mira joins them, and I know I’m going to have to step in if I want my wife’s lips around my dick any time soon.
I shoot her another text.
Jack: When I said I want to fuck you, I meant now.
She reads the text and looks at me as she sends her reply.
Jessica: Do you think fucking me will be your front runner today?
Jack: Today is the kind of day a man has many front runners. One of the times I fuck you is sure to be on that list.
Jessica: Always so presumptuous.
Jack: That I’m going to fuck you more than once?
Jessica: Yes. I may pass out from exhaustion after the first time.
Jack: Since the first time is going to be in a public bathroom, I hope not.
Jessica: Jesus, Jack, I told you I’m done with public bathrooms.
Jack: Where are you planning for me to use this vibe then?
Jessica: Upstairs in our room.
She is interrupted by Mira again.
“Darling,” my mother says, coming to stand next to me. “I think I’m going to go up to my room. I’m tired after the long day.”
I turn to her. “I’ll take you up.”
“No, you go and be with your wife.” She places her hand on my arm. “I’m so proud of you, Jack. For finding your way through your pain and coming out the other side, for loving Jessica as well as you do, and for loving all of us the way you do. I’m proud to have a son who does his best to be a good man every day of his life.”
The other side.
It turns out it does exist.
And I’m a happy fucker to have been proven wrong.
I look at Jessica.
The other side isn’t a mystical place addicts talk about; it does exist. And while I have to go to war with my demons every day of my life, I know we all do. I know that if I wasn’t fighting the demons I am, I’d be fighting something else. Some days are hard. Some are easier. But they all bring good into my life. I know that to be true because I’m looking at her.
“Jessica’s with the girls. I’ll walk you up to your room,” I say to Mum.
“This is going to be one of those occasions where you don’t give me a say, isn’t it?”
“You’re finally catching on.”
She rolls her eyes. This is something she’s learned from my wife. Some days I have no hope of winning the battles I find myself in. Not now that these two have joined forces.
I did win the battle to take Mum to the doctor after she took that fall last month, though. Jessica came through for me on that one. She talked Mum into listening to me. ‘Talked’ is an exaggeration. Jessica doesn’t have to talk her into anything. My mother adores Jessica.
“If Jessica ever decides to stop working for Ashton,” Mum says as we walk up to her room, “she could be a wedding planner. I’ve never been to a wedding quite like yours. It was beautiful.”
I smile. It was. It was more than fucking beautiful.
Jessica was onto the wedding plans the afternoon of the day I proposed to her. She originally suggested we marry in Positano, but since I was adamant I wanted the wedding to happen in the next month, and since Will and Mira couldn’t get time off work to fly overseas in that timeframe, she settled for a Sydney wedding.
We booked out Ashton’s Sydney hotel. The entire hotel. Jessica told me she might have to share me with the world, but she refused to share me on our wedding day. She rebooked accommodation for every guest who was already booked here. For some guests, we had to pay them to get them to cancel their reservation. For some, that was a small fortune because Ashton’s hotel is one of Sydney’s most sought-after fucking hotels. It was worth every last cent.