After perusing them longer than most people would, he turns back to me, face still stony. It’s been an uncomfortable meal, but an important one.
“Thanks again for meeting me,” I say.
“Well, yeah.”
“I appreciate it, Tate.”
He nods. That’s all.
Soon, the server returns, and we leave, pausing in front of the café, ready to go our separate ways. In the past, we’d have shot the breeze more. He’d have said something cheeky about my Friday nights. I’d have given him a hard time about his age.
We don’t make those jokes anymore. We hardly see each other these days.
But today, he gave me his permission. I didn’t need it, but I wanted it. I wanted to show him that I respect who he is to the woman I love.
“Thanks for everything,” I say, then extend a hand.
We shake. “Don’t ever break her heart, Finn,” he instructs.
“I won’t,” I say in the easiest promise ever.
Across the ocean a week later, our town car pulls up, to a garden in Giverny.
Jules steps out of the car and reaches for my hand. We get in line. We aren’t alone here today. She wanted to see Monet’s Garden with people in it, enjoying the scents and sounds and colors.
That’s all she thinks we’re doing here today—paying a visit to one of her favorite places while on a European vacation.
Once we leave the house and enter the gardens, she lifts her nose, inhaling the irises, poppies and pansies. “I’m like a kid in a candy store,” she says, eyes sparkling.
“You should have your own garden someday,” I muse as I look around at the wildflowers and the emerald lawns.
She arches a brow my way. “Isn’t that what I have in your backyard?”
“Our backyard,” I correct since she’s been living with Zach and me in Manhattan. She moved in several months ago, and promptly started planting flowers outside the tree house.
Zach joins her as she works. The sight of them gardening together breaks my heart in all the best ways.
“Ours,” she repeats, since she’s still getting used to it.
“Yes, but a bigger one. I can see you in a home, with a huge yard, and flower beds as far as the eye can see.”
She smiles as we wander. “I like that image,” she says as she stops near the central alley leading away from the house, where trim green arches canopy the path. “They’re covered in honeysuckle,” she says, staring up at them.
“I know.” I know since this is exactly where I planned to be right now.
This is why I saw her father last week.
This is why I took her here.
And she is why I get down on one knee.
When she realizes I’m no longer walking with her, she turns around. It takes a few seconds for her to process the sight, but when she does, she gasps. “Finn,” she whispers.
I don’t feel an ounce of nerves, only excitement over what’s to come for us. “I love you madly, Jules. I never imagined I could love someone so deeply, so fiercely. Someone who’d love me the same way. You love with everything you have, and that’s all I’ve ever wanted. I’ve found it in you. I want to give you love every day for the rest of our lives.” I reach into my pocket and take out a blue velvet box. “Will you be my wife?”
With a smile more radiant than the sun, she says, “Yes,” and drops to her knees, throws her arms around me, and kisses me madly and deeply.
When she lets go, her face is soaked with tears, and her eyes shine with happiness.
Mine probably do too. I’m going to make this woman happy for the rest of our lives.
I slide a brilliant diamond onto her finger, and then kiss her once more in a garden that feels like ours.
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