Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 117601 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117601 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
He lowers himself to one knee before me in his parents’ living room.
I want to die.
I close my eyes, thinking about how Dad is going to respond when I tell him I’m engaged. How Mom is not going to be at the wedding. How Pippa is going to hear about it, eventually, in passing one day and say, She ended up marrying a Ken? Maybe I didn’t know her after all. I think about our future lives, in suburbia. About Honda SUVs designed to contain three baby car seats. I think about double dates with Joe and his flavor of the week. Cooking and calligraphy and claying classes.
Then I remember that I don’t have to say yes.
But I do. I have to say yes because Dom chose me, in a time when no one else had. I have to because Dom makes things right. Because he took a look at my underbelly, at my darkness and insecurities, and stayed. And because Dom is not okay, not really. He needs my help in letting go of what happened to him. He is on self-destruction mode. I can’t turn my back on that.
But all of those things don’t hold a candle to the real reason why I can’t say no—because the proposal is so public. I simply cannot turn him down in front of his family.
“Lynne.” He clears his throat. “I know we’ve known each other for only a few months, but in those months, I’ve felt more than I ever have before. I fell in love, I gained a friend, I found out who Chewbacca was, made memories even more precious than my childhood nostalgia on the Cape—all with you.”
Gemma coos. I force myself to open my eyes. All I see is Dom, and the hope marked on his face.
Be honest, Mom says in my head.
Be fierce, Pippa adds.
But their voices are so faded that I can barely hear them anymore.
“Everlynne Bellatrix Lawson—God, I love that name! So unique.” Dom laughs. “Would you do me the honor and do the thing you warned me is ninety-nine point nine nine percent not going to happen and marry me? Because, baby, I’ve always believed in miracles, and you are my favorite point oh one percent.”
Silence stretches for a few moments before I finally choke out, “Yes.”
It is small, it is unsure, it is pained—but it is there.
I have no choice. He is putting me on the spot here. How could I have said no, in front of his entire family?
Everything happens fast afterward. Dom swoops me from the floor, spinning me in the air as if I weigh nothing. Our kiss is tender and brief. Gemma and Brad hurry to congratulate us.
“Welcome to the family.” She holds my cheeks and smacks a wet kiss on either side of them.
“Been meaning to find an excuse to buy a new suit for a while now.” Brad winks.
I search for Joe. I find him in the exact spot he was earlier, on the recliner. He hasn’t moved an inch. His jaw is locked. He appears calm, but underneath the surface, I can feel that he is shattered. I’m shattered too. But I’m also happy. And there’s a selfish, horrible part of me that is happy Joe can never escape my proximity now. We’ll be bound forever soon.
“Seph, come congratulate your brother,” Gemma urges. She grabs Joe’s hand and tugs him to us. He doesn’t budge. Dom tucks me under his arm, cocking his head sideways.
“All good, bro?” he asks.
Joe flicks his lighter back and forth, his thumb running over the flame. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“Treat her well.” He says that in a way that implies Dom hasn’t so far, which is completely untrue. Dom has been great. “I mean it.”
Dom bows his head a little. I don’t understand this exchange, and it unsettles me.
Joe’s gaze drifts to me. There is something inside his eyes. Something I can’t read, but it tells me that he’s had enough. That he loves his brother dearly but that this charade needs to stop.
For a moment, I think it is all going to be over. That Joe is going to uncover what happened between us. That they’ll kick me out of their home, and I’ll have to walk my way back to Salem. But then Joe stands up, grabs his beer, and leaves.
“I’m going out for a smoke.”
An hour later, Dom and his father go into the kitchen to tidy up while Gemma takes a phone call on the patio. Dom asks if I can bring him his tennis equipment from the closet in his bedroom. Apparently, he has a game next week. I want to tell him he has no business picking up tennis when he barely has time to sleep, but I stop myself. I’m going to argue with him to death, but not in front of his family. The weight of the diamond ring on my engagement finger comes with newfound authority. I intend to sit Dom down when we get back to Salem, look at his schedule, and make him trim the fat. I get that he wants to eat the world, but right now, the world is eating him.