My heart stuttered to a stop, and I struggled to breathe as his words sank in, every sweet but gruff word of it. He wants to marry me. Holy shit, Jasper wants to marry me. To be my husband. To make it legal. It definitely wasn’t the proposal I dreamed of for all these years, but those were expectations of a little girl.
Those words, inelegant and spit out harshly, but they were Jasper’s words. They were the most beautiful words I had ever heard, and coming from his lips, the words I longed to hear.
“That’s good to know because I want it with you too, Jasper.”
There was a brief moment of relief, but it quickly passed, replaced with satisfaction because Jasper wanted what he wanted. And right now what he wanted, was me. “Damn straight you do.”
I laughed as he slid the ring on my finger and leaned in to kiss me, the scent of newborn baby between us. “I love you, Jasper.”
“Good, because I love you too.” He stole another kiss while Thomas grabbed Cillian and snuggled him close. We kissed, and though it felt like the world around us had stopped, the background was filled with the sounds of a rowdy, raucous family.
The kiss ended too soon, and Jasper sat beside me on the bed, one arm flung around me as if we’d been a couple for years as we looked out at the room filled with family.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for giving me a family.”
“Thank you for loving me.”
I cupped his face, and looked deep into his eyes, my heart so full of love I felt like I was having a panic attack. “I’ve loved you from the moment I laid eyes on you, Jasper. Now that I have you? Just try and stop me from loving you.”
I enjoyed this moment. This flash of happiness that we often took for granted. Times like this wouldn’t always last, they couldn’t with the way our family did business, but that made it even more important to celebrate these moments. New life brought into the world. Two lives being joined at any age. These were the reasons, I now understood, that we came together every week and sat around the table, talking business and shooting the shit.
Just being together.
Tomorrow wasn’t promised, not to any of us, and we enjoyed every blissful moment that happened in our lives. This moment was incredible; it was golden. We were all happy, and today, that was enough.
I didn’t know what else I could bring to this family besides more Ashby babies, but I could do this. I could make sure that we had more days like this, happy and laughing, than days spent patching wounds, locking down the house, and looking over our shoulders. Those days were part of being in this amazing family, but so were these days.
I wouldn’t trade any of it for the world. I got the man. I got the family. I got the ring.
I got it all.