His motions were awkward and prolonged, off half the time, but there was no mistaking what he was trying to say.
THAT’S GOOD THEN. BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, EVAN. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, AND I LOVE YOUR MOM. I WANT TO STAY WITH YOU. WITH HER. BE YOUR FAMILY. BECAUSE YOU ARE MY HEART.
He punctuated the last with a fist against the middle of his chest.
I nearly buckled, watching him sign to my son. That he’d taken the time to learn. That he’d listened. That he could hear.
Kale looked up at me from where he was still on his knees. “I love you, Hope. I love you so goddamned much, I can’t see. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep.”
Slowly, he pushed to standing, his hand still fisted over his heart. “You warned me your life was complicated, that you didn’t have any room for anything else, and I pushed my way into it anyway. I wanted to save you. Save him. Be your knight or your hero or whatever you wanted me to be. But it turned out that you were the one who was complicating me. In the best of ways. Waking me up and making me feel, when I’d never thought I could possibly feel that way again. All along, you were the one who was saving me.”
I tucked my trembling bottom lip between my teeth, and Kale came closer. So close I could feel him everywhere. Racing across my flesh, sinking deeper into my heart.
“It kills me, Hope, kills me that I walked away from you that night when you needed me most. I was scared. Terrified. Filled with grief and guilt. But you awakened that dead place in me. That’s a gift . . . you and your son are a gift . . . and I don’t want to live my life without it.”
He took my face in both of his big hands. “I love you, with all of me, and I promise, if you can find a way to forgive me, I will live my life for you. For Evan. For us. There might be times when I’m afraid, when I fail, but I will never stop fighting for you. You set me on a path that I don’t want to stop walking. I will follow you anywhere.”
A soggy laugh jolted free, and I sniffled and reached up to scratch my nails across his jaw. “Cowboy.”
He gathered that hand in his, brushed his lips across my knuckles. “Princess.”
He stared at me for the longest time before he looked back at Evan who was staring up at us, sniffling and wiping the tears from his face. Kale knelt back down and did it for him. “Do you want me to stay?” he asked, his voice ripping from his throat. “With you? With your mom?”
Evan made that scraping, raw sound as he said, “Stay.”
I pressed my hands to my chest. Overcome. Overwhelmed.
Kale smiled at him. Tenderly. With so much love it nearly blew me over.
“Is it okay if I kiss your mom, little man?”
Evan turned back to his pad.
You’re supposed to kiss her if you’re her boyfriend. Lots of kisses. That’s the rule.
“Yeah? And what if I’m her husband?”
Evan was quick to write on his pad.
Then you have to give her a billion.
Kale shifted on his knee and turned his gaze on me, the blue brimming with a sea of promises.
Lust and love and devotion.
He dug in his pocket, and my hands flew to my mouth, a gasp flying free when he held out the little black box.
“What do you say, Hope? Can I give you a billion kisses and all my love, every single day, for the rest of our lives?”
I was frozen, shocked.
Wondering if it was all too much, too fast.
“He bought All. The. Lollipops.” I jerked to look to the side where Jenna was hanging halfway out the door and shouting at us. “Say yes, Harley Hope. Don’t you dare walk away and not say yes. You deserve this. More than anyone I know.”
There was my best friend. Grinning from ear to ear in all her brash, pushy encouragement.
“Yes,” I whispered, the word soggy, love sliding free.
Because it didn’t matter the circumstances. The path we’d taken to get here. This man had led me exactly where I was supposed to be.
“Yes,” I said again, this time laughing with the wave of joy that crashed over me.
He slid the ring on my finger. Diamond glimmering in the moonlight, the man stared down at it.
Awed.
Floored.
Finally, he pushed to standing.
The second he did, I threw myself in his arms.
Kale lifted me from the ground and spun me around.
Round and round.
His face buried in my neck while he clung to me.
He set me on my feet and took my face in his hands. He leaned down and captured my mouth in a dizzying kiss.