“Wheeeeee,” I cry out, hugging the bottle of booze to me with one arm, while my hand grips the edge of the chair, holding on. Kind of scary when Anders is driving, but so much fucking fun.
We go along the road for at least fifteen minutes, heading toward town, nothing but the soft sound of the skis on the snow and Anders’ heavy breath as he pushes us along. We go gliding through the thick forest at some points, feeling like we’re in a frozen fairy-tale, then by the water’s edge, where the snow has melted a little and turned to ice.
Finally, we come to a stop, though there’s nothing around us.
I look around, confused.
Then I look up at Anders. “What? You tired already?”
He doesn’t say anything back, though. Instead, he has this grave expression on his face. Now, Anders is still Anders, and he’s still prone to a lot of brooding from time to time, his mood swings not out of character. But I haven’t seen this kind of look in his eyes for a long time.
I mean, he’s looking intense.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
He presses his lips together, rubbing them in a nervous gesture, then comes around the front of the kick-sled. Stands right between the skis in front of me. Reaches down and gestures for the bottle.
I wordlessly hand it to him, watching as he pops the cork out and then takes a huge swig straight from the bottle, wincing.
“Is it the aurora? The northern lights? Are they messing with your brain?” I ask him as he swallows it down, shuddering a bit. He wipes the back of his mouth with his gloved hand, then drops down to his knees. For a moment I think he’s doing so just to place the bottle of booze on the snow beside him, instead of giving it back to me.
But after he does that, he doesn’t get back up.
And he’s barely looking at me either. In fact, his eyes are closed as he unzips a pocket on his parka and that’s when it hits me.
Oh my god.
Oh my fucking god.
Is he…proposing?
“Anders?” I whisper, my heart in my throat, too afraid to read into this, too afraid not to.
He licks his lips, eyes opening to meet mine just as he brings a velvet jewelry box out of his pocket. “Shay…”
He holds the box out and, with shaking hands, opens it to show a diamond ring that takes my breath away. The aurora above us is bright enough to hit the ring, making the diamonds sparkle, like polar lights of its own.
I stare down at the ring, eyes wide, my heart loud in my head, a million brilliant butterflies unleashed in my stomach, like the polar lights are glowing inside me.
Is this happening?
Is this really happening?
“Shay,” Anders says again, taking in a deep, trembling breath. I bring my gaze up to meet his eyes and I’m melting on the spot, he looks so fucking handsome and nervous and adorable all at once. “I was planning to do this around Christmas. I was going to write a whole speech. Maybe get my sisters involved. Do something really elaborate, one of those proposals that you’d post on Instagram. I had it all planned. But then…”
He licks his lips and looks up at the sky, the lights reflected in his eyes. “Then I saw the aurora. And I took it as a sign. That I don’t need to plan anything, because life is what happens when you’re making other plans, and I think now, that really applies to us. Because we’re just taking this all one day at a time, as long as we’re moving forward.” He pauses, giving me a sweet smile, one that brings tears to my eyes. “All I know is I want to move forward with you. I want you to marry me, to become my wife, so we can keep moving forward together. Shay Lavji, you are my past, my present, and my future, and I would be so very honored if you would marry me.”
He glances down at my hand, which I’m clutching to my chest. “It would help if I could have your hand,” he says.
I start laughing, sticking my hand out, feeling so overwhelmed that I can hardly breathe, hardly think, hardly move.
He holds my left hand and peers at me with worried eyes. “And it would help if you said yes, too.”
I laugh again, trying to shake some sense into my brain. “Yes!” I exclaim. “Yes, yes. Always yes, Anders. Of course I’ll marry you.”
He grins at me, and with quivering hands, takes my glove off, takes the ring, and slides it over my left ring finger. It fits perfectly, pear-cut, shining like the godly lights above.
“It’s so beautiful,” I whisper, unable to look away. This ring, this gorgeous ring, is on my finger. Anders just gave me this ring. Anders just proposed.