The all caps also might be overkill, but I’m hoping it will get my currently very desperate and somewhat drunken point across. Greg, meanwhile, true to his word, floors the accel
erator and speeds us along the narrow, twisting highways toward the airport. It was about a half an hour drive, if I remember correctly from when we landed here what feels like a lifetime ago. Was that really only this morning?
My head swims.
My pulse pounds.
We make it to the airport in 20 minutes. Greg takes after most of the employees at our company when it comes to driving. We’ll probably be mailed a speeding ticket—they’re better about speed cameras here in Greece than we are at home—but who cares. Worth it.
As soon as we pull up outside of the airport, I race inside, eyes pinned to the departures board. I scan for the flight number Greg gave me—he booked her flight with his own miles, last minute, since he thought he was doing the right thing. Helping her out, freeing her from a situation that was upsetting her.
I don’t blame him—well, except for the being such a jerk to her when she first met my parents part. But even then, he thought he was following my orders. He’s been trying to help, even if he’s been butchering it all the while.
My eyes find her flight number, and my heart sinks in my chest.
Departed.
No.
I whip out my phone and stare at my texts to her. There’s no way to tell if she got them in time. No way to know if she’ll spend her whole flight home just as depressed and down as she’s been feeling tonight. I just pray she’ll pick up when I call her again in the morning.
Maybe I should leave the reunion early too, catch an early flight tomorrow morning and try to meet her back home. We do this reunion every five years. I’ll be back. But this may be my only chance to make things right with Dee
“Hey,” says a soft voice behind me. And suddenly, I can breathe again. My chest swells, and I whip around, to find Dee, that crazy enormous pink suitcase of hers in hand, smiling tentatively at me from next to the exit doors.
16
Dee
“You didn’t leave.” That’s the first thing he says, and he looks like I’ve just handed him the best Christmas present in the world by being here.
That, more than anything, reassures me that I made the right call. “It didn’t feel right,” I say, shuffling my feet. “Storming off like that without giving you a chance to explain… I was emotional, and hurt, and I just wanted to get out of there before more of your family members started to hate me.”
He barks out a laugh, then shakes his head. “Nobody hates you, Dee.”
I snort and roll my eyes. “Okay, maybe not hate, but certainly dislike.”
“I just got done talking to my father, actually,” Jasper says. “He said that as long as you make me happy, he’s a hundred and ten percent on board with having you around. He says you’re refreshing, actually, I think was the exact word.”
I laugh a little louder this time. That I can believe, at least.
“But I realized more than that.” Jasper steps closer, and just like it always does when he’s close to me, my breath hitches in my throat. It’s suddenly hard to take a deep breath, hard to keep my head from spinning. “You make me happy, Dee. So happy, whenever I’m with you.” He wraps his hands around my shoulders, and the warmth of his hands pins me in place. “But not just happy.” His eyes search mine, darker and more serious than I’ve ever seen them. “I love you, Dee,” he whispers.
My heart feels like it could explode. “I love you, Jasper,” I say. As the words tumble from my mouth, I realize they’re true. I love you. I love him more than I ever realized I could. “I know I said I never fell in love before, and that’s true, but this… This is the real thing.” I shake my head, shocked by it.
“I know,” he whispers.
And then he drops down on one knee.
My eyes go wide as saucers. Over his shoulder, I spy Greg, looking just as surprised as I am. We lock eyes, and Greg shrugs, then winks at me, and mouths I’m sorry.
I shake my head. It’s not his fault.
I look back at Jasper, who’s drawn a small box from his pocket. “Last time I did this,” Jasper says, “I didn’t mean it. Not really. But this time it’s different. This time… it’s real.”
He opens the lid of the box, and my jaw drops when I see what’s nestled inside.
An engagement ring. A beautiful one. But not the one I’ve been wearing on my finger for the last three weeks. Not the huge gaudy one the jeweler in Newholme talked us into.
A different ring. The ring that I picked out first, the gorgeous one surrounded by sapphires, which the jeweler talked us out of getting in favor of the pricier, showier one.
“Will you marry me, Dee?” Jasper whispers.
My real ring, I think. For my real husband.
Just like I did the last time he knelt before me, I drop onto my knees beside him and wrap both hands around his. “Of course, you idiot,” I whisper, though fresh tears spilling out of my eyes. But these aren’t tears of sadness. They’re tears of joy.
He fumbles the ring from the box, only barely manages to slip it onto my finger before I’m grabbing his face between and pulling him into a long, deep, lip-biting, tongue-wrestling kiss. The kind of kiss you get lost in. The kind of kiss that transports you to another world, and as his hands drop down to circle my waist and pull me against him, I arch my body into his, craving more, craving all of him, wanting to be his wife, the way we’ve been pretending all along.
Someone nearby clears their throat, loudly, and we break apart, breathless, only to realize I’m half on top of him, right in the middle of the airport. A few passersby are looking at us, laughing. Someone snaps a photo, and I turn my head to glare at Greg, who coughs again.
“We are still in public, you know, guys.”
“Who’s going to begrudge me a little PDA with my wife right now?” Jasper counters, leaning in to kiss me again, shorter but sweeter this time. Then he rises, and pulls me to my feet at his side. “What do you say, future Mrs. Quint?” He squeezes my hand, wrapped in his. This engagement ring feels so much more natural on my finger, lighter and smoother than the other. I turn it to admire the way it flashes in the airport lighting. “Shall we head back now?”
I trail after him, as Greg picks up my luggage for me, and tilt my head. “I don’t understand, Jasper. When did you buy this ring? I thought we settled on the other one.”
“For show,” he said. “But I remembered how much you liked this one. And then, before we came here…” He pauses. Turns a little red around the ears, the way he does whenever he’s embarrassed. “Well. I thought it might come in handy, sometime in the future.”
I can’t help it. I burst into laughter. “And you call me the hopeless romantic?”
“Maybe we’re both a little bit guilty there,” he murmurs.
“You think?” Greg shouts over his shoulder as he hauls my luggage toward the trunk. I catch the tail end of mutter about “literally racing to the airport” under his breath, and I snort softly.
But Greg does stop us once we’re in the car, and catch both our eyes where we’re curled up side-by-side in the backseat. “Seriously, though, I’m sorry for all this. I thought I was doing what you wanted, Jasper—”
“It’s okay,” he interrupts. “You didn’t know. But there is one thing you can do to make up for it…” He flashes me a look. Whispers in my ear. My eyes light up, and that’s all the response he needs. “We need you to help us plan something, Greg.”
“I don’t understand.” Jasper’s mother looks from me to him and back again, confusion written all over her face. We’re standing in the little side room off the breakfast room at the resort. First thing in the morning, after driving back from the airport, we asked the Quints to meet us here to explain ourselves. Or at least, some of the story. “You’re not married?”
“Not yet, no.” Jasper runs a hand through his hair. “We… well, it’s a long story. But the short version is, we were trying married life out, and it turns out, we actually really like it. And want to make a real go of it.”
“And then we thought, s
ince I don’t have any family to invite, really,” I speak up.
“And since our whole family is here right now…” Jasper continues.
“At this incredibly beautiful resort in a gorgeous town in Greece, which, I mean.” I laugh. “I never thought I’d find myself at, let alone with so many wonderful people…”
“We just thought this would be the perfect time to seal the deal,” Jasper finishes. “For real this time.” At that, he glances in my direction, and winks. By the time he finishes speaking, his mother is wiping at the corners of her eyes, overcome with emotion.
“I know we might’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” I start to say. But I never finish the sentence, because his mother throws her arms around me to squeeze me into the tightest hug of my life.
“Not at all. We were the ones being judgmental. I hope you can forgive us.” Mrs. Quint—Kara, I remind myself—steps back and glances over my head, at that. I turn to see Jasper’s father smiling at us all. He’d let his wife take the lead so far, while we explained that we never legally married. Now, he crosses the room to grip Jasper’s hand, then pulls him into a back-slapping hug next.
“I’m proud of you, son,” he says. Then Mr. Quint—Antoine, I’m going to need to practice this—turns to hug me next. “And I’m so excited to welcome you into our family, Dee.”
“Oh, goodness.” Kara starts, grabbing my arms to spin me around. “What are we going to do for an outfit, though? I don’t know if I have anything white that would be your size…”
That’s when another voice pipes up, from a little side nook off the main room that I didn’t even notice earlier. “I’ve got the perfect thing.” Jasper’s cousin Sofia pokes her head around the corner. She has a half-finished breakfast plate in her lap and an apologetic look on her face.
“I woke up early. Wanted to sneak away for breakfast before the kids got up. Sorry, I didn’t mean to spy, but you all sort of just flooded the room before I could warn you I was here…”