“I am. I’ll see you in a bit then. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
I end the call and walk down the block to my car. My new car, which I bought only a week ago. It’s a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and I love it. The four-wheel drive will come in handy in the snow, that’s for sure. Summer is just now coming to an end, and while I’m not looking forward to the cold, Midwest winter, I might be a little excited to try out just how well the Jeep handles.
Owen’s truck is in the garage when I get home, which surprises me. Maybe he and Logan drove together to work? They’ve done that in the past, though it doesn’t really make sense since we live on opposite ends of the town. The house is unlocked too, but when I step inside and go to turn on the lights, nothing happens.
“Owen?” I call, reaching into my purse for my phone to use for light. He doesn’t answer, but something shuffles inside the house, and flickering light pours from the screened-in porch. “Owen?”
Breath hitching, I slowly walk through the house and peek into the screened-in porch. Owen is in there, looking out at the fountain. Several candles are lit, and there’s a little table set up with dinner.
“What is this?” I ask, a smile coming to my face.
“Surprise.” He strides over and pulls me into his arms.
“Owen! This is so sweet! Is that—”
“The fancy pasta you like? Yes, it is.”
I lean up and kiss him. “I love you.”
He gives me a wink. “I know. We should eat before the food gets cold.” He breaks away only to come right back. “Fuck it.”
“Fuck what?”
“I was going to wait until after dinner, but I want to ask you now.”
“Ask me?”
He drops down to one knee and pulls out a ring. “I love you, Charlie. I’ve always loved you and I always will love you. Will you marry me?”
I bring my hands to my face, tears filling my eyes. “Yes!”
He takes the ring from the box and slips it on my finger. It’s a perfect fit. It’s dark in here, so I move closer to a candle to look at the ring. It’s gorgeous.
“This whole thing was a set-up!” I whirl back around. “You saying you’re working late and that bullshit meeting at work.”
“Yeah.” Owen smiles and takes me into his arms again.
“My dad was in on this!”
“He was. And he’s probably waiting for you to call him so he can act like he had no idea.”
“Oh, Owen!” More tears fill my eyes, and I hold onto Owen as tight as I can. This time, I know there is no letting go.EpilogueOwenThe next year…“What about this one?” I point to a pink-and-purple sheet set. Charlie looks at it and then shakes her head.
“It’s too girly.”
“We’re buying it for a girl.”
“I know,” she agrees. “But I don’t want to set her up with gender stereotypes from infancy.”
“Babies don’t even see in color when they’re born.”
“Aww, you did read the books.”
“Cover to cover.” I motion to another sheet set that’s white with colorful birds on it. “This one?”
“Ohhh, that is cute!”
“It’s not too girly?” I give her a smirk and she playfully nudges my arm. “These birds look pretty girly.”
“I like them.”
“That’s the whole point of this,” I whisper-talk. “We get to pick out what we like.”
Charlie rests her hand over her stomach. She’s just now starting to show, and we found out we’re having a girl only this morning, continuing with what Quinn insists is karma for being raised in a house full of older brothers. Though she’s expecting her third and they’re not finding out what they’re having. My money is on a boy.
And who knows, maybe our next one will be a boy as well.
Things can change, but right now our plan is to start trying again when our sweet little girl is around nine months old. As Charlie puts it, we’re not getting any younger, and we want nothing more than to keep growing our family.
She found out she was pregnant two weeks before our wedding, and it was really hard hiding it from everyone. I caved and ended up telling Logan, but I held out longer than Charlie, who told her own sister the same day she found out she was expecting.
We shared the news the day after the wedding, making it obvious she got pregnant before we were actually married. That wasn’t why we kept things a secret, though. Planning the wedding was stressful enough. We didn’t want to add anything else to the mix.
“You’re probably going to nix this one right away.” I grab a pale yellow blanket with tiny flowers stitched along the hem. “But I like this.”
Charlie smiles as she takes it from me, running her fingers over the flowers. “I like it. And yellow is neutral enough.”