And second, my mom didn’t make it a secret that she doesn’t like Simon for her one and only daughter. She grilled him about his intentions. At one point, she even went on about leaving me a virgin for my future, real, age-appropriate boyfriend.
That ship has sailed, Mom. So fucking sailed.
It was so painful to watch. Well, until Simon put his foot down and said, “With all due respect, Miss Taylor, your daughter is more than capable of making her own decisions. About her life and about her body. In fact, you’d be surprised at how capable she is. It’s one of the many things I love about her. Her capability. It’s also the one thing that scares me the most. Because I know she doesn’t need me. At least, not as much as I need her. I’ll always respect her decision. That being said, I won’t go down without a fight either. So unless you have more to say, let’s move on to dessert.”
Oh gosh.
This man is so swoony, isn’t he?
Now, I ask him again, “Did you mean what you said to my mom? That you’d fight for me?”
His stormy eyes rove over my face. “Always.”
My breathing escalates, and I take off my seat belt before hopping out of the car, into the pouring rain. The sidewalk is almost empty because it’s the middle of the night and the storm is something fierce.
Simon jumps out after me, all frowny and upset. “What the fuck, Willow? It’s cold. Either get back in the car or get inside your building.”
He is right. It is cold. I’m only wearing a thin pink sweater and my jacket is in the car. But I don’t care. I have to ask him something.
I crane my neck and look at his drenched face. “Do you know why I love the rain?”
“Willow –"
“Because it reminds me of second chances. It makes me think that if this ugly world can be pure after a heavy shower, I can be pure too. I can get all the chances that I want.”
When he asked me for a chance, I wasn’t even reluctant. Every beat of my heart wanted to give him all the chances he wanted.
Maybe it’s stupid to trust someone this much but I do. I’ve always trusted him. I’ve always believed in him. It’s the way he carries himself, with such confidence. It’s the way he cares about people, with such passion.
It’s the way he looks at me, with such intensity and tenderness. He’s always looked at me that way, even when he was keeping parts of himself aloof. That’s what made me believe back then that he loved me too.
He puts his large hands on my arms, rubbing them, instantly warming me in my sweater. “Willow, what –”
“Will you marry me?”
There. I asked him.
I’ve been meaning to ask him this… well, ever since we left my mother’s house.
I know. I know that we just started dating, like, two months ago. We haven’t even jumped back into sex yet. And it was my decision to take it slow. Imagine that.
But every time he comes to my door to take me out, right on the clock, and every time he listens to me when I’ve had a bad day or reminds me about my pills like I could ever forget, or every time he talks to me about his bad day, it makes me think that we’re meant to do this forever.
Every time he opens up about his past a little more, telling me how his mom’s favorite color was red – I definitely know that woman in the photo is his mom, or that she was the one who taught him to climb trees – I now, know that the girl he mentioned in our first appointment, the one he was trying to impress with his tree-climbing abilities was his mom, he immerses me even more in his life.
I even got to see his house, the house he was fixing while working at Heartstone. He hired people to fix it for him and it’s on the market now. He found himself a nice apartment here, in the city, instead.
I put my hand on his chest and go up on my tiptoes to kiss his parted lips. “Will you? Marry me, I mean.”
It was supposed to be a small peck on his wildly breathing lips, but he winds his arms around my waist and crushes me to him. My breasts flatten against his hard chest and he thrusts his tongue inside.
Sighing, I let him mold me to his body and invade my mouth.
I’m his, anyway. He can do whatever he wants with me. Just as I start to kiss him back though, he pulls away.
“No,” he growls.
“What?”
“My answer,” he pants, staring into my eyes, “is no.”
Gasping, I sputter, “What… why… why not?”