Come As You Are

Then at night, it’s my job to bring her satisfaction, and that’s exactly what I love doing too.

Another Epilogue

Flynn

A little later

It is a Sunday.

We have brunch with my sister, her husband, and my little niece. Dylan and Evie join us too, and Evie regales us with how much French toast she can eat at eight and a half months pregnant.

When we’re done, we say our goodbyes and fan out across town, heading homeward. The sun shines brightly on this March day, so I suggest we walk through the park.

“Besides, we can let the lampposts guide us,” I say, and Sabrina furrows her brow in a silent question.

“Did you know most of the lampposts have numbers on them to help you find where you’re going?”

“I had no idea. But obviously, we need to verify this.”

“Clearly. Since the park is one of our favorites places.”

In the last several months, we’ve uncovered even more favorite places within it—the conservatory gardens, the literary walk with its statues of writers, and the Delacorte Musical Clock that sings a tune every thirty minutes.

We search for the lampposts, pointing out numbers to each other for the first few blocks as we head south.

She reaches for my hand. “Do you ever feel like we’ll run out of things to do?”

I laugh and shake my head. “Nope. There’s always something new to uncover.”

She smiles and rests her head briefly against my shoulder before looking at me as we walk toward the Ramble. “I suppose that’s true. We’ll always have to keep looking for things we haven’t seen.”

I press a kiss to her forehead, keying in on something she said. “Interesting word you just used.”

“What word?” she asks curiously. “Seen? Done?”

I shake my head. “A certain adverb, my grammar nerd.”

She scrunches her brow. “Always?”

“Yes. Always,” I say, looking ahead toward a bend in the path in the Ramble. I checked it out yesterday, and everything is the way I want it.

“Always is a nice word,” she adds, giving me a look that says she knows I’m up to something.

I am definitely up to something.

When we pass the curve on the path, a freshly washed green bench with a polished and gleaming plaque greets us.

“But as I was saying, your worries about us finding something new are unfounded. That’s something new to uncover, for instance.” I point to the bench.

She peers at the plaque and anticipation winds tight in my body. Hope fills my cells. When she gasps, that’s my cue.

I bend to one knee and flip open a jewelry box. “What does it say?” I ask, though I already know.

Once upon a time, a duke met an angel and fell madly in love. He fell in love so deeply, so truly, he asked her to marry him. Marry me, Sabrina, and be mine always.

She spins around, tears sliding down her face over a smile more radiant than any I’ve ever seen. “Yes. I say yes.”

I slide the ring on her finger, and the princess-cut diamond shines brighter than the sun. It better. It’s huge.

Well, I wasn’t going to buy her a tiny ring.

She deserves the best.

“It’s perfect, because you’re the perfect guy,” she says, and kisses me as deeply and as passionately as she did that first night.

When she breaks the kiss, she takes my hand and guides me to the bench. “Let’s go enjoy our bench.”

We sit, and we kiss more, and we talk more, and she stares at her ring, and I tell her that it was either the bench or a knock-knock joke for the proposal, but the bench won out.

“I still want to hear the knock-knock joke.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Marry.”

“Marry who?”

“Marry me.”

Sabrina

I laugh and wrap an arm around him. “My answer is still yes.”

“Good because we have lots of favorite places to find. Always is a long, long time.”

“I like always with you.”

“You should. Want to know why?” my fiancé asks as a bird chirps overhead. He squeezes my finger and admires my ring.

I admire it too. When I look at it, I see hope, and a future, and love. This certainty was worth every risk. “Why?”

“Because always means we live happily ever after.”

THE END