Page 69 of Say You Will

“I thought you might have better ones on your bed.”

I’m supposed to say something clever and act like this is no big deal. Gabriel would already have her clothes off.It doesn’t matter what Gabriel would do.

When I don’t say anything in response, she lifts her shoulder. “I’m cold?”

She says it with the lift at the end, as if it’s a question. I’m making her nervous.

She’s made herself vulnerable to me, and I’m hovering here, speechless, like the twenty-seven-year-old virgin I am.

I draw away far enough to pull her blankets back and slide under them with her. “Then I better warm you up.”

I prop my head on one hand, elbow bent, and wrap my arm around her waist over the blankets.

Franki moves closer. “I’m cozier already.”

She traces the divot in my chin far more firmly than the first time she touched me. “You told my father we were getting married. When he finds out we lied because he annoyed you, he’s going to come down on me like a ton of bricks for humiliating him.”

“I didn’t lie. I am going to marry you.”

She eases back, her expression hardening and her voice barely audible when she asks, “Why do you want to marry me?”

MPD may be why I have to get married, but Franki is why Iwantto get married. “Because you’re my person.”

“How do you know that so soon?”

“Franki,” I scold gently. “I’ve always known. Our timing wasn’t right back then. You were too young. Or I wasn’t young enough, but you were always my favorite person.”

I give a self-deprecating huff. “And then I was overwhelmed and acted like an ass. But tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you don’t know, all the way down to your soul, that you and I were always meant to be.”

She catches her breath. “I’m your favorite person?”

“Without a doubt.”

“This is fast.”

“It feels the opposite of fast to me. You asked me to wait for you. That’s what I’ve been doing for a very long time.”

“When I said that, I wasn’t sure you understood the subtext, and I couldn’t bear to clarify it and have you tell me I was wrong. The longer I was away from you, the more I convinced myself you couldn’t possibly have wanted me.”

“I tend to have very black and white thinking. The idea of a relationship with you when you were only eighteen fucked with my head. It wouldn’t have worked for either of us, but don’t ever doubt that I wanted you.”

Her eyes shine with an emotion I recognize. I feel it too. It’s one of the new ones inside me emerging from what I thought were the long-cold ashes of my soul: hope.

“We need time together to get used to this. To make sure it’s real and is going to work,” she whispers.

“I already know it’s going to work.”

She laughs, her hand on my face. “Henry!”

“Marry me, Franki.”

She sobers. “No.”

“What will it take for you to say you will?”

“Time. Trust.”

I narrow my eyes and think. I have to get creative. “I’ll buy you a house in the country and hire a farmer to grow you all the pumpkins you could ever want.”

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