Page 164 of Burn

Sometimes I want to go back to the day before the fire that killed Evan. I’d probably tell him all the things I should have when he was alive. Like that he was my hero. But I can’t. I won’t ever get the chance.

Death makes you appreciate time, once you get past the initial I hate life and everything happy stage. That stage sucks and I was in it for years ever before Evan died. Only I wasn’t grieving death. I was grieving experiences. Relationships I couldn’t make work. Now, and I don’t know when or how it happened, I appreciate what’s in front of me. I think it all relates back to rescuing Mila. She showed me an unforgettable experience and made me believe in love again.

For that reason, I’ll never let her go and I’m going to marry her.

Most would think, dude, you’re nowhere near proposal. It took you three months just to give the girl your phone number. But honestly, when have you ever known a guy like me to play by the rules?

My intention for taking Mila out on the water when we were in Alderbrook was to propose to her. But I didn’t. I don’t even know why. Maybe because I was scared I was rushing into it. For so long we had no definition because with definition came expectations I wasn’t sure I could fulfill. Now I don’t fucking care about expectations. I want to give her the definition she deserves. I want her to be my wife more than anything in the world. Looking at her now, holding Easton, I don’t know what I’m waiting for. We’re born, we experience, and then we die. I need to make the experience matter.

I DON’T HAVE a plan to propose. Hell, look how long it took me to tell her I loved her, but I make it a point to get her alone in our apartment that night. Like how I threw our apartment in there?

We moved in together last month and let Owen and Jacey keep the apartment. They weren’t together by any means but with the baby, Jacey needed extra room so I kindly moved across the hall with Mila. We’re neighbors with that little guy Logan now. You remember, the one who showed up at my apartment crying and I fed him? He comes over for Chinese food every once in a while and then his mom finds him and takes him back. I think he comes over because of me, but it might also be because he’s convinced Mila’s his girlfriend. Again, over my dead body.

When we’re back from the hospital, I decide it’s time. No more fucking around. I sneak out while she’s taking a bath, head down to her favorite cupcake store and pick up a red velvet cupcake and then stick the ring I bought before Alderbrook in the frosting.

She’s sitting on the edge of our bed, staring curiously at me holding a cupcake. “I got you something.”

Her eyes find mine. “When did you get that?”

“When you were in the bath.”

She takes it, her eyes lighting up. “Oh, well thank you.” Peeling the edges of the wrapper away carefully, she takes a bite and I think to myself, shit, she just ate the ring. Maybe putting it in the frosting wasn’t a good idea.

Mila notices something isn’t right the moment the ring is in her mouth, wide-eyes darting to mine.

I put my hands on her shoulders. “This is the only time you’ll ever hear these words leave my mouth, butdon’t swallow.”

With a snort, she opens her mouth, digs out the ring and then licks the white cream cheese frosting off it. Sadly, with the way she licks the ring, my thoughts drift to the ring being my dick, momentarily.

Holding the ring between her thumb and forefinger, she stares at it but doesn’t saying.

I wait but she doesn’t say anything, her eyes flickering from the ring, to me, then back to the diamond. “Well?”

“You’re not going to ask?”

I shrug, my hands in the pockets of my jeans. “I don’t know. Seems cliché to stick with traditions.”

She hands me the ring back and frowns. “Well I won’t say yes until you ask properly.”

“Christ . . .” Shaking my head, I chuckle under my breath and slide down to one knee before the most beautiful woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. “You’re demanding . . . but in the sense that I know you need to hear it, will you marry me, Milena Presley Wellington?” Emotion I didn’t expect wells up in her eyes and my throat, my voice breaking around her name.

At first, she doesn’t say anything, but then she nods and holds a finger to my lips. “Under one condition.”

I laugh. “And that is?”

“You let me have your babies.”

Hooking my hands around the backs of her knees, I bring her down on my lap. “Let’s start now.” With a smile, one that curves my lips against hers, I draw back after placing the ring on her finger and then lift her hand to my mouth, brushing my lips over her finger. Specifically, and tenderly, her ring finger now wearing my promise, a promise I’ve never given anyone else.

Mila and I were married on Christmas Eve, one year after we met. There’s a purpose to tragedy, loss, devastation . . . it emanates from the broken. With it comes beauty. Why?

It’s not even because in the face of it I learned how to put myself back together again.

It’s because I found my soul in the process.

Her.

If you take away the source of fuel, eventually the fire will go out.

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