Page 128 of Don't Say You're Sorry

We’ll see.

We get to the London Eye with a couple minutes to spare and skip the line. I booked us a private pod, so after presenting our ticket at the booth, we get right on.

As we slowly start to ascend, Adam and I move over to the windows overlooking the city. It’s even more beautiful than I thought it would be.

When we’re almost to the top, I slide my fingers through his and say the same thing I say to him every day. “Tell me something you like about yourself.”

“My art,” he says without thinking about it. He’s getting better at this, and I couldn’t be prouder. “I like that I can see something in my head and transfer it to the page with a few strokes of a pen. I like that I get to share those glimpses of my mind with you.” He stares at a point in the distance, and I wonder if he can see his old apartment building from up here. “When I lived here, my art is what kept me going. I missed you so much. It was as if a vital piece of me was missing. I didn’t really have any friends I could talk to—not about the important stuff. All I had were Axel and art, and when talking to Axel wasn’t enough, I used art to deal with the pain of losing you. That’s when I started mailing you the drawings,” he confesses. “I thought you might be able to use them to get through it as well.”

Pulling him in front of me, I wrap my arms around him from behind and rest my chin on his shoulder.

It’s a cold day, but the sun is bright in the midday sky, warming my face.

“Here,” he says, pulling something out of the inner pocket of his leather jacket.

Eager, I move to grab the envelope, frowning when he holds it away from me. “Before you get your hopes up, it’s not the one of you kissing me for the first time again. I skipped a few chapters.”

I pretend to look disappointed as I take the envelope from between his fingers. Keeping my arms around his shoulders, I carefully take the art print out. It’s face down, so the first thing I see are the words written on the back of it.

I swallow, my muscles coiling.

“I want those words to have a new meaning,” he says quietly, leaning back on my chest. “I want you to think of this moment every time you read them.”

I read them again, already feeling better about them.

“Turn it over,” he says, so I do.

In the drawing, he and I are on the London Eye. The view from the inside of the pod is exactly the same as the one in front of us. He drew this very moment as if he could see it in his mind, only he got one thing wrong. I’m standing exactly where I am now, holding his drawing in my hand, but he’s down on one knee in front of me, and there’s a gold ring between his thumb and forefinger.

I’m frozen to the spot as he turns in my arms and lowers himself to his knee.

He doesn’t look nervous at all, whereas my heart feels like it’s about to explode out of my chest, right into his waiting hands.

“Easton,” he says, amused. “Breathe.”

I pull in a lungful of air and almost choke on it.

I don’t take my eyes off his hand as he pulls a gold ring out of his pocket, holding it up to me.

For the second time in just a few weeks, he says five words I never thought I’d hear coming out of his mouth.

“Will you marry me, sunshine?”

It takes everything in me to wait for him to finish before I rush out, “Yes.”

His grin makes my heart pump even faster as I drop to my knees with him. I wrap my arms around him and kiss him.

“You fucker,” I breathe against his mouth.

“Told you I’d surprise you someday,” he teases, pulling back to show me the engraving on the inside of the ring.

Sunshine.

“You got me,” I agree as he slides the ring on my finger. “But I already knew we’d be walking out of here engaged.”

He pulls his head back in outrage. “What? No, you didn’t. I wassocareful. I didn’t tell anyone because I thought you might be able to see it on their faces.”

I laugh at his annoyance and reach into the pocket of my jeans, pulling out the gold ring I bought for him right after we booked this trip.

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