Page 113 of Suddenly Dating
“Fine,” Casey said, slinking out. “I’m just trying to help.”
Lola turned back to Harry. “So here is my truth, Harry. I have fallen in love with you,” she said. “Yes, it’s true! I want to be with you every day. I would do anything for you, absolutely anything. I’ve been completely despondent without you. Iloveyou... but you have to love me, too,” she said, pointing at him. “If this is just an experiment for you, or you aren’t entirely certain, or if you were meeting Melissa for a reason, then you need to go build your bridges and leave me alone. Do you get it? Do you understand? No more friends with benefits. I’min.I’m in one hundred percent, in over my head, and you know what I want? I want you.”
Harry nodded. He ran a hand over his hair. “I went to see Melissa to tell her to stop hoping, that it was never going to happen. That I love someone else.”
That warm honey feeling was Lola’s heart melting. “You did?”
Harry slowly sank to his knees.
“What are you doing?” Lola asked, confused.
“I have been waiting for you to say it, Lola. I have been waiting for you to admit you love me. Because I love you, too, more than I thought was possible to love someone. I want you, too, all or nothing... but I knew I couldn’t have that if you couldn’t even tell me how you felt. I had to hear you say it before I could even think of proposing to you.”
“Before youwhat?” Casey shouted from the bedroom.
“Lola Dunne, will you marry me?” he asked.
The floor seemed to shift under Lola’s feet. “Are youcrazy?”
“Crazy for you, you little lunatic. I realize this is all spur of the moment, seeing as how I was pretty sure I would never see you again. I don’t have a ring, and honestly, I can’t afford one right now. But I’ve always gone after what I’ve wanted, Lola. I’ve always been very sure of myself. When everyone around me told me I was wrong, I knew what I was doing was right. And then I met you, and suddenly, everything was upside down and I’d never been so uncertain in my life...until I realized that I wasn’t confused. Actually, I’ve never had so much clarity in my life. I never knew what I truly wanted until you rose up out of that pool, Lola, and I wantyou. Iloveyou. And I want to marry you.”
“He’s crazy!” Casey shouted. “But ohmigod, if you don’t say yes, I’ll hurt you,” she added, suddenly appearing next to Lola.
Lola’s heart was racing. This couldn’t be happening; it was too good, too perfect. But the thing she was feeling in her chest was sheer joy. Harry was right in something he’d once said—she never would have known how utterly joyful and beautiful this moment could be had she not been so terribly disappointed before.
Harry winced. “God, don’t say no,” he said. “I’ve never actually proposed to anyone in my life. It’s you or nothing, Lola Dunne.”
“What are you doing?” Casey cried, and chucked Lola in the back.
Lola stumbled, catching herself on his shoulders. She smiled. She sank down on her knees in front of him. “Yes, Harry Westbrook.Yes,I will marry you.I love you, Handsome Harry! I love you, I love you.” She threw her arms around his neck. “But maybe we save getting married until we’ve had a chance to know each other a little longer?”
“Not making any promises,” he said, and kissed her neck, toppling over with her onto the rug and landing on a pair of Casey’s shoes.
“Not my Stuart Weitzmans!” Casey cried, and tried to pull them out from underneath Harry, which caused her to trip and end up next to them on the floor. “This is ridiculous,” she said.
Lola laughed. She laughed with the gaiety of a little girl who never had much opportunity to laugh. Until now.
Epilogue
Lola’s book,Apartment 3C,was a modest success. The reviews said the writing was “engaging” and that she was a “debut author to watch”... but the sales were not exactly what the publisher had hoped. Still, all was not lost—her publisher wanted a second book. “Maybe something a little more upbeat,” her editor suggested.
“Don’t listen to her,” Cyrus warned Lola. “You write what you want to write. We’ll sell it. I believe in you, Lola.”
Lola was grateful for his confidence in her and had been working on an idea about three college girls who kill a professor who slept with one of them. Cyrus sounded a little uncertain when she told him, but said, “Write it. We’ll go from there.”
Harry won the bid for only one of the three bridges in the toll road project, but it was enough to get him a leg up. He won two other contracts after that, both of them small jobs, but big enough that they were helping him build the resume he needed.
After the dustup with Zach and Sara died down, the lake house was sold to a Wall Street banker. Zach and Harry were friends again. Sara moved to Los Angeles.
Harry and Lola’s income was modest, so they rented a two-bedroom cottage from the East Beach Lake Cottages. Their front porch overlooked the lake, and even though times were lean, they were really quite happy.
Lola wrote in the mornings, then worked part-time in Mallory’s candy shop in the afternoons. She loved cooking for Harry who, unlike Will, appreciated her skills. He boasted that he’d gained ten pounds in the year they’d been together, although Lola couldn’t see where he’d put it.
They spent Sundays with his parents, and once a month they made the trip out to Long Island to see her mother. Neither of them could take more than that. Her mother’s health continued to deteriorate, but her acid tongue remained very much intact. “I don’t know why you want to get married,” she’d said to Lola. “You’ll probably end up divorced again.”
“No, she won’t,” Harry said. “And you should be more supportive.”
“Don’t tell me what I ought to be, mister,” her mother said, coughing violently with her anger. But Lola thought her mother really liked Harry.
