Page 66 of Chasing After You
The confusion softens in his eyes. “Why are you sharing it with me now?”
“Because I learned a long while ago that the real anchor was you. That I didn’t disappear in my feelings for you, I grew in them. Became more myself in loving you than I was before I even knew how to love like I love you. That the pieces I thought were slipping away, were really just expanding, finding new ways to be in the world.” I scoot my way up his chest until I’m lying on top of him, face to face. “Matti, when I’m with you, all of my ugliest feelings stop being scary. I know my way in the shadows, and I know where to find the light.”
“What exactly are you saying?”
“I’m saying I was angry. And wounded. And yeah, hating you was so much easier than feeling the pain of losing you. Because losing you hurt so deeply, it suddenly felt a lot like falling inlove with you did back then. Like it was too much, too out of my control, too easy to get lost in. And for the first time in our lives together, giving you my heart hurt.”
He reaches up and gently moves the wayward strands of hair from my face, tenderly tucking them behind my ear. “I hate that I let you down.”
“I hate that I let you down.” I lean in, closing my eyes and letting the tip of my nose touch his. “But I don’t hate you, Matti,” I whisper. “I don’t.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod. My mouth stretches into a smile that lights my heart. I lift my lids again to find him staring back at me, hope blooming in the golden brown of his eyes. “Marry me.”
“Yes.”
No hesitation. From either of us.
We’re back.
I press my lips to his in a surge of bliss I can’t begin to hold in. Nor do I want to.
“Marry me now,” I murmur breathlessly against his mouth as his kisses grow stronger, wilder.
“Right now?” His lips keep moving over mine, moving to my cheek and my neck before finding their way back to my mouth. “Here?”
“Here.” I kiss him one more time before I force myself to pull back. “Now.”
He looks up at me, half dazed half deliriously happy. I know the feeling. “Okay.” He starts to push himself up until we’re both sitting, both covered in sand and entirely unbothered by it. “Let me call some people. I’m sure we can get someone out here to marry us. Your family’s already here. I know Knox and the crew will come running the second I tell them.”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t want to wait. We already did all of that, we don’t need to do it all again. All we need is you and me, under that moon, making promises.”
His eyes turn upward, and in the light of that night sky they sparkle with every bit of magic I know that man is made of. “I’m in.”
It’s the last we say out loud for a long while.
More kissing follows before we gradually make our way to our feet. Holding hands, we face each other, both drenched in moonlight, our skin glittery with sand. So much is said between us we never speak out loud.
Then, when the words come, I know even before we’re finished saying them, they’re the vows we’ve always been true to but never knew to say. Until now.
“Nessa,” he starts, swallowing hard before he goes on, “Do you promise to keep making me laugh, more than any one person has ever made me laugh? To challenge my mind, bending and breaking it open when I get stuck in my own thoughts and perspectives? Do you swear to keep surprising me? To keep growing and changing and letting me see you and know you over and over? To always keep the doors to your soul open for me to explore and the light of your smile lit for me to find my way home. And do you vow to be honest with your heart when you entrust it in my care? To be equally true to your vulnerability as well as your guard, allowing me to love you in all the ways you need me to, in all the ways I need to love you,” he ends on a long, ragged breath, brimming with emotion.
“I do.” Tears begin to spill from my eyes. Happy tears. The best kind of tears. “And Matti, do you promise to keep showing me my strengths, to keep seeing me so clearly, so confidently, I never doubt my ability to conquer the world? To love me so unconditionally, I am free to be and think and feel and wonder to the ends of possibility? Do you swear to always make mebelieve? In love. In magic. In fate. To be the keeper of flames, fueling the passion within us for each other as well as the world around us? To be the maker of mischief, forever holding space for fun and adventure. And the protector of hope, so we never fear getting lost because we are safe from giving up. And do you vow to stay wild in your chase for the moon, your dreams, the best for this family...and me?”
Our eyes stayed locked on each other as he lowers his forehead to gently rest on mine, bringing us closer. “I do.”
“Then let’s leap one more time.”
It’s as good as ‘you may now kiss the bride’. Maybe better. Because we kiss each other. Neither of us waiting for the other, we move as one, meeting in the middle where we’ve always been our best.
Together.
His lips still softly caressing mine as he slowly begins to sway us to the rhythm of the waves.
“Loving you’s the stars and the moon and the sun,”he sings softly.
“Darlin’ you’re the one,”I sing back.
