him outside, already daydreaming about all the potted plants I could fit up here.
“It overlooks the same view as the rooftop deck,” he says. “We’ll always have the same view we had from the night we met.”
It took a while to sink in, but it all hits me in this moment and I just start crying. Ryle pulls me to his chest and wraps his arms tightly around me. “Lily,” he whispers, running his hand over my hair. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
I laugh between my tears. “I just can’t believe I live here.” I pull away from his chest and look up at him. “Are we rich? How can you afford this?”
He laughs. “You married a neurosurgeon, Lily. You aren’t necessarily strapped for cash.”
His comment makes me laugh and then I cry some more. And then we have our very first visitor because someone begins pounding on the door.
“Allysa,” he says. “She’s been waiting down the hall.”
I run to the front door and swing it open and we both hug and squeal and I might even cry a little more.
We spend the rest of the evening at our new apartment. Ryle orders Chinese takeout and Marshall comes down to eat with us. We have no tables or chairs yet, so the four of us sit in the middle of the living room floor and eat straight out of the containers. We talk about how we’ll decorate, we talk about all the neighborly things we’ll do together, we talk about Allysa’s impending delivery.
It’s everything and more.
I can’t wait to tell my mother.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Allysa is three days overdue.
We’ve lived in our new apartment for a week now. We successfully got all of our stuff moved the day Ryle was off, and Allysa and I went furniture shopping the second day we moved in. We were practically settled by the third day. We got our first piece of mail yesterday. It was a utility bill for establishing service, so it finally feels official now.
I’m married. I have a great husband. An awesome house. My best friend just happens to be my sister-in-law and I’m about to be an aunt.
Dare I say it . . . but can my life get any better?
I close my laptop and get ready to leave for the evening. I’ve been leaving earlier now than I usually do because I’m so excited to get home to my new apartment. Just as I begin to close my office door, Ryle uses his key to open the front door to the store. He lets the door fall shut behind him as he walks in with his hands full.
There’s a newspaper tucked under his arm and two coffees in his hands. Despite the frenzied look about him and the urgency in his step, he’s smiling. “Lily,” he says, walking toward me. He shoves one of the coffees in my hand and then pulls the newspaper out from under his arm. “Three things. One . . . did you see the paper?” He hands it to me. The paper is folded inside-out. He points at the article. “You got it, Lily. You got it!”
I try not to get my hopes up as I look down at the article. He could be talking about something totally different from what I’m thinking. Once I read the headline, I realize he’s talking about exactly what I was thinking. “I got it?”
I’d been notified that my business was nominated for an award for Best of Boston. It’s a people’s choice awards the newspaper holds annually, and Lily Bloom’s was nominated under the “Best new businesses in Boston” category. The criteria are for businesses that have been open less than two years. I had a suspicion I might have been chosen when a reporter for the paper called me last week and asked me a series of questions.
The title reads “Best new businesses in Boston. Votes are in for your top ten!”
I smile and almost spill my coffee when Ryle pulls me in, picks me up, and spins me around.
He said he had three pieces of news, and if he started with that one, I have no idea what the other two could be. “What’s the second thing?”
He sets me back down on my feet and says, “I started with the best one. I was too excited.” He takes a sip of his coffee and then says, “I got selected for the training at Cambridge.”