my name this time.”
I toss my head and his laughter follows to the booth where we once sat, where I had once asked a million questions about movies and Hollywood and managed to fall in love with him in the process. I settle back into the booth and grab a menu from the table, and I look around for a waitress, maybe even the same one with yellowed teeth and a faintly annoyed expression, but I don’t see anyone.
“Chris. You’re such a slowpoke.” I look around, but he seems to have disappeared into thin air. “Chris! Where are you?”
He emerges from the back room, carrying an enormous bouquet of roses that obscures his face.
“You are so insane. You can’t let me get used to this kind of thing. I think you might even spoil me more than you spoil Grace.”
“My intention is exactly that—to get you used to this kind of thing.”
He hands the flowers to me and gives me a long, sweet smile. “I love you, Hals.”
“I love you, too, Chris. I have to give it to you—the flowers are completely, absolutely beautiful and I will be a girl about that. I love flowers.”
“I know you do.”
He takes a deep breath and I can see that he’s trembling slightly.
“Are you cold?”
“No.”
He looks up, his eyes shrouded in a haze of uncertainty.
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes.”
“Oh, God, not that again.” I shake my head in exasperation. “I thought we promised to stop apologizing to each other. What was that you said? There’s no changing the past, but there’s plenty of changing to do for the future. If I hear the words ‘I’m sorry’ come out of your mouth one more time, and you’re not apologizing for buying my daughter a puppy, which you should definitely apologize for, by the way, I will…”
“Stop talking, Hals.”
There’s something in his face that makes me listen.
“I want to wake up every morning next to you. I want to read stories to Grace and kiss her goodnight. I even want to go to Disneyland, because you wanted to and we never got the chance. We never got the chance to do a lot of things, but we have another chance to do all of that now. We’re lucky enough to have the chance to do all of that now. Neither of us is perfect, but we’re perfect together and I want to spend the rest of my life basking in that perfection.”
Suddenly, he’s on one knee, holding out a small box and smiling up at me.
“Marry me, Hallie. Marry me and let me love you forever.”
The pressure in my chest spills over and I look into his beautiful face, filled with hope and a tiny bit of fear and I feel myself start to smile.
Fat, happy tears are sliding down my face. I look up at him and, unable to find the right words or any words, I nod. He crushes me to his chest, touching my face and hair and lips and holding me for long minutes that stretch into forever.
He holds out a long silvery chain and offers it to me. “I thought you could wear Ben’s ring on this.”
The fact that he considered even that small thing fills me with indescribable joy. I glance down at it, the simple diamond that Ben and I had bought together, and gently pull it off my finger and slide it onto the chain. I try to put it on, but my fingers are trembling too much to close the clasp, so Chris takes it from me and fumbles for a minute before sliding it around my neck. The weight is cool against my skin, and comforting.
“I’ll give it to Grace when she’s older,” I say, still touching it. Suddenly, I cover my mouth with my hands. “Grace! I can’t say yes without…”
He gives me a quick grin. “Already asked her. In fact, she picked out the ring. I would have gone for simple but elegant. A miniscule diamond, because what was it you said? ‘I’m just a simple girl.’ I thought, well okay. I’ll buy Hallie a small diamond, the most miniscule one that I can find, because she’s a simple girl.”
“Liar.”
“I am not! I fully intended on simple.” He stares at me with wide, innocent eyes. “However, your daughter had other ideas.”
He opens the box to reveal an enormous diamond ring, which I gape at wordlessly. He slides it onto my finger and I stare down at it before opening my mouth to