Page 136 of After All The Wreckage

I couldn’t help the slow tear that drifted from the corner of my eyes as Veronica drove away and the credits rolled. Gage tookmy champagne glass from my hand and put it and the tray to the side. He pulled me onto his bare chest, reaching out to wipe at my tears.

“I keep telling you, Pipsqueak, he’s not dead.”

I huffed out a half laugh, half sniffle. “Even if that’s true,shestill thinks he is.”

Gage brushed a finger slowly over my lower lip, and my body forgot Veronica and Logan and the episode. Instead, I was right in the moment. Right with Gage and our time together. Our present that would always be more important than anything else in our lives.

“Logan is wrong, you know,” Gage said.

“Yeah, about what?”

“He says he wants to marry Veronica because he respects her, and he wants to have children with her that will inherit her qualities. Because she’s the toughest human he’s ever met, picking herself up after blows that would destroy most people.”

My eyes narrowed at Gage as I dragged out my single-word response. “Yeeesss.”

“That’s a way to admire and respect someone. But it isn’t a reason to marry them.” He waited for another beat before continuing. “You marry them because, as cliché as it might be, you love them so much you can’t imagine a world that doesn’t have them in it. You marry them because they’re the piece of your soul that was always missing until you miraculously collided together. You marry them because there is no other choice. Because the loss of each other would be a blow neither of you could ever recover from.”

Those sweet words didn’t help my tears. Instead, they were suddenly coming faster. It was exactly how I felt. As if there was no way I could ever survive the loss of him. And yet I knew it wasn’t true.

Gage and I had survived wreckage after wreckage in our lives, and if one of us lost the other, we’d be Veronica, holding ourselves together once again. But God, did I hope that never was the case. I hoped we’d live until we were both too old to move and then died together in our sleep.

Gage reached under his pillow and brought out a dark blue velvet box.

“Will you marry me, Rory Marlowe Bishop? I couldn’t survive this world without you, and I think you feel the same.”

He opened the box to reveal a ring shining with stones that glimmered in the candlelight. The middle stone was an emerald, a beautiful shade of green, surrounded by a band of chocolate diamonds. None of it was large or ostentatious. It was quiet and understated. A simple statement. I looked up from the ring to his gray eyes, and I thought, I’ve fallen for Gage all over again. For the millionth time, and I’ll still be falling for him every day for the rest of our lives.

His throat bobbed because I hadn’t answered him. I was still trying to find my voice.

“Or… maybe you don’t like the idea?” he asked a bit breathlessly.

“It isn’t entirely despicable,” I said. His face broke into a huge smile. He snapped the box shut and tossed it aside before tackling me to the bed, the heavy weight of his body trapping me.

“Say yes,” he said, trailing kisses along my jaw and down my neck, moving the robe and continuing downward until his tongue circled my tip.

I gasped. “Yes.”

He looked up, a huge grin taking over his face. “Yes, what?”

I ran my fingers through his hair. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

He eased up, lips finding mine again. Kissing me slow and steady as another new feeling bloomed inside me. Something I couldn’t name but that felt like forever. That felt like not just ourpresent but our future and our pasts all merging into one huge timeless entity that would forever be us.

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