Page 138 of Scandal
“That would require me to lie, and my mom taught me lying is wrong.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I hear Zara sigh in the background, and then her voice gets louder as she moves closer. “He doesn’t think it’s a dumb idea. He actually thinks it’s incredibly romantic—” Hen starts to protest in the background, and it’s immediately cut off. “He’s just upset he didn’t think of it.”
I bark out a laugh. “Seriously?”
“You’re a traitor,” Hen tells her in a huff. “A dirty, rotten traitor.”
“Will you forgive me if I tell you our proposal was just as romantic?”
“It wasn’t in Scotland, though.”
“No, it was in our home,” she tells him. “Surrounded by those we love. And it was perfect.”
Hendrix proposed to Zara a few weeks after my father passed, and although he invited us, we just couldn’t make it work. There were still too many things to figure out at that point, and I was still struggling with a heavy amount of grief I hadn’t expected. That, on top of Ian’s trial coming up. It was just too much.
A pain tightens in my chest. “I’m sorry we missed it.”
“It’s okay,” Hen says. “You were dealing with other things. Besides, it gave us an excuse to fly over there for the holidays. And you can’t tell me Mercury isn’t excited about seeing all of us for Christmas.”
My smile spreads from ear to ear. “You have no idea. I’m so glad you were all able to pull this off.”
“It wasn’t easy,” Hen admits. “We’re not a small family anymore.”
“Were you ever?”
“Probably not. But we definitely have grown. With Taylor and all the spouses and significant others, we could start our own baseball team.”
“God, wouldn’t that be a hot mess?” Zara mutters.
“So true,” Hen agrees. “I’m terrible at sports.”
“All sports?”
“Pretty much. Unless you count fucking. Zara says I have a natural talent at—” His voice gets muffled, and both he and Zara start laughing.
I shake my head at their antics. “I’d better go. I don’t know when she’ll find those flowers, and I want to be ready when she shows up.”
“How much did those set you back, by the way? Daffodils in December? That can’t have been easy to find.”
“You don’t want to know,” I simply say. “But it was worth it.”
I hear a car door close, and suddenly my heart begins to race. “Shit, she’s here. I’ve got to go.”
“Good luck!” they both say.
“Thanks,” I reply, ending the call a second later, then tossing the phone onto the sofa next to me.
I initially thought about completely renovating this old cottage for this proposal. But then, I thought back to those early days.
The cold nights by the fire. The tips of her toes tucked under my thigh. Waking up with her curled into my side on that too-small bed, wishing I could stay there forever.
In the end, I decided the cottage is perfect just as it is.
A little broken but overflowing with love.
Just like us.
When the door opens and she steps inside, I feel like all the air is being sucked out of the room.
