One fine day in December, as she’s finishing up work in the attic, I pop upstairs, enjoying the sight of her in her work clothes. What can I say? January and her hammer have always done it for me.
I rap on the doorframe.
She must see me out of the corner of her eye, because she hits pause on her phone and removes an AirPod.
“Are you trying to finagle a quickie?”
“Is a quickie an option? Because sure.”
She laughs. “It’s usually an option.”
“I’ll take it, then, but mostly I wanted to know if you wanted to go for a drive when you’re done?”
“A drive?” she asks suspiciously.
“Yeah, that thing you do in cars and trucks?”
She rolls her eyes. “Sure. But don’t think I don’t know that you’re trying to take me to some lovers’ lane and park.”
I shrug sheepishly. “Maybe I am.”
Later, after she showers, we hop in the truck and go for a drive. Something we used to do when we were first dating.
Something we’ve kept up.
It’s fun sneaking off.
Especially in a small town full of rolling hills, wineries, and train tracks that occasionally glitter.
Seems fitting.
I point to a side road that runs along the tracks. “Let’s go there.”
“As you wish,” she says, and soon we pull over, get out, and walk along the tracks while the sun dips in the sky.
The days are shorter now, but this being California, the weather is still warm enough for a walk without jackets.
As we wander, we talk about our plans for the holidays, seeing friends and family, being together, and all that good stuff.
The plans are nothing out of the ordinary.
It’s just us, doing life, living it every second.
Which makes it all the more fitting that this moment is the one where I stop, tug her close, and drop to one knee. I waste no time. I cut to the chase. I ask the question we’ve both known was coming. “Will you marry me?”
She laughs, then she sinks down to the ground. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“Hey, it’s not like I waited that long,” I say, cupping her cheeks.
“Three months. Such an eternity.”
“You knew it was coming.”
“I did, but I’m still happy, Liam.”
“Me too.”
I reach into my pocket, take out a box, and show her the ring that Alva and Wednesday helped me pick out last month. The joking ceases when January sees it. The diamonds catch the light from the fading sun. They’re all laid out in a platinum band, ideal for a carpenter.
“Oh my God. It’s perfect for me,” she says, a smile lighting up her whole face as she gazes at the ring.
Pride suffuses me, along with love, certainty, and so much happiness. “I wanted it to be one you could wear while working. I want it to be one that makes you happy, that feels like yours.”
She swallows, twin tears slipping down her cheeks as she holds my face. “You feel like mine. And I love you.”
“And I love you, but let’s put that ring on.”
She lets go, waves a hand in front of her face like she needs to settle her tears, then exhales. I slide the ring onto her finger, and we admire the diamonds.
When she lifts her head, she whispers, “What are the chances you meet the right person at the right time in the right place?”
“If he moves next door to you, I’d say they’re pretty damn good.”
She grins, gazes at the ring once more, then says, “I’ll take those chances every day for the rest of my life.”
“Good, because I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
And we kiss as the sun sets over this small town that’s become my new home, where all the glasses are full.
Epilogue
Liam
* * *
By the next summer, The Hacker can sit on command, roll over, play dead, and go for walks, all thanks to Wednesday.
“I hacked all the dog training tips I could find and engineered them for cats,” she says one Saturday morning as we take the pets for a stroll.
“Steve can do all those things too, and she can sit up and beg, and shake, so I’m kind of winning,” I point out.
“That only makes me want to teach The Hacker to retrieve radishes and bring them to your bed,” she counters.
January laughs, giving me she got you eyes.
Ethan laughs. “Do it, please. That would slap so hard.”
“I’d pay good money to wake up with broccoli or radishes next to my fiancé,” January says, reaching for my hand.
“Not fiancé for much longer,” I add.
In fact, a few hours later, in the town square with my mum and dad, my sisters, their kids, January’s family, and all our friends looking on, including Oliver, Summer, and Aunt Jane from New York, plus Alva, Audrey, Missy, and Betty, the woman I moved next door to walks down the grass, joins me in the gazebo, and hands the bouquet of daisies to her daughter.
