Page 90 of So This Isn't Love
The entire place is full.
"Busy night," Finn says, with a face so innocent it should be in a museum.
I get one more step inside and stop.
The pub is packed wall to wall, warm and golden and full of every person I have ever loved. My mom is by the bar in her good blue dress, the one that only comes out for weddings and library budget approvals. Jane Bardot is beside her, already dabbing her eyes, which makes no sense. Colton, out of the vineyard and looking handsome in a collared shirt.
Evan waits on a stool with his cast propped up like a trophy. Jules and Cathy are here too, Cathy straight from the clinic with her hair still in its work knot, both of them grinning at me. Old Mr. Henderson from the pharmacy. And Ernie Howard. Dave from the hardware store. Mrs. Johnson from the flower shop, holding, for some reason, a big bouquet of red roses.
And Annie, front and center, eyes brimming with tears as she watches me trying to understand what all my senses are trying to tell me.
There are no trivia sheets on the tables. My first thought—God help me—is that they've changed the format and my flash cards are obsolete.
My second thought doesn't finish, because I'm turning a slow circle just inside the doorway and the facts refuse to organize. "Is it someone's birthday? It can't be. I know everyone's birthday in town. Did I forget one?"
Nobody answers me. Everybody is smiling. My heart has started pounding out a suspicion my head refuses to read, so my head keeps guessing instead, badly. Retirement party. Surprise anniversary. The library made the state paper again.
For one wild second I even wonder if I've won some kind of teacher award I don't know about. Somebody nominated me for something and my mother threw a party. That's as big as I letmyself guess, standing in the doorway armed to the teeth for a trivia war that has clearly been canceled.
Annie has her phone up and pointed at me, and Annie never films anything she isn't planning to keep forever.
This town cannot hold a secret. I say that with love and thirty years of evidence. News here travels faster than weather, and I have watched every person in this room pass along somebody's private business at least once, usually with a casserole attached.
I don't understand yet what I've walked into. I only know the size of it has started to press against my ribs from the inside.
Then the room goes quiet all at once, on a signal I never catch. I turn to ask Finn what's going on, but Finn is not beside me anymore.
He's in front of me, in a space the whole town has quietly opened up for him, and the trivia host is handing him the microphone.
Once, a room full of this town looking at me was the worst thing I could imagine. It's the old story, the one where the crowd laughs. Now, I stand here with my heart pounding and watch the man who knows me better than anyone gather every eye in the pub on purpose. And then, I understand—one beat before it happens—that he built himself an audience for this. He wanted witnesses.
"Ladies and gentlemen." His voice fills the room the way it fills every room, deep and easy, and the pub eats it up. "Before tonight's trivia, I have one question that isn't on the sheet."
"Is it geography?" Evan calls from his stool. "It's the only category he knows!"
The room laughs, and Finn grins, letting the joke run, the showman collecting his crowd. Then he looks only at me and says, "Category is local history. And it's worth everything I've got."
The showman is gone now. The whole performance is gone, and what's left is just Finn, crossing the floor to me with his eyes full and his jaw set, and the room so quiet I can hear the neon sign over the bar.
He takes my hand in his. "Three weeks ago, somebody bought me at an auction," he says into the microphone, quiet, just to me, and the whole pub leans in anyway. "Three thousand dollars, and I have it on good authority the motive was payback."
A ripple of laughter moves through the room, as warm as the lamplight. His thumb moves over my knuckles and his voice stays low. "Best payback anybody ever got on me. I've been thanking every bit of dumb luck I have since that day."
He breathes. The room holds still.
"I'm in love with you, Darcy. With all of it. The way you uncap that red pen like you're drawing a sword. The way you call me on my bullshit, yet still manage to make me feel like I'm ten feet tall whenever I'm with you. I love spending time with you, no matter what we're doing. I love the way a room full of teenagers goes quiet when you read out loud, because you make words sound like they're worth the trouble—and I would know. I love how kind and caring you are, how real you are. You said it yourself ten minutes ago. You know everyone's birthdays. Everyone's. This whole town is yours, and you're the only person in it who doesn't see that." His voice drops lower. "I see it. I've been seeing you my whole life, even when I didn't have the guts to look straight at you and say so. You're it for me, Darcy. You're everything."
Then he goes down on one knee, and the room makes one soft sound—all of it together—and somewhere my mother's hand finds Jane's, and I swear I can't feel the floor beneath me. I can't feel anything except the heavy beat of my heart as I look into Finn's sincere gaze and the weight of what he's about to do settles over me.
The box in his hand is small—gold detailing on dark, rich red leather. The ring inside it is breathtaking. One glittering diamond, big enough to be absolutely ridiculous, mounted on an elegantly simple band. Exquisite and quiet. If I had a hundred rings to choose from, this would be the one. Because Finn knows me. Of course he knows me.
"I asked everybody you love to be in this room tonight," he says, "because I know what this town's attention used to cost you, and I wanted every single one of these people here to see what I see when I look at you."
He sets the microphone down on the floor beside him. Carefully, reverently, he takes the ring out of its velvet nest in the box and holds it up to me. The tears arrive and I let them fall in front of everybody. I don't care that they're all watching. That exhibitionist new side of me is staring right back. But all my focus is on the incredible man before me.
God, the intensity of his face as he holds my eyes. The diamond sparkling in lamplight of the pub. A hundred people holding their breath for me.
Finn swallows hard. "I've spent my whole life jumping out of things." His voice falters for a second but he doesn't stop. I have watched him command every room he's ever walked into since the time he was a boy, and now he's kneeling on a pub floor coming apart over me. "I'm ready to jump now too. With you, if you'll have me. Only with you. Let me be your safe landing, the way you're mine. Marry me, Darcy."
