Page 8 of David's Proposal

“Chloe wants to settle down?” she asks, a bit baffled.

Now that’s getting weird.

“No, no.”

I laugh.

“No one wants to settle down. I don’t know why I said that. How was dinner on Sunday night after we left?”

She nods slowly.

“Nice. It was nice. You know it’s always nice. No matter who they have over and whether you know those people or not, the atmosphere is always fantastic. It’s because of her. Rain.”

I stay silent.

A faint smile flickers through her eyes.

“I want to be like her when I grow up,” she jokes.

“You’re already like her,” I retort.

“Haha. I wish.”

We both smile and go quiet, her eyes trailing to the leftover pizza in front of her.

“I wanted to have one last meal as an unmarried woman,” she says softly before looking at me.

“You’re not having cold feet, are you?”

She shakes her head.

“Never. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. I love Ed. And he loves me. But life moves fast. I have James and Leia now. Next year, we’ll probably go to the Maiden’s Tower in Turkey to celebrate our anniversary. We promised ourselves we would do that when kids got older.”

She has a pensive look on her face and seems nostalgic, too nostalgic for how young she is.

Regardless, she makes me tear up.

“You’ll be fine,” I say, and moving closer, I hug her.

She doesn’t mind me, and when we break away from each other, we both have tears in our eyes.

“Please don’t make me cry,” I say, laughing and wiping away happy tears like her.

“That’s why I wanted us to have lunch before the ceremony. So we could cry now instead of then,” she says.

“Good thinking, cousin.”

I know why she said what she said.

I know the story of Ed and her. How they met in the middle of Bosphorus, at that place, and why their meeting had such a deep meaning.

“I hope I won’t get sappy at my wedding,” I say in a lighter tone, and we laugh. “If I’m ever going to get married.”

“You will. I’m sure of that.”

We laugh a little longer, removing more happy tears from our lashes.

“How is the book coming along?” she eventually asks, trying a different topic.

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