Page 78 of The Off-Limits Rule: Extended Edition

“But you can remember the name Jerry?”

“Mm-hmm. Why are you laughing like that? Seriously…do you really need to double over so dramatically? Oh, you’re going to slap your thigh now. Okay, yeah, laugh it up, Mister Chuckles.Lucy doesn’t know the names of tools because she’s not Mrs. Fixit!Hardie-har-har.”

Cooper finally controls his laughter enough to come over and help me up off the ground. His arms go around me, and he hugs me tightly to him. “Lucy, you’re the craziest person I’ve ever met.”

“Rude.”

“I love you.” He cups my jaw, and his lips crash into mine. Just like that, he caved on his own no-kissing rule. I knew this would happen, which is why I didn’t take the furniture assembling too seriously. Cooper always tries to withhold physical affection from me when he wants me to do something, and it never works. It does the opposite. It makes him twice as passionate when he gives in, but I’m impressed, because an hour is definitely the longest he’s madeit.

“Would you say yes if I asked you to marry me?” he says in a gruff voice with an intoxicating smile.

I freeze and meet his gaze. “Are you seriously asking me?”

“Maybe. Give me your answer first and I’ll tell you.” The way his eyes are twinkling almost has me complying. It’s very difficult to not give in to Cooper right away.

“That’s not how it works.”

“Allen keys are also not called Jerrys.”

“That’s different…those are tools. This is you asking for me to mix my life with yours in a permanent way.”

He grins and drops his hands away. “We don’t do anything the normal way. So tell me—would you say yes?”

My breath constricts in my lungs, but I have to be honest with him. “I don’t think I could. We’ve only been seeing each other for, like, two months.” I say it casually like I don’t know exactly how long and I’m not the kind of girl to tick off every single day on the calendar and mentally celebrate things like week-iversaries. “And some of those days, we weren’t even official! Imagine what people would say if we got married. They would think we’re delusional. You haven’t even known me long enough to really decide if you want to spend every day for the rest of your life with me. We need more time together so you can realize I stick my stray hairs to the shower wall so they don’t go down the drain and then forget to clean them off.”

It’s terrible that I’m not saying yes right away, especially given the fact that his last relationship ended because his girlfriend didn’t want to marry him. But it’s not that I don’t want to marry him—it’s that I’m scared to. Scared he’ll get tired ofme.

I’m preparing for a fight or for Cooper’s shoulders to sag and him to walk away, Charlie Brown style. He doesn’t, because like he said, we’re not normal, and that’s mainly because he’s an extraordinary man. He does, however, do something unexpected.

Cooper smiles, scoops me up, carries me through the house and out the back door, marches to the pool, and dumps me in without so much as pausing.

I come up, gasping for air, mouth wide open and disbelieving as I stare up at him grinning from ear to ear beside the pool. Iswear, if his freaking abs didn’t look so incredible, I would break up with his sorry butt right now. “What was that for?!”

Cooper dives in next and surfaces beside me, eyes dark as the night he first brought me out here to his pool. Seeing that look has me sucking in a sharp breath. Cooper’s strong shoulders hover above the water as he swims closer, grabs my hips, and picks me up to wrap my legs around his waist. He smiles and kisses me softly, and I feel disoriented. What’s happening right now? Should I be mad? Because that’s definitely not the feeling I’m experiencing.

“Lucy,” he says, pushing my wet hair from my face as I cling to him like a little koala. “In this pool is when I first decided I wanted to spend forever with you. I knew it perfectly then, and I know it perfectly now. You are unique and a little strange at times, and I love that about you. I don’t need more time, but it’s okay if you do. I’ll wait for you until you’re ready, but I just wanted you to know I’ve been crazy about you from day one.”

I sniffle and wipe my eyes. “These aren’t tears,” I say, shaky voice betraying my lie. “It’s just water from the pool dripping off of my lashes.” Cooper wipes away the “water” with his thumbs. I stare into his eyes and feel what I know is unusual but also completelyrightsettle over me. Sometimes life is kooky and happens out of order. Sometimes it’s a roller coaster, and you can either buckle down and hold on or throw your hands up and scream your heart out as you soar around the loop-de-loop. Honestly, I think both reactions are necessary, but for this particular loop, I’m throwing my handsup.

“I love you, Cooper. Let’s get married.”

And I’ll tell you one thing: we willnotbe assembling any furniture tonight.

Epilogue

Lucy

Cooper and I got married. Like married, married. Ring-on-my-finger, marriage-certificate, move-all-my-stuff-into-his-house-and-sleep-in-our-bed-every-single-night kind of married. Want to hear something even crazier? We tied the knot a month after he proposed in the pool. I’m still shaking my head at it because I know we’re completely loony to have done this. But who cares, right? We’re happy loons, and we knew what we wanted, so we went forit.

We had the most romantic small wedding in a vineyard a little outside of Nashville. Even in my wildest dreams it couldn’t have been more perfect. We then took a weeklong honeymoon at a beautiful resort in the Caribbean. Seven full days with just Cooper was…well, I’m blushing just thinking ofit.

But we’re home now, and tonight we’re having a family movie night wearing our matching dinosaur PJ pants (you better believe Cooper has some now). If everyone wasn’t gagging enough at our whirlwind romance, they definitely will when they see this picture of us in our matching jammies on social media.

We’re here on the couch, snuggled up with Levi, and putting down some new roots as a family. The strangest thing about all of this, though, is that itdoesn’tfeel strange to think of Cooper as a part of our family. His long arm is resting across the back of the couch so he can still run a finger across my collarbone while Levi lies between us, and it feels like this is how it was always supposed to be. Natural.Right.

Levi starts snoring with his head in my lap, and Cooper throws his head back with an exaggeratedFinnnallly.

“Whoa,” I say, eyes wide as I watch him pop up from the couch and begin scooping Levi into his arms. “Where is this sudden angst coming from?”

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