Page 118 of Is It Casual Now?

“You’re going to propose right?” Jessie moved her head back but kept her arms around Siena.

Siena lifted one arm at the elbow—her bicep still gripped by Jessie kept the rest of her arm pinned to her side—and gently patted Jessie’s strangling forearm.

“Yes, that’s definitely what I’m wanting to do.”

“Well, if you are wanting my approval or anything, first Jamie wouldn’t care either way and you totally don’t need it. But yes, I can’t wait to have you officially as my sister-in-law. And oh, that means Harley will be my niece! This is the most exciting thing.”

Jessie finally let go of Siena and wandered back to her side of the desk.

“I’m glad you approve. But,” Siena swallowed audibly, “permission wasn’t exactly what I came to ask.”

“It wasn’t?” Jessie looked confused.

“Not exactly.” Siena put her hands together and wrungthem as she searched for the right words. “The proposal.” She winced. She was doing an awful job at this. Not that the first time she’d proposed had gone any better.

“You want help with proposing?”

Siena chuckled nervously. “Yes. I want to propose in a way that shows her just how much she means to me. How much I want to know everything about her, past, present, and sharing her future.”

“Awww.” Jessie nodded, her face breaking into a wide smile.

“And I want to show her that family can be both blood and found. Not just one or the other.”

“Ah.” Jessie nodded knowingly.

They hadn’t exactly discussed the issues Jamie faced from how she and Jessie were brought up. But they had all skated around the topic more often than Siena had expected over the last twelve months. It was an issue she could see Jamie wanting to work through but not quite having the confidence and enough feeling of value within herself to address it yet. Siena knew it wasn’t her place to fix Jamie. She was perfect and didn’t need any fixing. But she wanted to offer as safe a place as she could provide. And Jamie deserved the world.

“All right. Any idea when you were thinking of doing this?”

“Well, it’s her birthday in a few months, so I was hoping to get things figured out for then. It’s September thirteenth.” Siena looked up to find Jessie smirking.

“I may be familiar with that date.”

“Right, of course you are.” Siena shook her head. Long ago she had stopped seeing them as carbon copies of each other. Beyond their initial, and yes identical looks, their identities were entirely separate and different from the other.

“So, have you got any ideas?” Jessie asked.

“A few,” Siena replied, a smile dancing on her lips. “But you know her better than anyone else. Any chance you mighthave some ideas of what she might expect, or have ever wanted in a proposal?”

She saw the sparkle in Jessie’s eyes and knew she had definitely come to the right person about this. It surprised Siena how much the two of them seemed to have in common. At first it was hard to see beyond the physical similarities between Jamie and Jessie, and then not to think of Jessie as simply Harley’s teacher, or Jamie’s sister.

Sometimes Siena still failed at that, but Jessie and Jamie weren’t just twins. Jessie was the closest thing Jamie had ever had to a friend. Even if she still dismissed Jessie’s love at times for something Jessie had to do as family.

“I have so many ideas.” Jessie beamed. “But we can’t do it here. The janitors will be in soon, and I need to get out of here.”

“That’s okay. I have to get going soon as well. But I wanted to get started on it all, and asking you in person was necessary.”

“Thank you.” Jessie’s eyes glistened.

“I wouldn’t dream of doing it without you being involved, or at least knowing about it first.”

“I am so excited and can’t wait to get into the nitty gritty with you. Message me, and we’ll find a time to get together.”

Siena had a bounce in her step as she walked out of the school and headed home. It had gone so much better than planned, and seeing Jessie so excited and happy for Jamie filled Siena with such love for her future sister-in-law.

Assuming Jamie said yes.

Over the next few weeks, surreptitious texts and phone calls were exchanged. Siena found her mind wandering to differentideas and possibilities of how and where she would propose to Jamie.

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