Page 74 of What We Broke

“Nervous. You?”

“Not nervous,” she answers. “But I’m not the one proposing tonight either.”

I don’t even get a chance to respond when Raine interjects. “I can’t believe you actually waited for Dad to ask you one thousand times before saying yes.”

Raine’s statement isn’t exactly the truth, but it’s probably the only way to explain the method to my madness. In actual fact, I had said yes to myself every single time. From the first proposal to the thousandth, I have never wavered in wanting to marry Jesse Hunt.

At some point I started to wait for a “real” proposal, but it wasn’t until one day I overheard him casually talking to Zara that I realized he didn’t think I was really interested in marriage, and if that was the case he would be with me in whatever way that looked like.

It both broke my heart and made me fall even harder for him. On one hand, had I really made him think that marriage wasn’t an option? And on the other, there was nothing this man wouldn’t do for me, and that included sacrificing his own wants and needs.

It was a blessing and a curse.

Ineedhim to know that I could and I would make as many of his dreams come true as he did mine. And that included becoming his husband.

“If someone really wants to marry you,” I tell Raine as I throw her over my shoulder, grab the bags I came in with, and walk to the kitchen. “Make sure they ask you to marry them one thousand times before you say yes, okay?”

“Put me down,” she squeals. “I’m twelve now.”

“I don’t care if you’re a hundred,” I exclaim.

I sit her down on the kitchen counter and she scrunches up her face at me. “What if I don’t want to get married?”

I rub the small crease between her brows. “Then you don’t get married. We don’t do things we don’t want to do.”

She smirks. “So, no chores, no homework, no early bedtime?”

I bop her on the nose. “You wish. Now, are you going to help me or not?”

Zara appears in the kitchen after us, her cell phone in hand. “Jesse just texted. I told him he didn’t need to pick up Raine and that will buy us some more time.”

“Perfect,” I say as I unpack the ingredients I bought for dinner.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay with this risotto?” Zara asks me. “You leave it in the slow cooker for two hours. Don’t touch it, don’t open it, don’t smell it till the two hours are up.”

I salute her. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you for including us,” Zara says as she starts organizing everything she needs to fry up.

“What are you even talking about?” I whirl around to face her. “In what world would I not include you?”

“I’m just saying—”

“Just stopsaying.Please. I don’t want to do this without your help,” I tell her. My eyes then dart between the two of them. “You and Raine are my favorite package deal.” I waggle my eyebrows suggestively. “And there will be parts that you’re not here for.”

Smiling, she raises her palm to my cheek, and I lean into her touch. “I don’t want to hear about the parts I’m not here for, but I am so glad he found you.”

Endless amounts of gratitude and love swim in my veins. “In case I haven’t ever said it or don’t say it enough, thank you for accepting me into your family.”

Maneuvering between the two of them, I kiss them both on the forehead. “Now, let’s get this show on the road.”

* * *

I assignevery one of us a job as Operation Proposing to Jesse is in full swing. I have no plans for it to be big or elaborate, because we don’t work in big sweeping gestures.

Since the very beginning, it’s been the small, intimate things that hold the most sincerity and truth between us. And I want this to be exactly that.

Zara agrees to cook Jesse’s favorite meal for me, because even after two years together, I have not yet learned how to master a mushroom risotto. She’s making me the “dummies” version where the slow cooker does all the work, because she isn’t going to be here the whole time to check on it. And Raine and I have been delegated to setting the table for two.

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