Page 113 of Blind Luck

“Not yet, anyway,” my brother joked.

I hugged Sarah, and after a moment’s hesitation, she hugged me back.

“Thank you. I love you so much for this.”

“Well, that’s very sweet of you, my dear.”

There was a dinner, and my brother and Zach manned the grill while Maya and Nana cooked. Even though she wasn’t my actual nana, she’d told me to call her that, the same as everyone else did. Haven had decorated sugar cookies, and Sarah seemed surprised but pleased when she was invited to stay. In the end, she called her girlfriend, Marta, who lived in San Jose, and she came over too.

As the sun set over the ocean, I squashed onto a sun lounger in the front yard with Rusty and held up a glass of wine.

“To my new life.”

He clinked his glass against mine. “To your new life.”

Until now, I hadn’t realised just how much the marriage thing bothered me. I’d told myself over and over that it didn’t matter, that it was only a piece of paper, but really, ithad been more than that. A tie. A tether to my old life. And thanks to Ari, Sarah had cut it.

“I’m so freaking happy,” I said, leaning my head against Rusty’s shoulder.

“I do just have one question.”

“As long as it isn’t ‘will you marry me?’ then shoot.”

“Fuck.”

I stiffened. “Ohmigosh. It is?” My heart began racing. “You were going to ask me to marry you? Hell, I’m so sorry. I was kidding around, I swear I was. Can we just rewind? Like, to the part where I say I’m happy and then you say you have a question, and…”

I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. Marriage wasn’t something I’d given much thought to, mainly because I’d tried to block it out of my mind completely, given my circumstances, but now that Elvis had been outed as a bigamist and I was free, the idea of spending the rest of my life with Rusty, like, with a ring and everything… I didn’t hate it. Erin Bolt. Mrs. Erin Bolt? Mrs. Erin Kealoha-Bolt? Hmm.

“And…” I tried again.

“I don’t want to pressure you.”

“Okay, fine, then I’ll ask. Rusty Bolt, will you marry me? Shit, I don’t have a ring. And I’m supposed to be on one knee.” I tried to get up, but my legs got tangled in his and I fell off the sun lounger. Now my knee was bleeding. Great. “Fuck.”

He turned on his phone flashlight and began picking gravel out of my knee. “Yes, I love you. Yes, I’ll marry you.” He fished a ring box and a tissue out of his shorts pocket and handed them to me. “We should probably put Betadine on this.”

I opened the box and found a solitaire diamond, simple but cute. Kind of like me. Huh. Did I just insult myself? Anyhow, the ring was perfect. Rusty slipped it onto myfinger, then carried me into the house to clean up my graze. Ari the all-seeing PI spotted the diamond first, obviously, and as everyone screamed around me, I clung to my anchor in a storm.

My for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.

My hot hockey player with a heart of gold.

I took his hand. “I can’t wait to be Erin Bolt.”

“So, I was thinking… How do you feel about keeping the Kealoha part?”

“You mean we’d have different surnames?”

“No, we’d both take yours.”

“Is that even allowed?”

Rusty nodded. “Yup, I checked. I’ll be marrying you out of love, but the thought of my name no longer being a meme is a definite bonus.”

Three months ago, my answer would have been “hell no.” Have my surname splashed across gossip sites, and my picture too? Turn myself into a target for the Prophet and his minions? But that was then and this was now, and now I had my family fighting in my corner and the Choir too. Why should I be the one to hide away? Okay, so I’d killed a man, but that was partly an accident and Ari assured me the case was icy cold with no real evidence anyway.

Screw Elvis Wilkes.

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