Page 204 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
“So I can have a music studio?”
“If you want one.”
“Perry, this is the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.” She reaches for my hand.
The hope in my heart swells and surges like a building wave finally breaking on the shore. I thread her fingers through mine. “You like it?”
She nods. “I love it.”
I breathe out a sigh. “Good. Because there’s actually one more part of the surprise.”
I drop her hand and reach for her shoulders, slowly turning her around to face the grand piano that was delivered just this morning.
She gasps, her hands flying to her mouth. “Perry, you didn’t!”
“It’s a Steinway, which, I don’t know what that really means, but the appraiser said it was the best kind. And the guy who was here tuning it said it has a really nice sound.”
She steps forward, running a hand across the smooth, black wood. “Perry, this piano is worth more than my car. More than my car and your car put together. Maybe more than my house.”
I shrug. “I got it on sale.”
She rolls her eyes. “I’m serious. As the future Mrs. Hawthorne, I need to know the specifics. How are we paying for a new house and this piano?”
“I’m serious. I reallydidget it on sale. At an estate sale. It needed some restoration work, but all told, I still only spent a fraction of what a new one would have cost.”
“A fraction of what a new Steinway costs is still a lot of money.”
“I’d have bought you a new one, Lila. I was ready to.”
She presses a hand to her forehead, her eyes closed, her breath trembling. Finally, she looks up, tears coursing down her cheeks. “It’s too much. I didn’t—I don’t have anything to give you.”
I step closer, wrapping my arms around her. “Lila, you gave me everything. You gave me a family.”
“I love you,” she whispers.
“I love you, too.”
When she sits down and starts to play, it only takes a moment to decide I would have paid four times what I spent on the piano.
Anything for her.
Anything to see her this happy.
She looks up and catches my eye without lifting her fingers off the keys. “What are you thinking?”
I walk over and bend down to kiss her. “I’m thinking this is the”—I pause and clear my throat—“theapple-y-ever-afterI’ve always wanted.”
