Page 119 of Rules in Love
Scarlett
Time slipped by so fast that the memories made along the way were sometimes hard to hold onto. It was both a blessing and a curse that some phases and points of my life were a jumbled blur. A mash of faces, places, and events that seemed further and further away each year. But every moment spent with Finn had been etched into my body and soul. With vivid clarity, I could pinpoint the moment he first touched, and kissed me, and made me laugh and cry. True, these memories were not so old, but I believed they would linger forever.
On the twelve-month anniversary of our first kiss, something big, something I hadn’t planned but hoped madly for, finally happened, instantly becoming another memory to be treasured.
Benjamin and I arrived to spend the weekend at Finn’s. It would be our first weekend with only him and Iris at his house. Finally, the master of his own domain, Finn was repainting the house and had somehow suckered Benjamin and me into helping.
Iris answered the door and was adorable, covered head to toe in bright-pink paint. After inviting us in, stopping in the kitchen for a quick cookie-and-milk refueling, she then led us to one of the spare bedrooms at the rear of the house, giggling cheekily, almost evilly, the whole way.
Something was fishy. “What are you up to, missy?”
“Nothing Scaw, I pwomise.”
Like a fox with heightened senses, I stood clear of the door and nobly pushed Ben in front of me for cover. I was ready. The door was flung open to reveal Finn, equally but somehow neatly, covered in paint, similarly adorable, down on one knee with a bunch of flowers in his hands. Iris ran to his side, knelt beside him, and took a small bag of Benjamin’s favorite chips out of her pocket.
“Scawlett, Benjamin,” she said, then looking at Finn.
“Oh, right, my turn. We, uh…” Iris nodded impatiently, and after giving her a quick kiss on her nose in appreciation, he battled on. “We love you with all our hearts. You two are the best things that have ever happened to us, and I”—Iris elbowed his side—“oh, sorry,wehave two things to ask you.”
I legitimately thought I would die and truly wished I wasn’t wearing a Guns n’ Roses t-shirt and sweatpants with holes in the crotch.
“Will you, Scarlett and Benjamin, please come and live with Iris and me here—not in this room obviously—God, I mean, here, in this house? We want it to be our house…home. We want you to be our family.” He stopped to take a deep breath, Iris using the time to reach up and dry her dad’s eyes and dab the sweat from his brow. I began to move toward him, my hands covering my mouth in shock.
“Wait, wait, there’s more.” I did as I was told and froze on the spot. “Scarlett Elizabeth Grant, I cannot envision a life without you. I need you by my side forever.” Iris then pulled a black ring box from the other pocket of her denim overalls. She smiled and opened the lid to reveal the most perfect diamond I had ever seen.
“Will you marry me, Red?”
It was perfect. Unlike the first time I heard him say those words, he was as perfect as the most perfect Austen-esque dream.
Until I moved.
“Yes! Yes to both!” I cried as both Benjamin and I ran to him. Aiming to jump in his arms, I leapt joyfully into the air, but my combat-boot-wearing foot caught on the handle of a nearby paint can. My foot slipped inside, and I, and the can, went ass over tit, somersaulting through the air, spraying paint like a sprinkler, and landing in a most ungrateful pile before him.
Of course I received hearty applause worthy of my fineacrobatics display. “That was fantastic, Mum! Do it again!”
Finn pulled me onto his knee with one of his biggest, sexiest smiles, whispering as he kissed me, “See that. That is why you have to be mine.”
“I’m a mess,” I cried, burying my face into my pastel hands.
“Yes, you are, but you’re my mess.” He smiled and took my hand in his. “My hot mess. And I love you,” he said as he slid the ring on my finger, and we kissed and kissed and kissed. Iris then piled on top of Ben, and it was the happiest, sloppiest, most tear-filled group hug that ever took place.
After several minutes of joy, and celebration, and screaming into the phone with Teddy, Finn and I were desperate to be alone. Iris and Benjamin were sent outside to play and eat the chips. The minute the back door closed, and we heard the distinct sounds of laughter coming from the trampoline, we ran to Finn’s room, laughing, kissing, and disrobing the whole way.
“Lock the door, Finn. Lock the door!” Finn peeled off his shirt, pushed me onto the bed, and then did what he was told, locking the door and checking twice that it was secured before turning, growling, and hunting me down. It wasn’t hard. I was lying naked, legs splayed, waiting. He hesitated for a second. I had gotten paint on his sheets and possibly on the headboard, but he shrugged his shoulders and boldly went with it.
“I’m gonna ask you to marry me every day ‘till I get to call you my wife,” he sighed as he dove between my legs and ghosted his lips over every inch of my trembling body. When he finally made it to my mouth, he kissed me hard and deep and smiled his cheekiest smile against my lips. “And when you move in, I’m gonna fuck you every day too.”
He slipped his fingers through the mess he’d made of me, then dared to laugh at the almost-hiss his touch incited. “Red, what the hell was that?”
“Shut up, kiss me.”
“Not until you make that noise again. It was very sexy. I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.”
“Christ on a bike, just fuck me.”
“Well, okay then. But I must say, the fact that I can still elicit new noises from you after a year does wonders for my ego.” Still chuckling, he drove hard inside me, forcing not a hiss but a toe-curling scream from my lungs that half the street must have heard. He clapped his hand over my mouth, laughing and shushing me while pounding into me at a fierce, ungodly pace.
“Soon, you’re going to be mine, Scar. My Mrs. Austen,” he cried. “This is your home. Here with me.”
