Page 101 of The One I Need
“The man who never had a successful proposal and the woman who spent sixteen years in fear of marriage? That should be easy.”
“Piece of cake.”
“Okay, so does this mean we’re going to date?” I ask. “As much as I’d like to say let’s start cohabitation tonight, I don’t know if that’s our most sensible decision.”
Izzy lays back and bites her bottom lip. “You make sensible talk sexy.”
Fuck, this woman is going to be the death of me in the best way possible. “Focus. Talk now. Sex later.”
“Ugh, fine,” she says. “But you’re right. Baby steps. We’re both relatively new to this. We need to crawl before we can walk.”
“Exactly,” I say, bringing her back to my lap. “We need to actually spend time together as a couple—a real one, not a drunk one or one that is forged because of grief and drama. We need to be real before we make decisions like where we’re going to live or if we’re going have a real wedding.”
I almost internally smack myself for bringing up something like a wedding. Izzy is a different woman right now, but trauma doesn’t go away overnight.
But she doesn’t make a face. She doesn’t flinch or recoil. It’s as if I said something as mundane as the sky is blue.
In no way do I think Izzy magically recovered from everything she’s experienced, but she’s already made huge strides. Because my wife is a fucking badass.
“I agree,” she says. “You have to remember, I haven’t tried anything like this in years. I might be all in, but you’re going to have to walk me through this.”
“That I can do,” I say before kissing her. And for the first time since, well, ever, when it has come to Izzy, I feel relaxed. That I don’t need to worry about scaring her, or that a shoe is going to drop. I feel like this is where we’ve been meant to be since that fateful April night at Jake and Whitley’s wedding. I knew she was special and worth waiting for. I said it all along.
I’ve never been so glad to be right.
“I know it’s early,” she says.
“It’s two in the afternoon.”
“Yes. Like I said. Early. But you know travel makes me tired…”
“Izzy McCall-Price! Are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?”
She gives me a sly shrug. “Maybe I am…”
“Wow,” I say. “You proposed to me. Said I love you first. Now you’re the one to propose our first real, not forced by circumstance, sleepover. You’re really making this easy on me.”
“Ha!” she laughs, throwing her head back in the most beautiful way. Not because of the act. But I can just tell she’s more free than she’s ever been in her life. Somehow her shoulders look lighter. Her eyes are brighter. Her smile is bigger. “There was nothing about this that was easy.”
I squeeze her in closer and brush my finger down her cheek bone. “The good things never are.”
Chapter35
Izzy
I stepinto my walk-in shower, welcoming the scalding hot water and steam as I let the stream hit my back. I tilt my head to the left and right, letting the pulses work out the knots that have been forming into little tiny balls over the last three days.
It feels amazing.
Once the blowup at the funeral happened yesterday, Oliver and I got back in the car, went to get our stuff, and immediately got the hell out of Smallwood. Our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until this morning, and there wasn’t another flight to take last night. While I would have loved to leave Nebraska, I was fine getting a room at the airport hotel. I didn’t care where I slept last night as long as it wasn’t in that town. And slept I did. Well, after I cried in Oliver’s arms until I passed out.
I broke the promise I made to myself when I left all those years ago that I’d never go back. But some stupid part of me thought I still needed to be the good daughter and attend. Not anymore. If and when Mom dies, I’ll send a card. Maybe. Though I’m not sure to whom. The only people I want to see are Jessie, Jimmy, and the kids. But I’m a pretty well off woman in the financial department, and I’ll fly them out here for the holidays. Yup, that’s the plan. Gone are the days I sacrifice having a relationship with my sister and her family because my mother is in the running for World’s Worst Mother. Hmm, maybe Oliver can get her a shirt?
Just knowing that I’m done with Smallwood gives me so much relief. If I ever see anyone from that hell hole again it will be too soon.
I turn around so I’m facing the shower stream, sighing as the water pours down my face. I’ve always believed in the healing powers of a hot shower. But this one might be the most healing of all. I can feel the last three days washing off me. I know this shower isn’t going to fix the last sixteen years, but one day it might. And if I have Oliver by my side to help me, I have a feeling it will come sooner than I think.
I feel a quick hit of cold air at my back and look back over my shoulder to see Oliver stepping into the shower in all of his naked glory.
