Page 72 of The Promises We Broke
Tears stung my eyes as I thought about my grandfather. The man who'd taught me to build things with my hands, who'd believed in me when no one else did, who'd seen something in a teenage boy's clumsy devotion that even the boy himself hadn't recognized.
"You kept this safe for ten years," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
"I would have kept it safe for as long as it took," Jasper corrected. "And now it's yours to do with what you will."
I looked up at my father, this man who'd made so many mistakes but who was trying, every day, to be better than he'd been.
"Thank you," I said. "For keeping it safe. For bringing it to me tonight."
"You're welcome." He stood to go, then paused. "Gage?"
"Yeah?"
"For what it's worth, I think your grandfather would have liked seeing you two together tonight. You looked happy. Both of you."
After he left, I sat on the porch steps for another hour, turning the ring over in my hands and thinking about love and legacy and second chances. The weight of it felt significant in my palm, not just the physical weight, but the emotional weight of all the love stories that had come before mine.
My grandparents, who'd loved each other for four decades and built a life that became the foundation for everything good in our family.
My father and Caroline, who'd found each other again after nearly thirty years apart.
And now, if I was brave enough and lucky enough, Billie and me.
The ring caught the light from the porch fixture, throwing tiny rainbows across my palm. I could picture it on Billie's finger, could imagine the look on her face when I told her about my grandfather's faith in our love story. Could imagine myself getting down on one knee and asking her to build a life with me, to trust me with her heart again, to believe that this time I would stay.
But not yet. She'd asked for slowly, and I meant to give her that. Meant to earn her trust one day at a time, one shared smile at a time, one perfect evening at a time.
Still, as I finally headed inside and carefully placed the ring in the drawer of my nightstand, I allowed myself to hope. To imagine a future where the boy who'd run away scared and broken had become a man worthy of the kind of love his grandparents had shared.
To imagine Billie saying yes.
Chapter 26
Billie
I'd been lying awake for two hours, staring at the ceiling and reliving every moment of the harvest festival, when my phone buzzed with a text.
Can't sleep either? - G
I smiled in the darkness, my heart doing that fluttery thing it had been doing all week whenever I thought about dancing with Gage, about the way he'd looked at me before he kissed me, about the promise in his voice when he'd said he wasn't going anywhere.
How did you know I was awake?I typed back.
Lucky guess. Or maybe wishful thinking. Want some company?
I sat up in bed, suddenly wide awake. It was nearly midnight, and proper ladies probably didn't invite men over at midnight, but I'd never been particularly proper, and the thought of seeing Gage again, of having him here in my space, made my pulse quicken.
Come over, I sent. Back door's unlocked.
Twenty minutes later, I was standing in the kitchen in pajama pants and an oversized sweater, watching Gage climb the back steps to the house. He was still dressed in the clothes he'd worn to walk me home—jeans and a soft gray henley that made his eyes look silver in the porch light.
"Hi," I said, opening the door before he could knock.
"Hi." His smile was soft and uncertain. "I brought hot chocolate."
He held up a thermos and two mugs, and something warm unfurled in my chest. "You made hot chocolate at midnight?"
"Couldn't sleep anyway," he said with a shrug. "And I remembered you used to love it when we were kids."
