Page 117 of You, with a View

I lean back, still in the circle of his arms. Underneath his sun-bronzed skin, his cheeks are flushed. His eyes are bright, a little wild, which I assumed was from overtiredness. He barely slept the entire ride home. In fact, he keptmeup with a nearly constant bouncing knee that I threatened to put out of commission permanently.

“Are they... still here?” I venture.

He laughs. “No.”

“Are you worried they went through our stuff or something? Mas is nosy as hell, but Sadie knows to keep him away from bedrooms and vibrator stashes.”

“No,” he repeats. “I just don’t want you to look behind you until I tell you that I did something while we were gone. Or I had Granddad and your family do something while we were gone, with my direction.”

“What?”

“You’ve been meaning to put up new photos on the wall, right?” He nods his chin over my shoulder, and I start to turn. Again, he directs me back to him.

I push against his palm with my cheek, but he holds fast. “Oh my god, let melook!”

He laughs, his chest shaking against mine, pressing closer. I can feel the beat of his heart. How fast it’s going. “Holy shit, you’re impatient. Let me set it up.”

“I’m going to be old and gray by the time you do.”

Something shifts in his expression, from amusement to hope so raw it wraps a fist around my heart. “I can’t wait to see that.” Before I can respond, he continues, “You wanted to put new photos in the frames on the wall, but you’ve been so busy I wanted to take that off your plate. I thought it’d be cool to come home to it already done.”

“You chose the pictures and everything? All on your own?”

He nods, biting at his lip. “I picked some that I know are your favorites. Kind of a mixture of trips we’ve taken, shots of our families, that kind of thing. I even got a few from Italy.”

Everything inside me melts. “You really are the best, do you know that? If it didn’t benefit me so much, it would be annoying.”

He doesn’t even return with a smug quip. Instead he grins. “Okay. Now you can look.”

I turn. The wall is big enough that it can handle close to twenty frames in various sizes. I start from the top left and work my way across. There are new photos from our road trip with Paul, replacing some of the ones that were there before. Photos from weekend trips we’ve taken, dinners out with friends, one of Paul and my dad, who have turned into hiking buddies, my favorite snapshot of Gram and me, and—

Nestled in the middle are four framed pictures of Theo and me, ones I haven’t seen before. It takes me a second for my brain to realize what I’m looking at, but my heart catches on right away, beating furiously.

In the first picture, we’re on a private boat tour in Positano and I’m facing away from the camera, my hair flowing out behind me. Theo is in the foreground, faced toward the camera, a small smile on his face. He’s holding a piece of paper that says: WILL.

The next picture, we’re at dinner in Florence and I’m gazing out toward a cobblestoned square where a band is playing. Again, Theo’s holding up a piece of paper, a little smirk on his face. It says: YOU.

“Oh my god.” Tears are already falling from my eyes. I move on to the next one.

We’re at the beach in Taormina and I’m staring out at the ocean, hand shielding my eyes. Theo’s a few feet behind me, wearing only swim trunks, looking gorgeous. I can still feel the heat of his skin against my palms when we came back to our hotel and got tangled up in bed. In the picture, Theo’s sign says: MARRY.

In the last picture, we’re in front of a coffee shop in a narrow, picturesque alleyway in Rome. Theo has me wrapped up in his arms and my face is tucked into his neck. He’s looking at thecamera, his eyes filled with so much love I can’t help letting out a sobbing laugh. I remember that moment, when he pulled me into a hug so sweetly affectionate. I closed my eyes and soaked it in and thoughtgod, my life is so good.

There’s a ring pinched between Theo’s fingers in the picture, and a piece of paper is held up against my red dress. It says: ME?

In the reflection of the framed glass, I see Theo behind me, kneeling.

I turn around, my hands over my mouth, and stumble to him. He’s holding the ring from the picture between his thumb and forefinger.

“Are you kidding me?” I cry, kneeling down with him. If we’re doing this, it’s going to be together.

He smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. I love him. I want to watch those lines deepen with time, until he’s old and gray, too.

“I know we don’t use the wordperfect, but the past year and a half has been as close as I’ve ever had,” he says, his voice going hoarse as he fights against the emotion welling in his eyes. “And I know we don’t do secrets, either, but it’s not a secret that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, right?”

I let out a wet laugh. “No, you’ve been pretty obvious.”

He grins, a tear slipping down his cheek. “No one loves me like you do, Noelle. I wake up every morning thinking it can’t get better, and then it does. It’s never going to be perfect, but we can spend the next sixty years or so making it really damn good, if that’s what you want, too.”

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