“See, Colin?” Fortuna says, pushing herself up off the floor and crossing the room to sit on the couch next to Celia. “I told you he would find his way. Even if it tookprison timeto get him there.”
“Yeah, well…” I start to say as Audrey pushes against my chest like she wants to be let down.
“Ah-mah!” she demands, still pushing away from me. “Ah-mah! Ah-mah!”
I chuckle as I approach Elle. “You hear that? She might sayMamafirst after all.”
Elle meets me in the middle for a quick, but deep kiss as I set Audrey in her arms. “I’m not worried about it, because it’s not a competition about whose name she says first.”
“I know, honey.” I move to stand by the windows that overlook the Flatiron District and look at Fortuna. “The thing about Archer is he needed to reach his rock—”
“What is this? What do you have, baby girl?” Elle asks with another giggle.
I glance at them and…Oh God.
Audrey’s little chubby hand is clasped around the ring with a rolled-up paper napkin threaded through its center. On pure reflex, I pat my shirt pocket despite the fact that I know my sneaky surpriseisn’t in it anymore.
OhGod.
“Colin.” Elle’s brows are knitted as she holds the ring in one hand and unrolls the napkin with the other. She stares at the words I scrawled on it in black Sharpie after retrieving it from the coffee shop where we first met and then looks up at me through misty eyes. “Are you serious?”
“Oh! Oh shit!” Joaquin exclaims, blindly setting down the hummus bowl and whipping out his phone. “Dammit.I wasn’t expecting that.”
Elle casts her teary gaze to him and back to me. “Neither was I.”
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Neither was I!
Oh well. Here goes something.
I clear my throat and take a knee in front of her, and all the women in the room are stiflingawwwsand muted squeals, but I try to ignore that. I take the items from Elle and rest my forearms on her lap.
“Just for the record,” I begin, holding up the napkin in front of her, “the first time I handed you a napkin like this, I was already thinking about the possibility of marrying you one day.”
Her bottom lip trembles just like has in so many other moments before this; moments when the sheer intensity of love I have for this woman threatened to overwhelm my heart to the point that it could’ve stopped altogether. “I know,” she says through an emotionally-pinched voice.
“I’m not doing thisjust becausewe have a baby now,” I underscore, casting a quick, deadpan glance at Graciela, who crinkles her nose and winks at me. I look back at Elle. “I’m doing this because, from that very first moment, I wantedyou. Because over the course of a five-minute conversation, I was convinced that the goodness I saw in you was the thing I’d been missing my entire life. And a lot of things happened after that that made me realize asking you this was going to be complicated and potentially impossible. But it all worked out eventually, and while it was working out, I realized there’s nothing I want more than to spend the rest of my life with you, while we give our baby girl a far better life than either of us had.”
A tear spills down Elle’s cheek, and before I can wipe it away, Audrey reaches up to pat her mama’s face. Elle turns her head to kiss Audrey’s hand and then holds it against her chest while I hold up the napkin so she can read the words…again.
Will you marry me?
“I love you, Elle.” I reach to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. “You’ve given me the best life ever, that’s way better than I ever could’ve hoped for.” I wave the napkin slightly. “So whaddya say?”
She sniffles as an impish smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, and then she reaches into her purse, which is sitting on the side table next to her. She pulls out a pen and takes the napkin from me, then scribbles on it and hands it back.
Yes, yes, yes, for a thousand lifetimes and beyond.
Elle cradles Audrey close to her chest and leans forward and plants her perfect-for-me lips on mine. I wrap my arms around her like a cocoon of safety and security andlovefor the two most important things in my life.
“Uhh…” someone speaks up in the living room, and I don’t know who it is, nor do I care, “does that mean she said yes?”
“Yes,” Elle says, lips still on mine. “I said yes.” She kisses me again and lowers her voice as I slip the ring on her finger. “And I’m going to keep sayingyesto you every day for the rest of my life.”
And nowhopefeels less like a drug I was hooked on; no longer an addiction I couldn’t shake. Ifhopeis a drug, it now feels more like medicine. The antidote to a life in which I suffered without it. From the first moment I saw Elle, that antidote was wrapped up in her. A year and a half and a million life-altering changes later, she’s still the cure. She always will be.
For a thousand lifetimes and beyond.
A love story written on a coffee shop napkin with the happiest ending possible.
Because there isn’t one.
