I take a breath.
“So will you marry me. Again? And before you answer, you should know… I’m not the man who makes the same mistake twice. If you let me be your husband again, I will love you better. I will honor you louder. I will never stop choosing you.”
Tears roll freely down her cheeks as Tate throws his arms around her waist. He’s crying, too. We all are.
“Yes,” Jules whispers, voice choked. “Yes, Corbin. A thousand times yes.”
I rise and she crashes into me. We stand there, in the middle of a hot chocolate line, tangled in each other, our son wrapped in our arms, tears falling freely down our cheeks as the snow machines keep on blowing.
Pearla’s waiting nearby, her phone raised. “I hope you don’t mind,” she grins. “But I got the whole thing.”
Jules laughs through her tears. “Thank you, Pearla.”
I wipe my face and sniff. “So… anyone still want hot chocolate?”
There’s a chorus of ‘yes’ around us.
Jules turns to me, her hand trembling slightly. “I need to call Sarge.”
“Go,” I tell her. “He’ll want to hear it from you.”
I watch her cross to a bench and sit down. She dials, holding the phone with one hand and staring at the ring with the other, as if she still can’t believe this is real. Her lips move. Her eyes well up again. And then she nods. She’s smiling now. Really smiling. That unguarded kind of joy that you only see a few times in your life.
Tom appears beside me, watching the scene unfold.
“You chose an odd spot,” he says. “But it worked. She looks happy.”
“She is,” I say. “We both are.”
He hesitates. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Do you think Pearla’s ready for something real?”
I smile. “She might be.”
“I love her,” he blurts. “And Leo. I was thinking of proposing.”
I raise my brows. “Might be a little soon.”
He looks sheepish. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“How long have you and Jules been dating?” he asks.
I laugh under my breath. “Twelve years.”
He whistles. “That’s a long time.”
“It’s the only time that ever mattered.”
And God, it’s true.
Every messy chapter. Every tear. Every almost.
It brought us back here.
Home. Together.
