Nate(102)

My stomach twisted.

I teared up for him.

“I wasn’t there when he died. I wasn’t there when my sister was struggling. I didn’t even know about her struggles. I shut my parents out, so in essence, they shut me out. I had no idea…” His voice cracked. “I wasn’t altogether “in” with my friends, and I really wasn’t “in” with my family anymore. I was on this lost island, and I had no idea how I got myself there. It took a few years until I got things right on the friend's side. It took longer with my family, a lot longer.”

“You and Aspen seem so close now.”

“We are, but I had to work at that, too. My parents dropped the ball on a lot of things. Call it selfishness or workaholics or … I don’t know. They tried to make things better with me a few years ago, but too much damage was done. I more wanted them to shape up for Aspen. I guess I’m saying all this because there have been pockets in my life when I felt things. Hurt. Anger. Loss. Confusion. Concern. But not love.” He turned to me, his eyes so clear, so piercing. “When I saw Nova, I loved her immediately and I knew she was mine. I just knew. It was instant. I love my parents. I love my sister. I love my friends. But none of them touch what I feel for Nova.” Another pause and his eyes growing even more somber. “Or you.”

I sucked in my breath, feeling a pain in there.

“You both are different from the rest. You’re more. Nova is everything to me. Everything, but you—you are, too. I want you beside me. I want to walk with you. I want to hand Nova off to you. I want to laugh with you. I want to help fix dinners with you, for you. I want to take care of you. I want to protect you. I want to touch you. Hold you. Hug you. Fuck you hard. Fuck you slow. I want to put my claim on you so permanently that no one else will look at you. They’ll just know you’re mine. You and Nova are my family, and it’s a real type of family, more real than I’ve ever felt before.” He choked up, raking a hand over his face. “I’m not someone who knows their feelings right away or knows how to articulate them. I’m just not like that, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it. When I got that call that you were hit by a car, the world shifted for me. Everything went clear. You. Nova. You both are mine, and that’s how it is. I need you in my life. I need you with me, and I’ve never told you that. I was waiting until you were ready, and then I think I overshot, and you were ready long before I told you. That doesn’t even make sense to me, but I feel like it does to you? Maybe?”

I reached out for him, needing to touch him.

He was giving me the world. He had taken it, wrapped a bow around it, filled it with love, and he was holding it to me with the palm of his hand.

I sat up, kneeling, and then I crawled over to him.

He caught my wine—the wineglass I forgot I had in my hand—and laughed, setting it on the stand beside him. Then he reached over, his hands went under my arms, and he lifted me onto his lap. I turned, my legs sliding down so I was straddling him, my blanket and all.

He framed my face, his thumbs rubbing over my cheeks. “I love you, Quincey Royas. I would like you to be Nova’s mother and my wife for the rest of our lives.”

A gargle came out of me.

“Are you proposing to me?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” He was scanning my face, my eyes, falling to my mouth. Lingering on my mouth, he groaned. “I just need you, and I can’t lose you. I love you. I love you so much.”

Warmth burst in me. That throbbing increased. The drumbeat needing to feel him.

“I love you, too, Nathaniel.”

He groaned, grinning. “Only you can call me that. We need to make that clear to everyone else. That’s Quincey’s name.”

I reached up, catching his wrists because he needed to hear this back from me. “You have to know that I love you, too. Everything you said, I’m the same. Nova is my life. I want you to be in there with me, beside me. I want to love you, and take care of you, and protect you. And I will. I promise. Side by side, Nate.”

“Nathaniel.”

“Side by side, Nathaniel.”

He nodded. “I’m really sorry for taking this long to tell you.”

I closed my eyes, resting my forehead on his. “I’m sorry for not believing you could love me.”

“That’s over.” He tipped my head back up so I could see him. His thumbs returned to my mouth, moving under my bottom lip. “Can I unofficially propose to you now?”

Fireworks were going off in me. Sparklers, too.

I smiled at him, feeling light-headed. “What does that mean?”

“That you’ll be my partner for life and my partner in helping raise Nova? That we can have more babies? That you’ll marry me? And that I’ll propose officially later with a ring and probably your whole family and mine to be there because that’s kinda a thing with my group?”

I was nodding even before he finished. “Yes, yes, and yes. Yes to all of that.”

“Yeah?” His eyes darkened, falling to my lips.

“Yeah,” I whispered right before his mouth found mine.

There was a clicking sound.

I heard it. I felt it, and I knew what it was.

I was complete. Everything was how it should be.

Everything was right.

I had found my family, but so had Nate Nathaniel.