Believe Me (Shatter Me, #6.5) (25)

“Right now? While you’re standing here?”

“Yes.”

“No way.” She shakes her head. “You have to at least give us some privacy.”

“Absolutely not.” Kenji crosses his arms. “I’ve given you tons of privacy, and you’ve proven you can’t be trusted. If I leave you two alone together you’ll either end up in bed or accomplish nothing, neither of which are conducive to our goals.”

“Was that really necessary?” I say, irritated. “Did you really feel the need to comment on our private life?”

“When it costs us an hour of our lives, yes,” Winston says, moving, in an act of solidarity, to stand next to Kenji. He even crosses his arms against his chest, matching Kenji’s stance.

“Go ahead.” He nods at Ella. “Tell him.”

Ella looks nervous.

Winston and Kenji are an irritated, impatient audience; they stare us down, unrelenting, and I don’t even know whether to be angry about it—because the truth is, I want to know what’s going on, too. I want Ella to tell me what’s happening.

I look from her to them, my heart pounding in my chest. I have no idea what she’s about to say. No idea whether this revelation will be good or bad—though her nerves seem to indicate something is wrong. I brace myself as I watch her take a deep breath.

“Okay,” she says, exhaling. “Okay.” Another quick breath and she remembers to look at me, this time pasting an anxious smile on her face. “So—I didn’t want to tell you like this, but I’d been thinking for a little while about how to do this in the best possible way, because I wanted everything to be right, you know? Right for both of us—and also, I didn’t want it be anticlimactic. I didn’t want this big thing to happen and then it was just, like, we go back to the status quo—I wanted it to feel special—like something was going to change—and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, it was supposed to be a surprise, but it just wasn’t ready in time, and if I’d told you about it, it wouldn’t have been a surprise anymore, and Kenji kept insisting that I tell you anyway but I just—I’m sorry about yesterday, by the way, and I’m sorry about Nouria—I’ve been planning this whole thing with her since I woke up, practically, but she wasn’t supposed to say anything to you, and she knows she wasn’t supposed to say anything to you, because she and I had an agreement that I was supposed to tell you what was going on but yesterday I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen and I was waiting for more information because we were still trying really hard to make everything work in time but I know how important it is to you t—”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Winston mutters.

Kenji shouts: “You two are getting married today.”

I turn sharply, stunned, to look at them.

“Kenji, what the hell—”

“You were taking too long—”

“We’re getting married today?” I turn back to meet Ella’s eyes, my heart pounding now for an entirely new reason. A better reason. “We’re getting married today?”

“Yes,” she says, blushing fiercely. “I mean—only if you want to.”

I smile at her then, smile so wide I start laughing, disbelief rendering me foreign even to myself.

I hardly recognize this sound.

The sensations moving through my body right now—it’s hard to explain. The relief flooding my veins is intoxicating; I feel as if someone punched a hole through my chest in the best possible way. This is some kind of madness.

I’m trying, but I can’t stop laughing.

“Huh,” says Winston quietly. “I didn’t even know his face could do that.”

“Yeah,” Kenji says. “It’s super weird the first time you see it.”

“I can’t look away. I’m trying to look away and I can’t. It’s like if a baby was born with a full set of teeth.”

“Yes! Exactly. It’s exactly like that!”

“But nice, too.”

“Yeah.” Kenji sighs. “Nice, too.”

“Hey, did you know he had dimples? I didn’t know he had dimples.”

“C’mon, man, that’s old news—”

“Could you two just—please—be quiet for a second?” Ella says, squeezing her eyes shut. “Just for one second?”

Kenji and Winston mime zipping their mouths shut before taking a step back, holding their hands up in surrender.

Ella bites her lip before meeting my eyes.

“So,” she says. “What do you think?” She clasps, unclasps her hands. “Are you busy this morning? There’s still something I want to show you—something I’ve been working on for the last few—”

I take her in my arms and she laughs, breathlessly, just until she meets my eyes. Her smile is soon replaced by a look—a softness in her expression that likely mirrors my own. I can still feel the outline of that little velvet box against my leg; I’ve been carrying it with me everywhere, too afraid to leave it behind, too afraid to lose hope.

“I love you,” I whisper.

When I kiss her I breathe her in, inhaling the scent of her skin as I draw my hands down her back, pulling her tighter. Her response is immediate; her small hands move up my chest to claim my face, holding me close as she deepens the kiss, standing on tiptoe as she slowly twines her arms around my neck.