While I Was Away(91)

Now their lives were all about each other. Jones of course had to work at the hospital, he was as dedicated to his job as ever. Adele, however, never went back to her own job, instead throwing herself into freelance design work online. It was handy because she could just work from home. Their home – she'd moved in with Jones soon after he'd gotten out of the hospital. The tiny trailer had taken some getting used to, and they kept saying they'd move soon.

But she'd grown to love it, the close quarters, the whimsical feel of the place. His brother-in-law had a large property on the outskirts of the city, and the trailer sat on the edge of it, giving them a lot of privacy. How many people in L.A. lived in an Airstream in the middle of a field?

The first thing she'd done after moving in had been to plant a Bush Poppy close by.

“Did you know about this?” Adele managed to hiss as everyone started shouting hellos to Jones.

“I don't know – did 'this' already happen?” he replied under his breath, keeping one arm around her as he shuffled through the doorway.

“It almost did, you just barely stopped it.”

“Thank god.”

“Oh, you do?” Adele suddenly spoke loudly, her voice carrying over the din. Jones looked taken aback for a second, then quickly fell into the act.

“Yeah,” he said quickly. “Just wanna wash up super quick. Couple minutes, everybody?”

They both casually headed towards the bathroom, getting angry glares from Ocean and lewd catcalls from August. As soon as they were in the bathroom, though, he slammed the door shut and locked it while she pulled herself up to sit on the sink.

“What is going on and how long have you known and why didn't you tell me?” she demanded. Jones held up his hand.

“I've known for like two months,” he said in a soft voice. She was shocked and took a deep breath to tell him so, but he cut her off. “He asked me to keep it a secret, okay? Specifically, he threatened me with jail time and death if I breathed a word of it to any of you.”

Unlike Charlie, Jones had been made an honorary Reins brother – they loved him. The boys treated him as if he'd always been among their ranks, giving him a hard time and teasing him and taking him out to get wasted on his birthday. She had noticed him and Ocean in particular getting closer in the past couple months, but she still hadn't seen this coming at all.

“He's known he was gonna propose to Zoey for two months?” Adele sighed, clasping her hands over her heart.

“Yeah, crazy, right?”

“What!?”

“They've barely been dating a year,” Jones reminded her, and she playfully glared at him.

“For someone who believes in soulmates, you're not very romantic.”

“No shit,” he laughed, then he stepped closer, wedging himself in between her legs. “So yeah. We planned this whole thing out – something low key, because you know she hates a scene, but he wanted family to be here, and they both like to drink and party. So when he was at that conference last month in San Fran, he had this place design a ring for her.”

“Ocean, my older brother, the grump, the taciturn cop, Ocean, designed a ring.” Adele couldn't believe it.

“Yup. But he didn't want them to ship it, he was too nervous. He knew I was gonna be in Sacramento for that training course, so he asked if I'd swing through San Francisco on my way home, so of course I was like no problem. I mean, I was supposed to get in last night, what could go wrong?”

A freak mechanical problem had grounded his plane out of Sacramento, stranding him there for the night – that's what had gone wrong. Adele hadn't known about him going to San Francisco, though.

“You got the ring okay?” she checked, and he nodded before pulling a small red box out of his pocket.

“Yeah. That plane, I swear, I thought we'd never take off, the fog was like soup in S.F. And I was watching the minutes tick down and I knew when he was gonna do the toasts, and I thought I'd missed it,” Jones groaned.

“But you didn't – evening saved. Zoey is gonna die!” Adele squealed.

“She is, wait till you see the size of this fucking thing,” Jones chuckled. He started to open the box, but she quickly put her hands over his and stopped him.

“No,” she shook her head. “This is Zoey's ring, she should be the first woman to see it.”

“You are too sweet.”

“But if you have it, how is Ocean supposed to give it to her?” Adele asked. “I mean, it's gonna be awkward if he asks her to marry him, and you hold out the ring.”

“Just a little. I'm hoping he's smarter than he looks and he comes back her to 'break us apart' so I can hand it over now.”

“You are so very, very clever, Mr. Lund.”

“I'm also not a liar, either, so let's give him something to break apart.”

She started to laugh, but the sound was quickly swallowed by his mouth. She turned it into a moan, the sound reverberating across both their lips.

A year together, and kissing him still felt exactly the same. Like something new and wonderful. Like coming home. Like it was something they were made to do. Like it was wrong when they weren't doing it.

“I missed you,” she whispered when he moved to nibble on her ear. “I don't like it when you're gone.”