He lowered her into his arms again.
She knocked tears from her eyes, and said, “I think it might be raining again.”
“You beat me to the tree by a few hours that day, but isn’t that just like you? I carved them there the day after my seventeenth birthday. I felt like you’d gone and carved them right on my soul that night anyway. I had to do something about it. Me and the tree. We kept that secret for a long time. I felt like I was alone with it.”
Dawn was bathing them in a cloud of filtered light and the tree’s fall wardrobe made it look like it was wearing leaves of gold.
“Glory...?”
And now his voice had gone husky, and he felt like the pounding of his heart could have drowned out a stadium’s worth of cheers.
She looked up, eyes wider. Alerted by his tone.
“I kind of feel like I need to do something aboutthismoment, too.”
He fished his grandmother’s ring out of his pocket. He kissed the palm of her hand, laced his fingers through hers. “Will you—”
“Yes,” she said eagerly.
“...marry...”
“Yes!”
“Me?” he said softly, determinedly.
“Who, you?” She looped her arms around his neck and stood on her toes and whispered in his ear, as if confiding the secret of the universe. “Yes.”
And then he slipped the elegant old ring that once belonged to his rather patrician grandmother onto her slim, tough-tipped, rock-and-roll hand, and it surprised neither of them that it fit perfectly.
Chapter22
“Eli?”
His mom’s voice was cheerful but just a little taut. She always answered on the first ring. He knew she tried to disguise the anxiety, but it was there.
“Everything’s great, Mom.”
He always said this first. And then she would relax.
“What’s going on, honey?”
“Well, Mom... I gave Grandma’s ring away.”
There was a beat of silence as the meaning of this settled in.
“You’re gettingmarried?” she breathed. Pure joy. She made the wordmarriedabout four syllables long.
“Yep.” He grinned.
“Who is it?”
He paused.
And then the pause kind of stretched.
And in that pause, she guessed.
“You’re going to marry her, huh?” She sounded cautiously bemused.