For Both Are Infinite (Hearts in London Book 1) (49 page)

“Do I even want to know?”

“Yeah, it affects our plans. I’m afraid I won’t be coming home yet. Filming has been extended for two more weeks. Production was watching proofs from early on and they said the coloring is all wrong and the dialogue didn’t record well. We have to shoot it all again. I’m so sorry…”

Blood rushed to my ears and panic sunk my heart, but we could do two more weeks, especially since he’d be filming in London till September afterward. “It’s fine, Rhys. It’s just two more weeks,” I said, but it was anything but fine. I was so ready for him to be back in my bed every night.

“It will go quickly, especially after everything.”

“Right,” I said. There was nothing else to say. It sucked big time, especially when we had been so close.

“I need a favor. I ordered something the other day and shipped it to my house since I planned on being there. Do you think you could get it for me? Bruce is out of town.”

“Who was going to pick you up from Heathrow?” I asked sarcastically. With Bruce gone I had volunteered to fetch him, but joking made me hurt a little less.

“I’ll have to hire someone else in two weeks since you’re going to leave me stranded,” he laughed. “So can you stop by my place then?”

“Yeah, when do you need me there?”

“Tomorrow. The status says it will be there at three o’clock and it needs to be signed for, so you’ll have to go straight from work.”

“Okay, will do.”

“Ellie, it’ll be all right, okay?”

“I know, I’m not worried about us anymore. It just sucks because I’m on spring break next week and I planned on having my way with you all over your house.”

“Ugh,” he laughed again, “you’re breaking my heart, love.”

∞

The following afternoon I left work around two in order to have time to walk to Rhys’ house. I hadn’t been there since he left, and walking up to his red door was painful knowing he wouldn’t be there. I still planned on staying that weekend though since I was already there, and it made me feel the tiniest bit closer to him.

When I unlocked the door, I was immediately hit with the smell of flowers. I looked up as I stepped in and gazed around the foyer to see purple hydrangeas and green orchids bouquets everywhere. They were in vases on the floor, on the table, and even some formed into orbs hanging from his staircase. Next to the one on the table was a card with my name, in his handwriting. I still wasn’t sure how he did that; if he left it lying around before he went back to Los Angeles or what, but I knew he wasn’t there. I also assumed this was the delivery he wanted me to sign for, trying to make up for the fact that he wasn’t back yet.

I opened the card slowly, still glancing around at the sight before me, and the sweetness of his gesture. Rhys’ notes were always wordy, but this one only had one sentence.

Open the desk drawer and push play.

I laughed that he’d given me a scavenger hunt and wondered who had arranged it if Bruce was gone, considering maybe Lena or Noah. I opened the drawer to find his iPod and a portable speaker, both things I swore I saw him pack before he left me at my flat. When I pressed play a fun melody started playing loudly from the speaker, and although I had never heard the song I knew it was Jason Derulo’s voice after a few seconds. I turned Rhys on to his music early in our relationship when I said I liked running to it.

Since no one was around, I started dancing to the tune only to freeze when it got to the refrain that said,
I’ll say will you marry me? I swear that I will mean it. I’ll say will you marry me
. I wasn’t imagining it, and Rhys’ songs always meant exactly what they said. I stopped dancing and began feeling confused, afraid that I was making an assumption and it was just something sweet. Maybe the shuffle was messed up on the device and had played the wrong song. I searched for any clue that would explain a mistake. But then as I continued listening to the words, I heard his voice behind me.

“Turn around, darling…”

When I looked behind me, Rhys was on his knee with a small black box in his hand.

“What are you doing? How are you here?”

Rhys smiled so widely it reached his eyes and then he put his index finger to his lips to quiet me. I nodded, pushing back tears from how nervous I was and how exultant I felt to see him.

“Ellie,” he said, reaching out his hand and I walked to him. “I love you, your soul and your heart. It’s been some time now that I asked you to let me be yours, and you did. But now I want to be yours forever, to love you and care for you, and not just to call you mine, but to be my wife and partner too. I want you to let me give you anything you’ll ever need, but especially my heart, completely and fully. Will you marry me, love?”

I stared down at him, smiling but crying, and covered my mouth with my hand. I couldn’t believe he was there, let alone that he was offering me his heart forever. I moved my hand to his face, caressed the stubble on his cheek and then knelt down before him. I kissed Rhys’ lips softly for a long time, a kiss that felt like what I imagined forever with him would be like.

Rhys pulled away hesitantly. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes. Forever with you wouldn’t be enough.”

He hugged me so tightly and aggressively that we fell over to the floor. He kissed my lips, my cheeks and the tip of my nose. It felt like he held me there endlessly, surrounded by the flowers for hours, but when he pulled away he excitedly opened the box and revealed the ring to me. Inside the tiny box was the pear-shaped ring from my visit. It was stunning in his shaking hands. He grabbed my left hand and slid it onto my ring finger.

“It just felt like the one. I actually bought it the day after you left, but we can change it if you like.”

“You bought it then?” My eyes opened wide.

“Yeah,” he looked at my hand nervously and bit his lip. Making eye contact again, he said, “I brought it with me when I came back, but I didn’t want to propose in anger. I thought I could prove to you that I’d never cheat if I gave it to you then, and then considered that wouldn’t have been right.”

I motioned my hand in different directions, allowing the ring to catch the light. “I love it, I don’t want to change it…” I looked up at him to witness pure adoration and love in his eyes. “I love you.”

After kissing and racing to his bedroom, we laid naked together with only my ring on. He said it was better than any lingerie I could ever wear, and I loved every glance he gave to my hand and every twirl of the ring as he held it during our lovemaking. While lying in his arms Rhys explained the extension was obviously a lie to surprise me. He apologized for sneaking around and temporarily disappointing me, but I told him it was worth it.

Things would be easier as he would be home until the fall, and after that we’d have to take things day by day. We spent the night in, eating takeout and savoring each other in bed knowing he didn’t have to leave again. It was blissful, and I finally felt at home again with my other half in London. As we ate, I caught him staring at my hand and I joked with him. “Sir,” I paused, gesturing to my face. “My eyes are up here.”

“Sorry,” he smirked. “It’s just nice seeing it there…I’ve been staring at it for almost a month now.”

“I can’t believe you bought it the next day.”

“I just knew. Truthfully,” he paused and bit his lower lip. “I’d known since Thanksgiving.”

“What?” I swallowed my food back.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “You remember my wish you wanted to know? Well, I knew even then that I had to be with you for the rest of my life. I understand it was early on, but I just felt it, Ellie. I spoke to your parents early that morning as your father taught me how to make the waffles, and before you came downstairs I asked for your hand. I told them that I hadn’t even told you I loved you, even though I already did, and that I was just waiting for the right time. That I was avoiding pressuring you or rushing you after all you’d been through, but that I’d wait forever if I had to.”

Rhys stroked my cheek as he continued. “I explained it could be a long time before I asked, or not, but that I knew it was already my intention to marry you no matter what. I wanted you to be my wife and promised them I would take nothing but the best care of you. They were surprised,” his brows rose. “But then agreed there was no way they could deny a chance for you to be happy…for us to be happy, together. Your mom said she hadn’t seen you smile that much in two years, that even your heart was smiling.”

Rhys paused and watched me intently. “So,” he took a deep nervous breath. “When I got the wishbone that night, I wished you would say yes and let me make your heart smile forever.”

I shook my head very slowly, processing everything he’d just told me. I thought about how excited he was for the wishbone, how sweet he was that entire weekend, and the glances he and my mother shared during our last two days. And then my eyes perked up, startling him.

“Oh my god, that’s why you looked at my mom that way, wasn’t it?”

“I didn’t think you’d caught that, but yes.”

“Rhys, this is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard. You really knew even then?”

“Ellie, I think part of me knew when I first held your hand. I may have kept it together on the outside, but internally I was feeling every possible sensation. It’s like the moment our hands touched I was done; you were mine and I was yours.”

Epilogue

“My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.” -
Romeo and Juliet
, Act 2, Scene 2

Aaron and I were both raised Catholic, so when the time came to plan his funeral, his parents opted for a traditional mass. They set it up with a priest they had known for years, a gentleman that had given Aaron all of his sacraments and would likely have married us. I’d only met Father Matthew once just before the funeral. He seemed nice enough, but I wasn’t in a state to notice much about people then. He was patient though, and took his time allowing various people to deliver eulogies, including James’ emotionally unintelligible one, and then he delivered his.

Since my first impression of him was vague, I only got to know him as he spoke about pain and loss, and how sometimes things happened that left us questioning our faith and life. He told a story about his family, how he had lost his great grandmother to a sudden accident, one that left everyone in his family distraught. And then he told the story of how he and his twin sister lost their mother two years later to a quick fight against pancreatic cancer. I couldn’t understand why he only told depressing stories when everyone was already at their lowest, but curiously I listened. He said both of those events were awful, and that his family still hadn’t completely healed, but explained how they had started to only recently.

Father Matthew said that his sister had always had trouble getting pregnant and wanted a large family of Irish babies. She and her husband had tried for years to no avail, but by some miracle she delivered a healthy baby boy just twenty-three days after his great grandmother died. And then she struggled for a year to get pregnant again, only to deliver another baby boy just eight days after their mother passed. Father Matthew explained that though it had taken them ten years to notice, those dates weren’t coincidence and while not everyone believed it was God’s hand, there was something larger at play. That things happened for a reason and those babies came when they needed them most.

I wasn’t sure what he’d been insinuating at the time or how he could claim that Aaron had died to bring some other person into our lives. I especially hated that he was talking about children, when I had just lost the person I’d always wanted them with. All I could think was what the hell was he thinking when he planned that speech? I pushed Father Matthew’s words into the back of my mind over the two years that followed, but recalled it when I took Rhys home for Thanksgiving. I had been happy with him then, ecstatic to show him my home, but I never could have imagined that maybe Rhys was what Father Matthew was referring to. Remembering the despair I was in when I first heard the words, I considered how different they sounded now that I could comprehend them clearly.

Loss was hard. It hurt like hell, and sometimes it took years to understand it. Rhys had come into my life when I had needed him to, with just enough time after Aaron's passing to actually accept him. He was the only person that made me feel understood and not as some half-widow that was left behind, but as someone who had lost their spark in life.

On the day he proposed I remembered Aaron’s funeral and realized another reason Rhys was so special was because he had no qualms competing with a dead man’s ownership of my heart. He knew that Aaron would always hold it in some way, and that my love for him was infinite. But Rhys also understood that my love was shared, and that he possessed it in a way Aaron never could.

Being engaged again was scary at first. I had an irrational fear that having a ring on my finger meant I’d lose Rhys; that if I wanted him permanently, he’d be taken from me. Rhys could tell once it set in, because he asked if he had proposed too soon, so I explained my fears. I was trying to avoid shutting him out as I’d promised. He listened and calmed me, saying that we couldn’t control everything. He told me that life has its hardships that knocked us on our path, but it also had a habit of bringing wonderful gifts, like each other, and hopefully the children we’d have someday.