Sunshine Kisses

‘Seven years ago, I had the greatest night of my life. Because my best friend, who I’d been hopelessly, embarrassingly in love with for years, finally let me kiss her. And when we came back to this room, I gave you a gentle goodnight kiss and walked away, when all I wanted was to kiss you senseless and tell you I was madly in love with you. I’ve regretted not doing that every single day since. And I don’t ever want another regret when it comes to you.’ He’d tried planning a speech, but after the tenth draft had still felt pathetic and worthless, he’d decided to go in blind, trusting that the perfect heartfelt words would appear in the moment. ‘Marry me, Sunshine?’

‘Erik,’ she whispered. ‘We’ve been together three months.’

Fear spiked through his body. ‘Um, yeah, yes. I know it’s soon and I know we haven’t had the talk, but it’s not like we haven’t spoken about—’

Soft lips pressed against his, pausing his panicked stream of words. ‘What took you so long?’ she breathed when she pulled away, gripping his lapels.

‘Is that a yes?’ He barely got the words out, his throat constricted with hope.

‘Yes,’ she said, pulling him up by his jacket and dragging his mouth back to hers. ‘Yes.’

Erik lost himself in the feel of her lips, the slide of her tongue, the soft wisps of hair surrounding him as he pressed her body closer to his. ‘I would have asked you on that rooftop,’ he said in breathless, giddy spurts.

‘I would have said yes.’ She was smiling against him, the joy emanating from her palpable.

‘Mhm, too bad I only bought the ring the next day,’ he murmured, wrapping a curl around his finger and tugging lightly, waiting for his words to sink in.

Her body, which had been liquid against his seconds before, went very, very still. ‘Are you fucking with me?’

‘I wish.’

‘Erik.’ She pulled her head back, pools of green searching his face.

He slid the hand still holding the ring box between them, letting her take a good look at the oval emerald winged on each side with tiny diamonds, set in a thin gold band. The same one she had tried a little too hard not to look at when they’d ambled around that tiny, dusty antique jewellery shop.

‘I hadn’t planned this far when I bought it. But I knew it was a matter of when rather than if.’ Erik shrugged and took his fiancée’s hand. Fiancée. While he was very ready to make the upgrade to ‘wife’, that was a word he wouldn’t tire of any time soon. And then, in a scene he’d pictured a million times, he slid the band onto her finger. ‘You know how I have a lot of fantasies involving this dress?’

Abby nodded. They’d explored most of them already.

‘This was top of the list. And it’s better than I could have imagined.’ Erik brushed his lips against the cool stones now gracing her hand. ‘We don’t have to tell everyone tonight. We can wait to tell our mums until we’re ready for their input on wedding planning.’

‘So about fifteen minutes before the wedding starts?’

‘My thoughts exactly.’ Their laughs mingled in the shallow space between them. ‘You can take it off before we go down if you want. I just needed to see it on.’ Erik grinned sheepishly, kissing her fingers again.

Abby faltered. ‘I told you before that I never want to hide anything about us again. But I don’t want to steal your parents’ thunder.’

‘Trust me. Mum’ll be thrilled,’ Erik said dryly. ‘And dad will be happy with anything that takes the attention off him. Are you ready for this though?’

‘With you? Always.’

And as Erik kissed Abby one last time in the setting glow of the golden sunshine streaming through his window, that thread of fate that had tied them together throughout their lives tightened its comforting web.