Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
But it’s only the old Noah Reed who would be terrified by this curveball. New Noah, he is completely and wholly here to process this amazing turn of events that Cole has orchestrated for me.
Though, I can’t say yet that it justifies the balloons.
Which are still hiding someplace.
Cole caresses my cheek. “Noah?”
I snap my eyes to his. A smile beams across my face. “Yes,” I answer, bursting with joy. “Yes, I can’t wait to move in with you. I can’t wait for our lives to start together.”
Cole appears relieved. “Great. Then there’s only one thing left to do.”
And then the sweet, amused smile deepens on his face as he gently takes my hands.
Then lowers himself to a knee.
My eyes grow double.
Wait. Wasn’t this what I was expecting at first?
Why is my heart leaping out of my face right now? Why am I surprised by this like I had no idea it was coming?
“Noah Lawrence Reed,” he begins, his eyes watery with cheer, “I want to be yours forever. I want you to be mine. My heart … and the house that awaits us … is as of yet incomplete and not yet full, until I place a ring on your finger and make you mine.”
“C-Cole …” I nearly whimper, overcome.
“I love you. I have always loved you. And I want to spend the rest of my life loving you. Noah …” He removes from his pocket a tiny box, and from that tiny box comes a sleek, silver band. With a single glance, I feel as if I imprint upon it, like that band exists only for me—my perfect style, my perfect match. “Will you do me the great and wonderful honor of becoming my husband?”
From behind the bushes, a single orange balloon pops up, lets loose, and flies away.
That’s soon followed by another. And another. Then a dozen.
“Gosh dang it!” comes Jimmy’s voice from behind the bushes. “He hasn’t said yes yet!”
“I didn’t do nothin’!” hisses someone else—Bobby, perhaps?
Suddenly all of the balloons let loose, including the dragons. Some of them hover lower to the ground, floating around us like fiery orange lanterns. Others dance higher, carried by the wind, and some drift down to the pool, bobbing around.
Someone must have thought they heard me say yes, because at once a number of people burst into applause, followed soon by the rest of the crowd, all of our friends and family cheering loudly and whistling at us.
Cole and I gaze around, dazzled by the flocks of prematurely freed balloons floating around us. It is absolutely magical. I nearly catch laughter in my throat, overcome with the pretty scene that surrounds us by accident.
Isn’t that the nature of most of life’s beauty? The imperfect treasures that enrich life’s special moments—entirely by accident?
One of the dragons drifts right past my eyes like it meant to say hi, and when Cole and I return our gazes to each other, we find ourselves enchanted, smiles of delight on our faces.
The balloons become an unintended wall between us and the rest of the world, as if giving Cole and I this moment together, all alone, just us.
“Yes,” I answer him at last, only loud enough for him to hear, as we enjoy our brief moment in our orange, floating cocoon. “I want to be yours, Cole. Forever.”
His smile warms. He slips the ring onto my finger, then rises to his feet to kiss me. And when the balloons separate, pulled by the wind, by gravity, or by a demon sorcerer’s magic for all I know, our friends and family see us embracing with this kiss, and the cheering erupts even louder than before, the whole of Spruce here to celebrate us at long last finding our way to each other.
There is a picture that hangs on a wall in my house.
A picture I suspect soon will be moved to our new house.
The frame of the picture was donated by Martha Huntington and her family, whose falling stack of frames at the crafts festival started this whole thing. The picture inside the frame is a blown-up shot of us that was, as I have come to understand it, snapped entirely by accident at the crafts festival. It is a perfect shot of the pair of us in midair, right at the moment in which Cole caught me, pulling me out of harm’s way—protecting me as he always has.
It’s maybe just now, in this moment, that I realize how fitting a depiction that photo is of my Mr. Picture Perfect. Whether or not you believe perfection can be captured in a photo, I know for certain it can be captured in the heart, and once you’ve got it, you better never let it go.
The End.