Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)(87)

“Ouch, Blackbird,” I say with a hand over my heart. It thunders beneath my palm. “Wounded, yet again.”

Sloane grins, her dimple popping out next to her lip, and then she focuses on the lifeless face before her, the eyes rimmed with blood and the features slack. She reaches her gloved fingers to the left eye socket and pulls out a small, round packet wrapped in tape.

“See?” she says as she balances the mystery on her palm and descends the ladder. “Plucked. I plucked it right outta there.”

“You did. Almost like you’ve done this before. Elite-level plucking.”

She stops in front of me, her eyes glittering with amusement as they bound between mine. “What is this?”

“I think the trick with a present is usually to open it,” I say as I press a kiss to her forehead in reply to her eye roll. She takes the tissue I offer and begins wiping the blood from the tape. “Make sure to clean it all off, though. Important documents inside.”

Sloane’s face crinkles, her pretty hazel eyes narrowing as she tries to reconcile my words with the small size of the package. “Documents…?”

“Life-changing documents, actually. So, yes. Be careful.”

With a final, suspicious glance in my direction, Sloane shifts her focus to the ball of tape and cleans every ripple in the cellophane until it’s free of blood. Once it’s finished, she peels off the strips of sticky plastic, setting each one aside until she can unfold the outer layer of protective paper.

Inside is a folded paper napkin. And inside that, another taped present.

“Oh my God, Rowan. You kept this…?” she asks with a chuckle of disbelief as she reads my handwriting scrawled below the logo of a melting ice cream cone on the napkin.

Butcher & Blackbird

Annual August Showdown

7 days

Tie-breaker by rock-paper-scissors

Best of five

Winner takes the Forest Phantom

“Hold on a second,” I say when she’s read each line out loud. “It’s missing something. Hand that over for a second while you unwrap the other one.”

“What are you up to, weirdo?”

“Maybe I want to blow my nose on this highly sentimental piece of tissue. Just hand it over, Blackbird.”

Sloane laughs and shakes her head with confusion, but she passes the napkin back to me and I take my pen from next to my tools to write out a new line, all the while sneaking glances at her to keep watch on her progress as she unwraps the other gift. Like it has every moment I’ve been with Sloane, my heart fucking pounds the entire time, like it’s going to carve itself free of its cage of bones.

When she’s about to pull the final piece of tape from the wrapping around the gift, I place my hand over hers, the napkin folded between my fingers. If she can feel a tremor in my flesh, she doesn’t say.

“I fixed it,” I say, my eyes flicking to the napkin. “Read that first.”

She holds my gaze for a moment before she takes the paper and unfolds it, her movement careful and slow. I watch her eyes shift over the words. Her lips press tight. When she reads it out loud, her voice is unsteady.

“Marry Sloane Sutherland and love her forever, if she’ll let you,” she whispers.

Those big hazel eyes are glassed with tears when she looks up at me. I take the little napkin back. She pulls the last piece of tape from the black cloth and unfolds it to reveal the engagement ring, a blue-gray sapphire set in gold with delicate leaves that climb toward the stone.

And I drop down on one knee.

Sloane swallows. A burst of nerves flood my veins and I’m about to launch into all the things I want to tell her when she says, “Did you just propose on a napkin with a ring you stuffed in a guy’s eye hole?”

I blink. My mouth opens. Nothing comes out for a moment that feels about as long as eternity.

“You know, it seemed pretty cute in my head, but in hindsight…maybe it’s too much?”

She shakes her head.

“Not enough?”

She shakes it again, a few tears jostling free of her lashes.

“Just right?”

“It’s fucking perfect,” she sobs.

“Oh thank Christ.” A long breath whooshes from my lungs as I press my palm to my chest. I clasp my hand over hers, the ring clutched in her shaking grip. “I thought for a minute that I had royally fucked it up.”

Sloane makes some kind of strangled squeak. She starts bouncing. First just little bobs, but they get bigger with every second that passes.

“You seem excited, love.”

An unintelligible, garbled sound escapes her lips.

“Shh. Man-guy is trying to propose here.”

“Rowan—”

“Sloane Sutherland, my beautiful Blackbird. From the first moment I met you, you changed the course of my life. I can’t remember anything being fun or exciting or new without you. I can’t remember feeling anything but numb until you burst into my world in your smelly little cage of orzo pastas,” I say, smiling when her laugh breaks free amidst her tears. My grip firms around her trembling hand. “I can’t envision the future without you in it. And I don’t want to, not ever. So marry me, Sloane, and we’ll go on crazy adventures forever, and fuck shit up, and be best friends and do karate in the garage and make love every day and grow old together. Because I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather spend all those moments with than you.”