You, With a View(100)
The first time he said that to me when I moved into his place a year ago, he got the goofiest smile on his face. It’s become his thing—every time I walk in the door, he’ll call it out to me, even if I just walked down to the corner store. And when I get up the stairs, he’s wearing that same smile, dimple shamelessly on display.
I never get tired of hearing or seeing that, and after three weeks away from home and all the people we love, it feels like a moment I want to memorize, too.
“I love you,” I say. My life with Theo is like finally slipping into a space that’s shaped just for me. My path to get here was long, and often disorienting as hell, but the payoff was worth it.
I wish Gram were here to see. But somehow, I think she knows.
“I love you, Shepard,” Theo murmurs against my lips.
I check my watch over his shoulder—it’s after nine, but I’m starving. “Did you say Thomas and Sadie dropped off groceries earlier or did I dream that?”
“They were here,” he says cryptically, his mouth curling up as his gaze moves beyond me. I start to turn, expecting to see them standing behind us with confetti poppers, but Theo palms my cheek and brings my attention back to him.
I lean back, still in the circle of his arms. Underneath his sun-bronzed skin, his cheeks are flushed. His eyes are bright, a little wild, which I assumed was from overtiredness. He barely slept the entire ride home. In fact, he kept me up with a nearly constant bouncing knee that I threatened to put out of commission permanently.
“Are they . . . still here?” I venture.
He laughs. “No.”
“Are you worried they went through our stuff or something? Mas is nosy as hell, but Sadie knows to keep him away from bedrooms and vibrator stashes.”
“No,” he repeats. “I just don’t want you to look behind you until I tell you that I did something while we were gone. Or I had Granddad and your family do something while we were gone, with my direction.”
“What?”
“You’ve been meaning to put up new photos on the wall, right?” He nods his chin over my shoulder, and I start to turn. Again, he directs me back to him.
I push against his palm with my cheek, but he holds fast. “Oh my god, let me look!”
He laughs, his chest shaking against mine, pressing closer. I can feel the beat of his heart. How fast it’s going. “Holy shit, you’re impatient. Let me set it up.”
“I’m going to be old and gray by the time you do.”
Something shifts in his expression, from amusement to hope so raw it wraps a fist around my heart. “I can’t wait to see that.” Before I can respond, he continues, “You wanted to put new photos in the frames on the wall, but you’ve been so busy I wanted to take that off your plate. I thought it’d be cool to come home to it already done.”
“You chose the pictures and everything? All on your own?”
He nods, biting at his lip. “I picked some that I know are your favorites. Kind of a mixture of trips we’ve taken, shots of our families, that kind of thing. I even got a few from Italy.”
Everything inside me melts. “You really are the best, do you know that? If it didn’t benefit me so much, it would be annoying.”
He doesn’t even return with a smug quip. Instead he grins. “Okay. Now you can look.”
I turn. The wall is big enough that it can handle close to twenty frames in various sizes. I start from the top left and work my way across. There are new photos from our road trip with Paul, replacing some of the ones that were there before. Photos from weekend trips we’ve taken, dinners out with friends, one of Paul and my dad, who have turned into hiking buddies, my favorite snapshot of Gram and me, and—
Nestled in the middle are four framed pictures of Theo and me, ones I haven’t seen before. It takes me a second for my brain to realize what I’m looking at, but my heart catches on right away, beating furiously.
In the first picture, we’re on a private boat tour in Positano and I’m facing away from the camera, my hair flowing out behind me. Theo is in the foreground, faced toward the camera, a small smile on his face. He’s holding a piece of paper that says: WILL.
The next picture, we’re at dinner in Florence and I’m gazing out toward a cobblestoned square where a band is playing. Again, Theo’s holding up a piece of paper, a little smirk on his face. It says: YOU.
“Oh my god.” Tears are already falling from my eyes. I move on to the next one.
We’re at the beach in Taormina and I’m staring out at the ocean, hand shielding my eyes. Theo’s a few feet behind me, wearing only swim trunks, looking gorgeous. I can still feel the heat of his skin against my palms when we came back to our hotel and got tangled up in bed. In the picture, Theo’s sign says: MARRY.
In the last picture, we’re in front of a coffee shop in a narrow, picturesque alleyway in Rome. Theo has me wrapped up in his arms and my face is tucked into his neck. He’s looking at the camera, his eyes filled with so much love I can’t help letting out a sobbing laugh. I remember that moment, when he pulled me into a hug so sweetly affectionate. I closed my eyes and soaked it in and thought god, my life is so good.
There’s a ring pinched between Theo’s fingers in the picture, and a piece of paper is held up against my red dress. It says: ME?