Rosie
“I have no idea if I got this right,” he said from behind me, his hands covering my eyes.
After leaving the restaurant, Lucas had ushered me into the elevator—the one inside the building where Zarato was located—and took us up to the top floor.
Before the doors opened, he told me to close my eyes and laid both hands over them, saying, “For good measure.”
We walked very slowly now, Lucas guiding me forward. His legs tangled with mine, and I grasped both his wrists to keep myself from falling.
“Is this really necessary?”
“Yes,” he confirmed, bringing me to a stop. “Cosmo said that the element of surprise was very important.”
“Cosmo?” A bark of laughter left me. “As in Cosmopolitan, the magazine?”
“What’s so funny?” he asked, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Nothing.” I let my hands fall from his wrists. “Just that you sound like a guy from a chick flick from the noughties.”
His hands shifted so only one palm was covering my eyes. Then when I felt his other one at my waist, tickling my side.
“Hey!” I squealed, breaking into a fit of giggles. “What was that for? That’s a compliment. It doesn’t get better than 2000s Matthew McConaughey.” I waited for his laughter, but it didn’t come. “It was all innocent teasing.”
“Nothing innocent about it, Rosie. You know how much I like it,” he said. And before I could utter a word, his arm wrapped around me, the tips of his fingers making contact with the bare skin of my back. “Careful with the step,” he added before lifting me up in the air.
And just as swiftly, I was placed back on the floor. And I… was too stunned, distracted, to even say thanks.
Lucas chuckled darkly as he guided us forward again. “Just so you know, I used other sources that weren’t magazines.” We turned to the right, and then stopped again. “Hold on one sec. Keep your eyes closed. I’ll be right back.”
I heard his steps as he walked away.
“I watched a few movie endings,” he said in the distance. “Classics, for the most part. Until I discovered that people put together grand gesture compilations on YouTube.” His voice grew closer, and then, his hands were back on me. On my waist this time. “And I also had your book.”
My heart pounded.
“The ending was a pretty good reference. Insightful.”
My book’s ending. That I’d written. Lucas had read it. He—
“You can open your eyes now.”
As if on autopilot, my eyelids lifted.
And I… Oh God. I wished I never had. I wished I hadn’t opened my eyes to something like this.
Because whatever I had been feeling a few seconds, minutes, hours ago had been nothing, nothing, compared to what was flooding my chest now. My body. I felt so light, so elated and moved, that I could take flight and float into the dark, stormy night.
“Lucas,” I whispered.
His hands trailed up to my shoulders, his palms warm, so warm, against my skin and he said, “What do you think?”
We were on the rooftop of the building. Half of it was a greenhouse, flowers of all colors scattered around us, while the other half was open and exposed to the overcast November sky, that now seemed lit by strings of fairy lights that crisscrossed above us.
It was a beautiful place. Magical. Transcendent. It felt like a moment you know will become a memory before it’s even passed.
Dad’s words came back, Remember to pick the boy that will plant a garden for you instead of just getting you the flowers, Bean.
“I’m not sure if I did this right,” Lucas said. “This is my first grand gesture.”
Battling against the emotion clogging my voice, I shook my head.
“You did. It’s perfect, Lucas. This is all so beautiful, I…” God, I needed to keep it together. I couldn’t let him know how much I was feeling in that moment. “I wouldn’t change a thing. Not one.”
“You flatter me, ángel. But this is not all. This is not what I hoped I got right.”
He dipped his head and brushed his lips over my cheek very softly, surprising me at how different this felt compared to every other time he’d done that. Breaking my heart, too, because I wanted so much more than a simple kiss on the cheek.
Lucas grasped my hand, pulling me forward with him. We stopped only when we reached a bench where he had laid a blanket, a Bluetooth speaker, a bottle of wine, and a pink box with a ribbon.
He pulled his phone from the pocket of his suit and tapped on the screen. Music filled the space around us. “You said you wished we’d met at Aaron and Lina’s wedding,” he said, his expression turning grim. He took one determined step toward me. “I thought that tonight, for this one last date, we could pretend we were doing that. Meeting for the first time.”