“You have a lot left to offer, and you know it,” she nudged me.
“You know I love you, right?”
Her expression melted as she leaned against my shoulder, the smell of her shampoo tickling my nose. “I love you, too. I hope we stay this happy until we are old and gray.”
I wrapped my arm around her waist, feeling somewhat funny about the whole getting old thing. “I hope you love me that long,” I whispered under my breath.
“I will love you until the end of time.”
“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“You shouldn’t have said it aloud then,” she giggled.
I laughed. “Yes, ma’am. You sure you can live with me until I’m old and gray?”
She looked up, her eyes warm and full of affection. “Absolutely. Just means I’ll have to be the one to stroke your ego when you’re old, instead of hordes of screaming women.”
I leaned down, gently brushing my lips against hers. “I don’t need the fans, the fame, or any of that as long as I have you. That’s all I need. You.”
“Just when I think you can’t blow me away anymore, you do,” she whispered.
I smiled against her lips. “Well, I hope I am able to just that for the rest of our lives, babe.”
She wound her arms around my neck, pulling me in for another deep kiss.
“God, I love your kisses. I would almost pay for those,” I joked.
“Well, you can start with that piano you promised me,” she whispered.
I grinned and tweaked her nose. “I'll buy you a warehouse full of pianos if you keep kissing me like that.”
“Deal.”
Epilogue
Nalia
“Come on, come on, where the heck is that dress?” I muttered. I tore into my closet, and eventually managed to find the little, black dress I had been looking for in the back behind my winter clothes. Crazy place for it to be, but it didn’t matter. If I didn’t hurry up, I was going to be late. Not that it was a new concept.
Throwing it on, I pulled all of the curlers from my hair and gave it a fluff, glad that I had already done my makeup. Tonight was extremely important, and I didn’t want any part of it or me to be out of place.
In the middle of all the hubbub, the doorbell rang. I rushed barefoot to it, throwing open the door to find my brother waiting impatiently in the doorway. “I’m running behind.”
“Tell me what else is new,” Jackson grumbled as he walked in, Grace was right behind him. “That’s why I picked you up last, sis.”
I rolled my eyes at him, a little too melodramatically for his liking, although Grace let out a chuckle.
“I couldn’t find my dress,” I shot back, picking up the small studs that Owen had given me for our first Christmas together. The thought made me smile, set my heart aching to see him, and sent my pulse racing.
It was rare that we spent more than a day apart, but he had been working so hard on tonight’s event that I had stayed largely out of his way for the better part of two days. He had been working feverishly to make sure the event would go off without a hitch. Besides, my apartment needed to be packed up, hence the reason I couldn’t find anything. Half of the place was already in boxes, and the other half was scattered in piles and stacks and general mountains of disorder.
I was moving in with Owen at the end of the week, a date which would mark one year of happiness for us. He had popped the question about moving in to me over dinner just a week prior, and since I already spent the majority of my time at his place anyway, there didn't really seem to be any reason to continue to pay rent here.
“Come on, Nalia!” Grace shouted from the hallway, her tone bordering on agitated. Probably not because I was running behind as much as she was having to listen to Jackson go on about me running behind. When it came to Jackson, she had a rather short fuse, and her moods could switch in a blink. Plus, she was ready to go. For some reason, she was more excited than I would have thought for tonight’s event. We were all excited, though.
I had cried like a baby when Owen had casually mentioned a few months before that he was putting on a black tie charity event for the local orphanage. After growing up in and out of orphanages, I had a heart for helping in that area, and there were a great deal of kids growing up like I had who were going to benefit from his generosity.
The thought of my own past and the fact that he was so dedicated to helping people who were going through such hardships really made my heart swell with both pride and love. It made me even more proud to call him mine, and ever so grateful to have someone like him in my life. I wasn't sure what I'd done to deserve someone as kind and generous as Owen but, whatever it was, I thanked God for it.