by Nella Tyler
“Briella, you’re home!” Dexter gave me a hug. Even after all this time, his hugs still managed to make me feel safe in the world. He never raised his arms at me unless it was to give me a hug. I couldn’t imagine loving anyone more.
“I am,” I said. “What have you been up to today?”
“Thinking,” he said.
“Oh?”
“About how lucky I am.” He leaned against the counter and smiled. I could see the edges of one of his tattoos when his shirt hiked up in his lean. “I could be working a thankless job at a shitty corporation, and instead I’m working for a really, really good person.”
“My dad’s just glad to have you, I bet,” I said. It turned out that Dexter’s timing couldn’t have been better when he quit. My dad turned his attention to a shipping company, and he couldn’t quite get it off the ground. With the help of Dexter’s money and employment, things seemed to be running smoothly. Dexter could still pour his heart into work, and now, it was working for good.
Dexter smiled. “He’s coming over for dinner, right?”
“Yeah, do we have any hot sauce?”
“Of course.” Dexter and my father both adored hot sauce on everything, and I’d learned to ignore how bizarre it was that they couldn’t just enjoy food without setting fire to their mouths.
I heard a knock at the door and let my father in. He was smiling; he did a lot of smiling lately, now that he was having better luck with his company. Well, it wasn’t luck; he’d employed someone who would work tirelessly to make sure that everything ran smoothly.
“Is Dexter in the kitchen?” Dad asked.
“In here!” Dexter called, having only heard his name.
We followed him into the kitchen, and my dad shook his head. “The man’s worked all day, Briella!”
“So have I!”
“So has she!” We both exclaimed at the same time. We grinned at one another, and my
father laughed heartily at the situation.
“I like cooking.”
“That’s why I keep you around,” I informed him.
“You don’t find men who work that hard anymore,” Dad said. “You just don’t. I could hire 10 men and I bet they couldn’t do the job he does.”
“I know. He’s incredible.”
“I’m right here!”
“We’re complimenting you,” I retorted, and swatted his shoulder.
We had yet another phenomenal dinner. Dad could never seem to heap enough praise on Dexter’s shoulders, and no matter how much he heaped, Dexter never seemed to fully understand or feel that he deserved it. I talked to him late at night sometimes about how he still felt like he’d abandoned someone, left something behind. Mason Investment had hit the shitter since he quit, and his father had appointed Tyler as his successor. People started pulling their funding; no one wanted to go to the firm.
Tyler, of course, delighted in it. He did everything he could to make sure that people knew exactly what the successor to the Mason throne was spending his money on. He got to party all the time while bringing ruin to the family name.
Leonard Mason was alive, of course, still in Florida. Dexter hadn’t spoken to him since that fateful night two years ago when he’d quit his job. Sometimes I thought to bring it up, but it didn’t seem like we needed to. We were away from it all.
This was enough.
After dinner, I decided to do the dishes, just so I wouldn’t feel like Dexter was overworking himself. Dexter still stood beside me at the sink, and I noticed him making a lot of eye contact with my father.
“Are you making fun of me or something?” I asked him.
Dexter shook his head. “No, there’s… there’s something I have to tell you.”
I expected him to have something to say about his father or the corporation. Every day I feared he’d wake up and realize what he’d walked out on. “Oh. Um, yeah, sure.” I set down one of the dishes. “All ears.”
He cleared his throat rather formally, like he might start giving a speech. Dad was sitting down at the table with a grin on his face. This all felt rather strange.
“I love you, Briella. I’ve loved you since I saw you at The Amelie two years and some months ago. After watching our relationship grow, and after seeing you prove again and again to be the only woman I could ever be with, I only have one thing to ask of you.” Dexter knelt down, and I couldn’t understand.
He withdrew a ring box from his pocket and popped it open. “Will you plan one more wedding? For us?”
I clapped my hand over my mouth and instantly looked at my father. He was grinning, sitting up in his chair.
“My dad’s here,” was all I could think to say.
“I knew he had to be,” Dexter said.
I nearly cried at how considerate he was. I didn’t know what to say. I would need to get a different place, and we would certainly need to start looking at caterers now before the prices went up in the spring.
“Don’t leave the man hanging!” Dad exclaimed.
I shook my head and shrieked a laugh, jumping up and down slightly to contain my enthusiasm. “Oh my God, yes!” Didn’t that go without saying? “Of course, yes!”
He slid the ring onto my finger—I hadn’t even gotten a good look at it yet in all the excitement, but I had the feeling he’d probably consulted Nina about it. He pulled me in for a hug, and I wrapped my arms around him, smiling madly.
Everything in the world had changed since the day that I met him. But now, it finally felt like I could go home.
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