I drive up the long, gravel driveway to the Marmont Manor Hotel. This trip will be our fifth to the Connecticut spa and resort, beautifully nestled next to a lake, and surrounded by nothing but trees.
“Let the birthday weekend commence!” Sophia announces beside me, shooting me a warm look.
I shake my head. “Right,” I say. “Yippie.”
She chuckles. “At least it’s just the two of us this year.”
“Oh, I’m definitely going to enjoy that,” I say. Sophia loves to throw a good party, and she’d organized one last year for my fortieth. I’d resisted every step of the way, but in the end, it had turned into one hell of a party. I hadn’t minded at all.
Especially not when it gave me an excellent reason to throw her a surprise thirty-fifth birthday party just a few months later.
She leans forward in the car and watches as the beautiful cabin-style hotel appears behind the trees. “Is it crazy that coming here is starting to feel like coming home?”
“No,” I say. “Even if our actual home might be offended to hear you say that.”
“Considering how much pain it’s giving me over the guest bathroom renovation, I don’t mind if it does.”
“Harsh,” I say, but I’m smiling. The apartment we now own together—contract signed with all the i’s dotted and t’s crossed, lawyers involved on both parties—is a dream. But it’s also old and has needed a considerable amount of renovating and touching up.
We’d originally talked about Sophia moving into my place. But at the end of the day, it was important for her that we live together in an apartment that’s truly ours. And then, the apartment had just found us. A family friend was selling it, a beautiful duplex with plenty of details left from the late nineteenth century.
The only caveat? The past owners hadn’t lifted a finger to renovate it.
In about a century.
“Harsh, but true,” Sophia says, unbuckling her seat belt. “If it wasn’t for our contractor, we wouldn’t have gotten to this point at all.”
I put the car in park. “And if it wasn’t for you,” I say, “we wouldn’t be so far along with the renovations. Half the place is already done, and it’s thanks to you.”
She grins. “I can’t help it. Project managing is my job and my passion.”
“I love it,” I say. “Project manage my whole life, please.”
She rubs her hands together. “Oh, I plan to!”
We check in at the front desk and the staff greets us with wide smiles. They recognize us by now. Sophia chats with the attendant leading us to our usual room. He’s telling her that the tennis court is free all afternoon, and they’ve reserved the spa area afterwards for two full hours for us.
I’d suggested we spend this weekend here, but celebrating my birthday had been her priority, not mine… because I have something different planned for us.
In the hotel room, Sophia shrugs out of her jacket and opens her suitcase. I watch as she digs through for her tennis dress. “Are you ready?” she asks, reaching for the zipper of her pants.
I lean back against the closed hotel door. Watching her hasn’t gotten old two and a half years later. It’s only gotten better. I’ve never known closeness like this. Each of us knowing how the other thinks, respecting them fully.
It’s a true partnership.
“Isaac?” she asks.
“Sorry,” I say and push away from the door. “I’ll get ready.”
Her smile turns soft. “It’s been a busy couple of weeks,” she says.
“You could say that,” I mutter. My niece had arrived early and couldn’t leave the hospital for the first week and a half of her life. She’d stayed there with a sleep-deprived Summer and a frazzled Anthony until she was finally given a clear bill of health.
“At least we know she’s doing great now,” Sophia says. “I still can’t get over just how tiny she was when we saw her last week. I mean, I must have known, because Mia was that tiny once.” She unclips her bra and throws it to the side. I don’t take my eyes off her, even as I unbutton my own shirt. “But I think you probably forget. They’re just that small.”
“They are,” I agree, pulling out my own workout gear. “Emilia’s smaller than Theo was when he was born, though.”
Sophia fastens her sports bra. “She’ll catch up soon enough. She’s home now, and the doctors say everything looks fine. Summer can finally get some sleep. They’ll do great.” She smiles over at me. “It makes me think how scared I’ll be when it’s finally our turn.”
I take a deep breath. “I thought about that a lot over the past few weeks.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
She comes to stand between my legs and rests her hands on my shoulders. “I know we haven’t been trying for long,” she murmurs. “But even seeing what Summer just went through… holding Emilia afterwards must be worth it. She definitely thinks so!”
I smile at her, this woman I care about more than my own life. “I just don’t like the idea of you in any kind of pain,” I say. “Worth it or not.”
Sophia raises an eyebrow. “Can’t say I’m super stoked on the idea either, but you know what I am really excited for?”
“Yes,” I say, and pull her closer. “A baby.”
She nods, her smile widening. “Just imagine,” she whispers.
I kiss her, thoroughly and slowly, and settle my hands around her waist. Imagining it wasn’t difficult at all. I’d gone from seeing kids as a distant possibility, to very unlikely, and now something I really want.
And it’s all because of her.
We play tennis together for an hour before going to the spa. It’s something I never cared for before, never had the time, but swimming in the heated pool is nice on sore muscles. So is using the sauna and steeping in the jacuzzi.
Sophia rests beside me in the hot water, her hair wet against my shoulder. She has her eyes closed, and I look down at her familiar features, her skin still holding a faint tan from our January trip to the Winter Resort in Barbados.
She looks relaxed. Beautiful and familiar and mine, I think. And I know that I’d planned on doing this differently. That it was supposed to be over dinner, romantic and special, with the velvet box I’d brought with me pushed over the table.
But sitting here, with the view of the lake and her next to me, I know that’s not right. That’s the traditional way. That’s the way, I think wryly, Percy had proposed. He’d hidden the ring in her dessert in a Manhattan restaurant and gone down on one knee, the entire restaurant clapped, and Sophia had been mortified. That’s how I’d proposed to Cordelia, too.
What had I been thinking, planning on doing it in a restaurant, too?
Sophia and I are different. She’d taught me, right from the beginning, that breaking with tradition could be a beautiful thing.
“I’ve been thinking about your new hotel in Phoenix,” Sophia says. Her voice is soft, a bit dreamy, and it cuts through my plan-making. “You know, with the zoning issue? I think you could—”
“Are you talking about work right now?” I say.
“Yes. Why not?” She looks up at me, arching an eyebrow. Her skin is rosy from the steam, and I have to resist the urge to kiss her. Marry me, I think. “It’s one of our favorite topics. You helped me on my project last week, and it’s only fair I return the favor,” she says.
I had, just like she does with mine. We don’t work together anymore. Exciteur’s project with the Winter ran its course, and it did so beautifully. Four of the ten franchise hotels are now up and running, and one has already broken even.
“It is. But we have the entire spa to ourselves. Look,” I murmur, pulling her closer to my side, “at that view. The leaves have just come in.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It is,” I murmur, looking at her. I should have brought the ring down here. I should have put it in the pocket of my bathrobe. But then again, she already knows what it looks like.
I’d asked her about marriage a few months ago. It was to test the waters because I knew she’d been in an unequal relationship before, and I never wanted to put her on the spot again. Never wanted to assume and pressure. We’re partners.
The conversation had been raw and honest, and she’d cried before the end. I want us to get married, she’d said. One day.
I’ll still propose, I’d told her. When you least expect it.
Over the past couple of months she’s suspected it. She’s even guessed a few times, especially in Barbados, when we would have beautiful sunset-lit dinners by the beach. But I’ve kept reminding her that I meant what I said. When you least expect it. And now?
I don’t think she’s expecting it at all.
“Sweetheart,” I say.
She looks over at me. “Yes?”
For a moment I can’t get my words out. They’re stuck in a tight throat, and I stare into her blue eyes, trying to find my composure.
Her smile falters. “Isaac?”
“I’d planned on doing this at dinner,” I say.
“Oh,” she breathes, her eyes widening. “Oh.”
The warm water around us moves with swirling motions, propelled by the jet streams below, and all the words I’d carefully prepared slip away. “You’re the funniest, smartest, most brilliant person I’ve ever met. I didn’t know… I didn’t know it could be like this, that relationships could be like this.”
She gives a tiny nod. Me too, it says, and my chest feels painfully tight.
“I’ll always listen, I’ll always be here… and I promise I’ll always be on your team. No one else’s.”
“I know,” she whispers. Her eyes look glazed.
“This was supposed to be done over dinner tonight,” I say and run a hand through my wet hair. “But I can’t help myself. I want to do this too badly. I love you. More every passing week, as unlikely as that seems. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I can’t get down on one knee here…”
“You don’t have to,” she whispers.
I smile. I’d suspected as much. She’d told me, months ago, that she’d had a charade of a marriage once. I want us to be real, she’d said.
“Sophia,” I say. “Sweetheart… I want us to spend the rest of our lives together. Will you marry me?”
She nods, slow at first and then faster, her eyes welling over. But she’s not saying a word. I reach out, my hand on her upper arm.
“Yes,” she says. “Of course, yes.” She locks her arms around my neck and I tug her onto my lap, our bodies molding together beneath the surface of the warm water. “Thank you,” she whispers against my ear. “I love you.”
Elation makes me feel lightheaded, pouring through me like beams of golden light. “Thank you?” I say, my hand gripping the mass of wet hair resting against the nape of her neck.
“For doing it here, in our spot. For doing it in private. Thank you for waiting until I was ready… thank you for pre-asking me before you proposed.” She leans back in my arms, and her eyes are brilliant diamonds, sparkling with happy tears. “Thank you for being you. I couldn’t have dreamed of a better person to go through life with.”
I brush my hand over her cheek, emotion making it hard to speak. “The ring is upstairs. I should have brought it with me.”
“I’ll put it on for dinner,” she says. The ring has a family diamond in the center, surrounded by tiny blue sapphires, on a platinum band. She’d come with me when I opened the family safe and had given me her input. Partners, I think. I want her to love the ring she’ll wear for years to come.
“Wait,” she says, “did you do this just to get out of celebrating your birthday tomorrow?”
I chuckle, and she smacks my chest, making me laugh even harder. “No,” I say. “It was just to get us here without you being suspicious.”
“You succeeded,” she says, her smile radiating happiness. It’s my favorite expression. “But don’t think you’re getting out of the waiters singing for you tomorrow.”
“Sadist,” I say.
Her smile softens. “I can’t help myself when it comes to celebrating you. You’re the best person I know.”
I brush her hair back. She said yes. The rush is a heady one, even if I’d suspected, had hoped, had known deep down that she’d accept.
“Come here,” I murmur.
We kiss in the empty spa, sitting there intertwined, in front of the wide expanse of the lake and the sun slowly setting. The path here had been winding, both for her and for me, and so damn long. The best thing would’ve been to meet over a decade ago. But the second-best thing?
That’s this, right here. Building a life together… and savoring every moment along the way.
