Chapter 23: Yes, In Writing

Leah's POV

I came to the seven-ten ferry with nothing in my hands.

My father stood at the gangway in his navy jacket, with his cap tipped back and a grin he was failing to hide.

"Morning, Captain," I said.

"Morning, sweetheart. You're early."

"I was told to be."

"Told by who?"

"You know who."

He winked, which he never did.

Miles was already at the stern, at the exact rail where he had once watched me laugh with a thermos in my hand.

He wore a plain white shirt, no jacket, and he held his phone in one fist.

The deck was half full of commuters, and some of them had read the news.

A woman in a rain jacket nudged her friend and whispered, and the whisper went down the benches.

I walked back to him between the rows.

"You said bring nothing," I said.

"I did."

"I brought nothing."

"That's all I wanted."

He took a breath.

"Leah, two years ago a woman I'd never met wrote to me about onions and regret."

A man near the railing laughed softly.

"I fell in love with her sentence," Miles said.

"Then I found out whose it was, and I fell in love with the person who wrote it."

"Miles."

"I'm not done."

His voice shook, and he let it.

"I'm bad at this. I read your messages a hundred times, and I still can't say it as well as you did."

He held out the phone.

The screen was open to a message thread with no name on it.

Under the empty reply box he had typed: Will you marry me?

"I thought you should answer in your own handwriting," he said. "The way you answered me the first time."

Keep reading free with an account. Start She Catfished Him With My Face, So This Time He Is Mine from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.