He Asked Me To Wait, I Asked For A Divorce novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Flowers in the Lobby

Broderick proposes again in front of her whole ward, and admits the command board wants a wife waiting at home.

My head nurse's voice came over the ward intercom at ten the next morning, and she sounded strange.

"Hannah Lowry, please come to the front lobby."

I was in the middle of a dressing change on a six-year-old with a broken femur and a very serious opinion about stickers.

"Go," Jo said, taking the tray from me. "I'll finish. Whatever it is, you look at it first and decide second."

I took the elevator down with my badge still swinging against my chest.

The lobby of the children's hospital has a mural of a whale on the east wall and a long glass front desk.

Broderick was standing in front of the whale.

He had on his service khakis, pressed so sharp they looked drawn on, and in his arms was the biggest bouquet I have ever seen.

White roses. Dozens of them.

Two security guards, three nurses on break, and a family waiting for a discharge were all pretending not to stare.

"Han," he said.

His voice carried.

He had always been good at that. A room made him taller.

"You can't be here," I said, low.

"I'm not leaving until you hear me."

"Broderick."

He went down on one knee on the polished floor.

A small gasp rippled across the lobby, and then someone near the desk actually said "oh."

"I made a mistake," he said, loud and warm and rehearsed. "I was scared, and I handled it badly, and I'll spend every day of my life fixing it. Hannah Lowry, you are my wife. Will you be my wife for real?"

He held out the roses.

It was the second time he had proposed to me, and the second time he had done it with an audience.

I understood then that he did not know any other way.

I looked at the people watching.

The family by the elevator was holding hands. The security guard had his hand over his heart.

All of them wanted me to say yes, because it was a lovely scene.

"Get up," I said.

"Say you'll come home."

"I said get up."

"Han."

"No."

The word dropped into the lobby like a tray of instruments.

He stayed on his knee a moment longer.

Then he rose, and the roses went down to his side, and the smile on his face changed into something thinner.

"Can we talk somewhere private?" he said.

I walked him to the stairwell door, past the whale, and stood with my back against the cold metal.

He lowered his voice.

The warmth went out of it like a tide.

"You're making this harder than it needs to be."

"Am I?"

"There's a board in the fall. Command selection. You know what that is?"

"I know you never told me."

"I'm telling you now." He dragged a hand through his hair. "They don't promote the man who has a messy home life. They want an officer with a wife behind him. Steady. Settled. Waiting."

"So the orders were for the board."

"The orders were for the sea time. The wife is for the board." He caught himself, too late, and tried to take it back with a laugh. "That came out wrong."

"No," I said. "That came out exactly right."

He stepped closer.

"I need you to just hold on until the board is over. Fourteen months and a signature, Han, and then we can go anywhere. Do whatever you want."

"You asked me to marry you five weeks after you filed to leave me."

"I know how it looks."

"I know how it is."

He put the flowers down on the window ledge, gently, like they were the thing he had come to lose.

Then he looked at me with the clear, boyish hurt that had made me laugh at a charity run fourteen months ago.

"You were the only one who'd wait," he said.

Behind me, the stairwell door opened a crack, and I heard a nurse's sneaker squeak, and then go quiet.

He hadn't asked if I was happy, or if I loved him, or whether I had slept.

He had said I was the only one.

I understood that I had been chosen the way you choose a coat for a long winter.

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend