Ten Years to Win Her, Two Weeks to Leave Her novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: The Night Before
The night before the wedding, Nolan climbed the ladder to the dome roof with a wool blanket over his shoulder.
The roof was a flat ring of steel around the dome's base, with a low ledge and the whole high desert dark beyond it.
The sky was packed with stars to the horizon.
There was a green thermos on the ledge.
It was new, with a dent already in the lid, and it was exactly the color of the old one.
Lydia sat beside it in the gray coat with her knees pulled up.
"I bought it at the camp store in Burns," she said. "I couldn't find the right cocoa. This is from a packet."
"It always was."
"I know." She poured him a cup and held it out. "I just wanted you to see me do it."
He took the cup.
It was hot, and too sweet, and he drank all of it.
She watched him with her whole face open.
Then he set the cup on the ledge, and took her left hand, and slid a small band of gold onto her ring finger.
It was the ring he had handed back in a corridor two weeks ago.
"I'm putting it on now," he said. "Not for the wedding. Because I want it there tonight."
Her breath broke.
"You said you wouldn't say it back."
"I said not that day." He held her hand against his chest. "I love you, Lydia. I did before you said it. I didn't need you to say it. I needed you not to be afraid to."
She made a sound, and pulled him down by his collar, and kissed him.
It was nothing like the kiss in Cabin Nine.
It was slow and deep, and her mouth was warm from the cocoa.
His hand slid into her hair, and she pressed up against his chest.
He spread the blanket on the steel.
He laid her down on it under the open sky and knelt over her, and the stars were behind his head.
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