Meg Cabot - Missing You

Besides, Rob wasn’t here, I’m sure, because of any romantic feelings he might be harboring for me. Probably his sister had run away again.

Or maybe he just wanted his ring back.

The thought caused me to pause midway down the stairs.

That’s right. He probably wanted his ring back.

And suddenly, I found I couldn’t breathe.

My heart banging ridiculously hard in my ears, I crept the rest of the way down the stairs. The house was in darkness. Both my parents were asleep. Only Chigger was awake. He climbed down off the living room couch—the one Mom had forbidden him from sleeping on, so he only did it when she wasn’t looking—and came to the door to greet me.

“Sit,” I said to him, quietly unlocking the front door. “Stay.”

The dog did neither. He licked my hand, then walked silently back to the sofa and climbed back onto it. So much for knowing over fifteen commands.

I opened the screen door and slipped out onto the porch. Rob was already there waiting in the shadow from the porch roof cast by the moonlight. I couldn’t see his eyes. They just looked like twin pools of darkness to me.

But I could see the place in his neck where his pulse beat. For some reason, a shaft of moonlight fell right across it.

And I could see it was thrumming almost as fast as my own.

“Hey,” he said in a soft voice.

It was a neutralhey . Sort of a questioninghey . Not likeHey, good to see you. More like,Hey…what’s going on here?

Like I knew.

“They have this new invention now,” I whispered. “It’s called cell phones. You can call people now in the middle of the night, if you need to, instead of throwing rocks at their window.”

Rob said, “You never gave me your cell number.”

“Oh.” Well, I never said I wasn’t an idiot.

And suddenly, I knew. I knew why he was there. And it had nothing to do with his sister.

Cold hard fear gripped my heart. I found myself slipping my left hand behind my back.

Because I knew then. I knew I wasn’t giving that ring back. Not unless he pried it off my dead body. I’d never worn a ring before in my life—I’m not exactly a jewelry girl.

But I’d gotten used to wearing this one, and fast. I wasn’t ready to give it up. I didn’twant to give it up.

And I knew, right there on the porch, that I wasn’t going to. Instead, I was going to do what Ruth had told me to.

I was going to ask him.

Unless, of course, I didn’t have to. Because if he held out his hand and went, “Give it back,” that would be a pretty strong indicator that the answer was no.

“Are you missing something?” I asked him, still keeping my hand behind my back. “Something else, besides your sister, I mean? Is that why you’re here?”

A strange sort of expression passed across his face. I couldn’t tell what it was, exactly, because his head was still in shadow. But I saw some of the tension seem to leave his shoulders.

“My sister left this afternoon,” he said. “With her mother. After stopping off at the police station for about a trillion hours. Hannah’s not what I’m missing.”

I held up my left hand.

“Is it this, then?”

He sucked in his breath.

“You have it?” he asked. “God, I thought I was going crazy. I was looking everywhere.”

“You couldn’t wait until morning?” I asked him. “You had to come get it now, in the middle of the night?”

“I didn’t realize you must have taken it,” he said, “until a little while ago. And then I—”

He broke off. I still couldn’t see his face so well. But it was clear he wasn’t exactly smiling.

“You what?” I asked.

“I had to know,” he said, finally, with a shrug, “if you took it. Well, not so muchif. More like…why.”

My heart still banging in my ears, I took a step towards him. I knew the moonlight was full on my face. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care what he saw there.

“Why do you think?” I asked, tilting my chin up.

“I don’t know what to think,” Rob said. “The whole way here, I was thinking I was crazy. I mean, whywould you take it? Unless…”

He took a step towards me. I still held up my left hand. The moonlight caught on the diamond, and caused it to sparkle crazily.

“Jess,” Rob said in a cautious voice. “What are you doing? Seriously.”

“Seriously?” I shook my head. “I really don’t know.” Because I really didn’t. All I knew was that my throat was dry as sand and that my heart was doing crazy things inside my chest. I think it might have been a jig. “But you’re like the hundredth person to ask me that today. Do you want it back?”

“If you’re not gonna marry me,” Rob said. He seemed confused. I didn’t blame him. “Then, yeah, I want it back.”

“What if I am?” I asked him, though it was kind of hard to talk, considering the fact that I couldn’t seem to breathe anymore.

“Am what?”

Then Rob took a step forward that brought him out from beneath the shadow of the porch roof. And even though his back was still to the moon, I could see his eyes.

“Jess,” he said in a warning tone.

Which is when I took the deepest breath I could—considering I couldn’t seem to inhale at all—reached out to grab a fistful of his shirt, dragged him the two-step space between us, and said, my face just a few inches below his, “Rob. Will you marry me?”

He looked down at me expressionlessly. “You,” he said, “are insane.”

“I mean it,” I said. Amazingly, the second the words were out of my mouth, the crazy banging in my ears stopped. And I could breathe. I could actually breathe. “I’ve been an idiot. I had a lot of crap to deal with. And I think I’m done dealing with it now. Almost all of it, anyway. Obviously I still have to finish school—and so do you—and all of that. But when we’re done with school, I think we should do it.”

Rob looked about as serious as I’d ever seen him look. “What about your mom?” he asked.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m over eighteen,” I pointed out. “Besides, she’ll come around. So, are you in?”

I will admit, it wasn’t exactly easy to breathe while I was waiting for his reply. In fact, it was impossible.

So it was a good thing he said, “I’m in,” before I ran out of oxygen and collapsed right there onto the porch.

I grinned up at him. “Good,” I said.

And then, just like that, we were kissing.

Well, okay, maybe not just like that. I might have had something to do with it, by standing up on my tiptoes and throwing my arms around his neck.

I am definitely responsible for what happened next, which was that I grabbed another handful of his shirt and started leading him to the front door.

“Jess.” Rob was grinning. Even in the shadow of the porch roof, I could see his smile. “What are you doing?”

“Shhhh,” I said. “Follow me. And be quiet or you’ll wake them.”

“Jess.” Rob let himself be led inside as far as the foyer before he put on the brakes. “Come on,” he whispered, as Chigger came over from the couch to give him a few desultory licks before retiring again. “This isn’t right.”

“No one’ll ever know,” I assured him. “You can sneak out before they wake up. Besides,” I added, “it’s all right.We’re engaged .”

Which is how Rob got to see my room that night for the first time. And a lot more than just my room, actually.

Twenty

He woke up before I did.

“Jess,” he was whispering, when I opened my eyes to find the gray light of dawn turning my bedroom walls pink. Also to find Rob putting his shirt back on, a sight truly worth waking up so early for. “I’m gonna go.”

“Don’t,” I said, throwing my arms around his waist. I’d apparently missed the putting back on of the jeans. Too bad.