Status Updates From Love Me Tomorrow (Put A Rin...

Really good book. Good plot. Particularly good story. Good writing. I really like the couple too and their own individual stories. Slay queen. Good job.

Angling my face to look down at my wife, I note the tear that slips over her smooth cheek. Silently, I take the glasses off, setting them beside me on the blanket. There are some things I’m willing to view how the world does, but there are others—those that are the most precious to me—that I refuse to look at in any other way but how my eyes naturally see.
Things like my wife.

Light streaks across the sky in a color that I can only imagine is green, though I know I only think that because it’s what Sinclair told us on the way here. But still it glows, so bright and so effervescently that I find myself grabbing Savannah’s hand and holding on, tight. It’s striking. Stunning. And even if I never put these glasses back on, I will always treasure this moment.

Fear guts me, because what if they don’t work? What if they do? Will I suddenly find myself wishing this could be a permanent solution? Will I feel differently when I stand in front of my apprentices, most of whom are colorblind themselves, and tell them that I was wrong all along? That saying that we look at the world more uniquely is all just a lie we tell ourselves to feel better?

“What if they don’t work?”
“Then you’ve lost nothing.” Savannah’s voice softens. “Why don’t you see color, baby?”
My throat grows tight as I find her left hand in the darkness, my palm skating over her engagement ring. “My beautiful wife stole them all.”

“I missed them,” I finally confess.
Folding her arms over her chest, she cocks her hip out. “You’re not talking about anyone but Ben and Pablo, are you?”
I shrug. “The rest of them, we’re still feelin’ it out. Testing the waters.”
“You’re ridiculous.”

“Were you video-calling Pablo again?”
“Me?” I point to myself, as though insulted she’d suggest such a thing. “I was scrolling through Sports 24/7 highlights.”
She raises a brow. “One call to Lizzie and I’ll know the truth.”

Gage’s eyes narrow visibly, over the top of Pablo’s furry head. “Owen, somehow the kid managed to whip off his diaper and throw it clear across the room. It hit one of the cats.”
“Not Pablo, though, right?”
My twin stares at me, unblinking. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“He laughed so hard that he pissed himself.”
“That’s not so bad,” I say, “it’s not like you haven’t been there yourself with Ari. How many times did she wet herself before y’all potty-trained her?”

On my tiny phone screen, my twin glares down at Pablo. “You know you’ve spoiled him rotten, right? The little asshole stole my tuna right off the sandwich I put down on the coffee table today, and you know what your son did?”
My chest puffs up with pride at the mention of seven-month-old Ben. God, even now my heart aches with being away from my little guy.

Which is probably why I’m hiding from my wife in our hotel bathroom, for the honeymoon we never found time to take, and video-chatting with Pablo. And Gage, too, but mostly the cat.
My adopted, firstborn son paws the screen and, goddammit, the little fucker is cute, I’ll admit it. “You’re feeding him the good stuff, right?”

She’s single-handedly made me into a cat man, through no assistance of my own, and the only one who feels my pain is poor Pablo. The antichrist sticks to my side nowadays like glue on paper,as though I’m his only saving grace in a world of rambunctious other cats who are not nearly on his level.

I reach out to grip his hand, holding on tightly. “What if I never give them back because I love my husband just the way he is, shadows and all?”
His smile turns lopsided and he rises, his inked fingers cupping my face as he presses his forehead to mine. “I’d love you just the same. Today, tomorrow, and for all the tomorrows that follow.”

His black eyes shine with raw vulnerability. “So when people ask me why I can’t see certain colors,” he says, “I can say that you’re keeping them captive right there on your finger. Turns out you made a promise to me on our wedding day that if I kiss you enough times, you’ll give them all back.”

A gold ring with a marquise-styled ruby gem—the deep red stone winks back at me. I raise a startled glance to his rugged face, only for him to offer a shy smile.

I hate him and I adore him and I love him too much to say anything other than, “Don’t be shy, Owen. Take what you want.”
“Oh, I am, sweetheart, I definitely am.” And then he reaches for my hand, skipping over asking for it, and slides a gold ring to the base of my fourth finger.

“I wanted you to see me, all of me, and know that you’re marrying a man who may see the world a little differently, but when he looks at you, there aren’t any colors that are lost to him because you bring them to life, sweetheart. For him—for me—you bring them to life.”

“I was gonna put Pablo in a cat tux and bring you both down to Barataria. I wanted to do it on the balcony with the sunset behind you and a piece of art I’d painted for you resting on our bed.“

“I hate you.”
“No,” Owen says, humor in his voice, “you love me.”
I peer down at him, my heart in my throat. “Yes,” I whisper, the laughter dissipating when I notice the slight tremble in the hand that he has planted on one knee. Owen Harvey will always have a bit of the shy boy he used to be, and I adore him all the more for it. “I love you so much that it hurts.”
“Hurts so good,” he returns

A deep, satisfied chuckle reverberates in his chest. “But then the girl came back, and no matter how much I tried to shake her loose, it didn’t work. She waltzed into my parlor and made me crave. She went to bat with me, a total test of the wills, and I’ll admit that though I beat her solidly on that score, she got me back by siccing her cat on me like a privately hired assassin.”

That grin widens, like he’s enjoying making me squirm. “I spent the next few months living in misery. Hoping she would show up and beg me to give her a second chance. Alternatively praying that she would never show her face again.”
“You are not warming me up with this speech.”

“Owen,” I breathe, “what are you doing?”
He drops to his knee, his one knee. “Eight months ago, I took a risk and showed up here in California, hoping to win your heart.” He flashes me a wry smile, one corner lifted higher than the other with boyish charm. “It didn’t go so well. The girl of my dreams crushed my heart.”
“Too soon. Way too soon.”

Owen’s brows arch high. “Now let’s not get carried away now. Pretty sure I’m the one who broke his nose.”
“Like I said, just like a man.”

“And because if there was any chance of me even thinkin’ it might not be love, you killed that thought in an instant when you headbutted Joe like a total badass.”
“Just like a man,” I say, strangled laughter fighting to escape, “to say all the sweet things and give me the flowery words, and then give me a virtual high-five for breaking a guy’s nose.”

“Because there is no other woman I’d ever wear an astronaut cat backpack for,” he goes on, destroying me with the absolute sincerity in his voice and the warmth in his gaze, “because there is no other woman in this world who slips her hand into mine when I’m spiraling, and it’s all I need to feel righted again.”

“Then why did you tell me?” I whisper, leaning back into his comforting touch.
His gaze flicks between mine, searching. “Because you can’t take a leap of faith with the woman you love if you aren’t ready to strip yourself down to the studs.”
My breath hitches. “Owen.”

“Life throws many choices at us,” he says, his voice pitched low, “and all you can do is hop on the one that feels right in your gut—even if your gut is telling you two different things.”