I smirked, giving Pearl a hug from the side. “Yet,” I agreed.

Pearl’s eyebrow shot up. We hadn’t officially talked about marriage, but I felt like it was a foregone conclusion. There wasn’t anyone else I wanted to be with, and nothing I could imagine would change that.

“You know,” Greyson said thoughtfully. “You got yourself into a situation, Dean. The way you asked her to be your girlfriend was so dramatic. How are you going to top that for the proposal?”

“Damn,” I said. “I hadn’t actually thought that far ahead.”

“Shocker,” Pearl said, laughing. She gave my bicep a squeeze. “He doesn’t have to top anything. If the time comes when he wants to ask me that question, all I care about is that he asks.” She looked up at me, smiling in a way that made my cock hard and my heart melt at the same time–it was an impressive combination, if you asked me. “All I want is him.”

“Don’t buy that,” Greyson warned. “Typical woman talk. It’s like when they say they don’t want anything for Christmas. Definitely don’t believe that.”

Harper smiled in a way that said his example wasn’t hypothetical.

“I’m serious,” Pearl said. “Big weddings. Big proposals. That’s not really my thing. I would’ve forgiven him if he’d just called me and said what he said.”

“He would’ve tried that if you hadn’t blocked his number,” I said.

Pearl laughed. “Fair point.”

“So do you think your other sister is going to move out here, too?” Harper asked Pearl.

“I’m not sure. With the way Jonas is, I’d say it’s a safer bet he’ll buy a vacation home out here. The two of them hardly stay in one place anymore.”

“Too many more of you move out here and we’ll have to stop calling it a small town,” Greyson noted. “Your family alone might bump us to medium town status.”

“But we’re super happy you’re all here,” Harper said, giving him a little punch.

“Yeah, we are,” he agreed.

A little later in the night I took Pearl down the hill just past the fire. The grass was cool on our bare feet and the sound of laughter and conversation was faint.

“Where are we going?” Pearl asked.

“Anywhere you want.” I stopped, taking her hands in mine and meeting her eyes. “But right here seems good to me.”

She put her arms around my waist, pressing herself into me. “It’s not so bad.”

“There was something I wanted to ask you,” I said.

“Okay.”

“Do you ever want to start a family?”

“You mean having kids?”

“Yeah.”

“Honestly, I’d kind of given up on the idea of relationships ever working out for me. I haven’t thought about it in a long time.”

“I was wondering if you’d thought about it in the last month or so.”

She smirked. “I would say I have never thought about letting my boyfriend get me pregnant, no. I have considered letting my husband put a baby in me, though. If I had one.”