Finish the romance? That's tricky, The story starts with quite a few couples already in play, but not any couples that start in the process of the story and are already...'finished?'
The leads have already become a couple, but I don't know that romance is every truly finished unless the characters break up. But I suppose you could say their romance starts here:
“I know you would fight a dragon for me if you could,” I smile through the tears, “That’s enough. I want you. If tomorrow it costs us all we have, I want you. If we can’t afford to live and I have to get a ‘real job,’ I want you. Today, tomorrow, next week, three weeks from now three months, thirty years - when my hair is turning gray and your pretty mane is thinning into a Dracula widow’s peak at the edges,” his eyes smile, even as the tears rise to the surface, “Can we just love each other, please?”
And became official here:
“Would you have been my girlfriend if I’d asked you out before Etan did?”
That feels so painfully obvious but I answer anyway-
“Of course, I would’ve…”
He reddens suddenly - with an expression that’s almost t-
“Will you be mine now?”
My heart literally stops, but I say quicker than anything-
“Yes.”
The relief that washes over his face is more than enough to make me wish-
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so pretty as he smiles up to his eyes, that sweet, rosy color again-
“Then I’m happy with this. I don’t need to change anything.”
