Challen and Addy

Chapter 26 (Challen): Hold Out Your Hand

Copyright © 2025 by GroveltoHEA

When I asked Addy to marry me, I was a mess while I waited for her answer. She wasn't the type who said yes before you even got the question out. She wasn't the type who squealed yes the moment you flipped open the ring box. She wasn't even the type who dissolved into tears and could only nod her assent to the question because her hand was clapped against her mouth.

Will you do me the honor of marrying me?

Addy had looked down at the ring briefly when I held it up to her, then her eyes searched mine for what felt like hours. When she still didn't say anything, I wondered if I'd fucked up the proposal. 

For months, I'd thought about how best to propose to Addy. I hadn't wanted to do it in a restaurant (too public for her); I hadn't wanted to do it on a holiday or on her birthday (maybe mine since if she said yes, that would have been the greatest gift ever); I hadn't wanted to do a flash mob (Addy thought those were funny but too over the top for her). She was quieter, more private, and I knew she didn't even want a photographer, videographer or anyone around but us when I asked.

Then I thought of this hole-in-the-wall bookstore, Escape Into Words, that she loved. She'd taken me there many, many times since we'd started dating, telling me how much she enjoyed the small store that was packed with books and how important it was to patronize small, independently-owned businesses so they never closed.

"I never want some small bookstore owner who inherited the store from her mother to have to close her doors and look back into the store one last time and see herself as a little girl dancing with her mother in the store."

Addy considered the movie You've Got Mail to be unbearably sad because of that scene.

The bookstore was never busy, but business must have been steady enough to keep the doors open. I always made sure to buy Addy even more books than she expected to buy, and for her birthdays and holidays, one of her presents from me was always a large gift certificate to Escape.

"Their romance section is the best," she'd sighed.

So, I'd talked to the owner and paid her to rent out the bookstore for the evening. She'd loved the idea of me proposing to her favorite customer in her store and had some suggestions that I didn't think I could ask for.

I'd gone over before my date with Addy and laid out a blanket in the Romance aisle, a picnic basket holding a selection of grapes, cheeses and crackers because Addy loved snacks for dinner, champagne, a huge piece of chocolate cake and and several large cushions to sit on. I'd brought some flickering LED candles and the owner put on my playlist of Addy's favorite love songs.

When I brought Addy there later, telling her we could wander the store while we waited for our non-existent reservation at the restaurant next door, she'd been disappointed to see the Closed sign in the window.

"Wait, the owner's in there," I'd said. "Let's knock and maybe she'll let us in."

I knocked before Addy could protest about how rude that would be, and then the owner was letting us in, all smiles, asking us if we minded being in the store while she ran the day's deposit to the bank.

"I'll lock the door and keep the Closed sign in the window."

Addy had immediately agreed and had wandered toward the Romance aisle before she stopped.

"Challen?"

Then I'd asked her to marry me and died a thousand deaths as I waited for her answer.