Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I’m ready.
We touch down on the soft earth, and I try to keep my legs moving, but Ottar’s extra weight pushes me forward until we’re both rolling on the ground. Okay, not the most graceful landing.
“You did it!” Magnus yells at us, coming over and helping us to our feet. I unclip from Ottar, and then Magnus pulls me into a hug. “I’m so proud of you,” he says, getting all emotional.
“Okay, okay, ease up there,” I tell him. “I survived.”
“No thanks to me,” Ottar says.
“All thanks to you, Ottar,” I tell him, giving him a grateful nod. “Thank you for pulling the chute on time.”
He chuckles then shrugs. “Well, I figured if I didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to propose.” He squints at me. “You are proposing tonight, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I tell him. “For real this time.”
“Ha,” Magnus says, patting me on the back. “I’ll believe it when I see it. Come on, that took a little longer than I thought. We better get back home so you can catch your other flight. Hopefully you don’t jump out of that one.”
Other than deciding that I want Laila to marry me, a lot of other things have changed over the year.
We still work together at Skaugum Estate. We’re obviously a couple, though our work doesn’t always have us interacting all day long, especially as Magnus gets more and more involved with the king and queen, a transition that will happen sooner rather than later with the king’s health in decline. I spend a lot of time in Oslo, but when I come home each night, we’re at least sharing the same bedroom now. No more whispering—and, erm, other stuff—through the walls.
Laila has really found her groove as the nanny. Bjorn is on medication for ADHD, which helps with his impulsivity, and Laila does a lot of focus work with him. It takes patience, but she’s more than up for it, and as a result she and Bjorn have grown a lot closer. Tor too has become a great kid, more sensitive than we thought he’d be, but he’s a good foil to Bjorn.
Then there’s everyone else at the estate: Ottar, Lady Jane, Einar, Olaf, Sigrid. After Laila lost her grandmother they really stepped up in giving her a sense of community, and in the end, they did the same for me. Though both Laila and I may not have any close relatives left, we’ve learned not only to become each other’s family but also that found family is as valid and as important. It just happens to be that our family is now a royal one (and a bunch of zany motherfuckers at that).
That said, we don’t spend all our time there anymore. No, we spend our weekends at the house in Todalen.
Every Friday night, unless there is an event, we fly in the royal private jet up to Todalen and stay the weekend. We have a car we leave at the airstrip, and then we just drive down and have a real, proper weekend together. Just the two of us. Most of the time we don’t even leave the bedroom, let alone the house (Skaugum Estate still lacks a certain amount of privacy). But some days we have coffee with the neighbors, or we go kayaking on the fjord, or we go hiking. Just spending the time with each other doing the simple things.
It’s my favorite part of my life at the moment. And I can only hope and pray that it’s a part of our life that will grow. I want these quiet days with her forever.
It’s May, so the sun is out late these days, but even so, we want to get up to Todalen before dinner. The drive back to Skaugum from the skydiving place is about an hour, and I’m a nervous wreck. I was nervous before, but now that the adrenaline from jumping out of the plane is running through my veins, I’m nearly bouncing in my seat. I can kind of understand why Magnus is addicted to doing this kind of wild shit.
Then again, I’ve been nervous every Friday for the last six weeks, since I first bought the ring, wondering when I’d find the right moment on the weekend to pop the question. I’ve been trying to think of something romantic, and elaborate, and memorable, but I’m not that good at that sort of thing, and I’m definitely not the type of guy who would do the kind of proposal that people film or tell stories about.
But while I’ve been waiting for the right moment, the right moment hasn’t really come. I’m starting to think I need to borrow a page from Magnus’s rule book and just do it on pure impulse. The proposal itself isn’t going to get Laila to say yes. She already knows her answer.