Moonlight After Goodbye Chapter 10

Moonlight After Goodbye Chapter 10

Isaac had been quietly pursuing me for nearly two years. He’d followed me all the way from Seattle back to Moonridge, sticking with me through my internship until I landed a full-time permanent position.

He never pressured me to start a relationship, and he never rushed to step in and replace anyone from my past. He simply stayed consistent, always there.

Mom always said he was far more reliable than Declan. Dad never voiced a clear opinion one way or the other, but whenever Isaac came over for a meal, Dad would always cook two extra dishes.

One night Isaac had to work late, so I came home by myself. Dad stared at that extra place setting he’d laid out for a few seconds before clearing it away.

After that, he never automatically set out an extra set of silverware again.

But the second Isaac crossed our threshold? Dad would immediately pop an extra pan of garlic bread into the oven. Sometimes he’d pan-fry two extra steaks too, muttering that younger wolves always had enormous appetites.

Once I spiked a fever and called off work for the day. Isaac rang my phone dozens of times, and when I never picked up, he didn’t hesitate to rush straight over to my place.

Mom answered the front door for him. He stood there gasping for breath on the porch, clutching a bag of medication and a box of fever relief patches. Our apartment was on the fourth floor, and it was obvious he’d sprinted up every flight of stairs without stopping.

He set the medicine down on the coffee table, then pressed one cooling patch to my forehead. It sat horribly lopsided, half the adhesive pad stuck right across my eyebrow.

I was delirious and foggy from the fever.

“Could you put that on straight, please?”

“I’m so sorry, I’m nervous, my hands won’t stop shaking,” he apologized.

He peeled it off to try again, yet the second patch still ended up crooked.

I spent two days resting in bed, and Isaac stopped by three separate times.

The first visit was to drop off medicine. The second, he brought a bowl of oatmeal. Dad claimed he’d made it himself, but steam was still curling off the surface when it was brought to my room.

I took one sip and knew instantly it wasn’t Dad’s cooking. Dad always cooked his oatmeal so the oats stayed whole and intact; this batch had cooked down into a mushy, broken mess.

“Who actually made this?” I asked.

Isaac hovered beside my bed, the tips of his ears flushing bright red.

“I made it myself. Mr. Voss stayed nearby and talked me through each step.”

“How many tries did this take you?”

“It wasn’t much. I just followed a YouTube tutorial and messed up four batches of oatmeal before I got one decent enough to eat.”

On his third visit, he brought hot cocoa and a box of cinnamon rolls.

Mom watched him from the doorway for a long while, then turned to Dad and whispered, “This boy’s a keeper.”

That winter, Isaac and I officially got together.

There wasn’t some grand, dramatic moment to it. He’d simply brought a scarf with him especially for me.

The wind was brutal and biting that afternoon. When he held the scarf out toward me, his very first line was, “Here, you wrap up first.”

I studied him, and his hands faltered mid-movement.

“Is your mind drifting back to him?”

“Not at all,” I replied. “I was just curious what brand this scarf is—it’s a little scratchy against my neck.”

He let out a shy, awkward chuckle.

Later, Isaac flew me out to Murmansk to chase the Northern Lights.

We waited three consecutive nights for them to appear, and the aurora forecast said our odds were extremely high that evening. He stood out in the snow bundled inside a rented military parka, his nose bright red and chapped from the bitter cold.

Every two minutes he’d check in, asking if I was freezing.

“I’m perfectly fine,” I insisted.

“You’re just lying—your lips are already turning blue from the cold.”

He unwrapped his own scarf and moved to drape it around my neck to shield me from the wind.

I held his gaze, and once more his movements stalled halfway.

“Is he still on your mind, truly?”

“It’s not him. It just hit me out of nowhere… for the very first time, someone’s worrying about whether I’m cold before anything else.”

His eyes immediately welled up and turned red.

Right then, the Northern Lights bloomed across the sky. Swathes of vivid green stretched from one edge of the horizon all the way to the other, more breathtaking than any photograph I’d ever seen.

Isaac craned his neck to stare up at the glowing sky for a long stretch, then fumbled deep into the pocket of his parka and pulled out a velvet ring box.

He’d squeezed it tight in his palm for hours; sweat dampened the soft fabric, leaving a distinct thumb indent pressed into the velvet surface.

“Celeste.”

Frost clung to his eyelashes, and tiny ice bits fell each time he blinked.

“I’m no good with flowery words. I had this whole thing rehearsed in my head, but standing out here in the freezing cold, every single line just vanished.”

He opened the box to show a smooth plain wedding band inside.

“Marry me?”

The aurora swirled wide above his head. Its green glow spilled across the snow, settled over his shoulders, and glinted on the fingers curled around the ring box.

My inner wolf lifted its head calmly inside my chest. There was no sharp ache, no restless anxiety gnawing at me—only a gentle, steady warmth settling deep in my bones.

It felt as though the Moon Goddess had at last guided the person I was always meant for straight into my life.

“Yes.”

He froze in shock for a split second.

“You don’t want to think it over first? I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet! I was gonna say my paycheck’s yours from now on, our place back at Riverpine is like fifteen minutes from your parents, and I had this whole list of reasons why I’m serious about us—but my brain just went blank standing here.”

“Isaac. Put the ring on me.”

He fumbled rushing to slip the ring onto my ring finger, put it on the wrong hand by mistake, then pulled it off to try again.

The ring fit a little loose.

“I’ll go get it resized tomorrow,” he said.

“No need. Fingers get slimmer in cold winter weather, so it’ll fit just right once summer comes.”

He glanced down at my hand, then back up at the glowing aurora overhead, and a soft smile tugged at his lips.

“You once told me you didn’t need to keep chasing an aurora that never seemed meant to be yours.”

“I did.”

“Turns out this time, the Northern Lights chose to come find you all on their own.”