Suddenly, he licks his lips and seems to get an anxious look on his face. He seems lost in thought, his brow creasing, his eyes faraway.
“Is something wrong?” I ask, nervous suddenly.
He shakes his head. “Just…just hold on one second.”
Smith fishes in his pocket. Pulls out a small velvet box.
My heart slams against my ribcage so hard I’m sure it cracks a bone. Oh God, is it…
“I wasn’t going to do this like this.” He cracks the box open, and there’s a large, sparkling diamond sitting there nestled in black velvet. He looks up at me, and I see love shining in his eyes. “I wanted to do a fancy proposal. Really knock you off your feet. But in the end, we don’t need fancy. We just need us, you and me, together. What makes us work is how we satisfy each other’s needs, no matter how simple.”
My throat closes, and I feel a burn in the backs of my eyes. I nod.
“You’ve made me so happy, Aubrey. I know this is fast, but fuck it. I love you. I want to marry you. I need you to be mine, and I need to be yours. Will you marry me?”
I gasp and grab the back of his neck, tugging him to me. “Yes. Of course I will.”
I hear him exhale hard, and then his arms are around me and he’s hugging me so tight it’s like we fuse into one. “Oh, thank fucking God. Thank God.” His hands are stroking my hair and he’s almost overwhelming me with a surge of his love.
I begin to actually cry and I cover his face in kisses. My hands are shaking. He pulls back and puts the ring on my finger, and I swallow, then kiss him again.
My beloved.
My fiancé.
The man who believed in me when I needed someone. Who opened my eyes to pleasures I couldn’t fathom. Who accepts me as I am, frees me, cherishes me, protects me. How could I possibly want anything more than Smith? There’s no way.
I hold my fiancé in my arms, and we sit there, me on the bar in his shirt, him wrapped around me. Our own little bubble of happiness.
“Michaela?” I say later that morning after Smith and I went to bed in his apartment, had sex, then fell asleep wrapped in each other. I’m whispering into my cell phone in the kitchen. “How do you feel about visiting me in Rock Bridge?” I ask her.
“Hell yeah. It’s not that far of a drive. When can I come?”
“I’m not sure yet.” My heart skips a beat. “I’ll need your help.”
“With what?”
“With planning my wedding.”
Michaela screams so loud into the phone that I’m sure Smith can hear her from the bedroom. “Are you fucking pulling my chain right now? Because if you’re fucking with me, I’m going to beat your ass, you bitch.”
“I’m not!” I squeal and look down at the ring on my finger. “He proposed to me early this morning after the bar closed!” I decline to tell her what our activities were before said proposal—that’s our dirty secret.
“Oh God, I’m so fucking happy for you I could cry. I can’t wait to meet him. I’m coming this weekend, okay? And don’t say no, because I’m, like, already packing a bag as we speak and I’m going to call in dead to work.”
“I love you so much.” I’m laughing and crying again, and I feel so happy I could explode.
“So have you told your parents yet?” Her words are gentle; she knows about the fight that happened. I haven’t spoken to them in months, too upset to return their calls. Surprisingly, she’s left me messages every couple of weeks, nothing big, just saying she wants to talk. I just haven’t been ready to.
“I guess I should,” I say, discomfort tightening my chest.
“They might want to know.” Michaela’s voice is soothing. “But you do what feels right, okay?”
A pair of warm, familiar hands slide across my waist and cup my breasts through the shirt I slipped on before padding down to the kitchen. I lean back against Smith’s chest and look up at him. Michaela, I mouth as I point to the phone. He nods and kisses my forehead.
“Okay, bitch, I should go then,” I say. “I have shit to do and a fiancé to have more sex with.”
“Hell yeah. I support this.”
We blow each other kisses over the phone and hang up.
Smith gets his coffee pot going and turns to me, leaning against his kitchen counter. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, I guess. I just…don’t know how I feel about calling my parents right now, to be honest.”
He looks at me without judgment, but his face is serious. “Call them. I’d give anything in the world to call my dad right now and tell him about you. He’d love you, you know.”
The words pinch my heart with guilt. Fuck. “That was insensitive of me. I’m sorry.”
He gives me a small smile and rubs the back of my neck. “I know you weren’t trying to be. But I think if you talk to them, you’ll feel better. Just something to think about.”
“Will you stay here while I call them?”
“There’s nowhere else on the fucking planet I’d rather be than by your side.”