“I know we don’t need an official document or rings on our fingers to tell us we belong together, because we’ve always known it. Always will. But the part of me who looks at you every morning and is proud as hell to call you mine, wants everyone else to know it too. So I brought you here and spoke my heart to ask you a single question. Will you say I do?”
I blink several times as if I’m still trying to believe this is real . . . and happening. But when I look down to find a ring I didn’t even realize he had, being slipped on my finger, I know it is. The ring is sparkly with an inset diamond in the band and the fairy lights around us reflect in it. And even better, as I watch him slip it on, I realize he already has a wedding band on his finger.
I narrow my brow and look up to him. “I wasn’t taking any chances.”
“I can see that.” Looking at him, there isn’t a single doubt in my mind I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Not. One. I stare at our hands together. Our rings. Our fingers intertwined. Then back up to him. “Hayes Whitley, I. Do.”
Our friends and family cheer wildly as I step into him and kiss him with every ounce of love I have within me. My arms are around his neck. His hands frame my face. Our hearts beat against each other’s as one.
When he leans back, his chocolate eyes swim with the love he feels for me. “Saylor Rodgers, I do too.”
We kiss again like we’re each other’s air. Until my laughter bubbles up and over and my lips spread into a smile against his.
So that’s what forever tastes like.
“You really brought your A-game this time.”
He throws his head back and laughs.
Away from the glitz and the glamour, and in a field where we once ran as kids. Under a tree house we shared our first kiss in, and on the property my parents once owned and filled with their unmistakable love. With a small circle of friends and family before us, and fairy lights twinkling around us. . .
I marry my best friend.
The boy who stole my chocolate chip cookies.
My kisses.
My time.
My love.
He’s my once in a lifetime.
The man who forever holds my heart.
My happily ever after.
THE END