Page 71 of Mending Me

“You know what’s weird?” Malcolm commented, pulling a drink from his beer. “No one’s rolled a nat twenty yet.”

“Well there’s only a five percent chance you can roll one, so I’m not super surprised,” Conrad added.

“You would fuckin’ know the percentage,” Malcolm sneered, rolling his eyes. Kolbi chuckled softly from his seat, shaking his head at the two of them.

“What’s a ‘nat twenty’?” Bailey asked, still standing behind Conrad’s chair.

“It’s a perfect roll. When you roll a nat twenty, or a natural twenty, it creates the best possible outcome for the characters and the situation they’re in.” Kolbi moved his hands out in front of him as he spoke and I watched as she took in the information.

“Interesting. Well, enjoy your game boys. I’m going back to my book now,” she said with a smile before heading back to the living room.

As she walked out of the room, she turned and gave me a wink. I watched her longingly and knew that she was meant for me. She had helped me mend from my old scars just like I had helped her mend from hers. We were each other's missing piece and together, we completed one another. She was my real life nat twenty.

My blondie.

My Bailey.

Mi hermosa.?1

1 My beautiful girl.

EPILOGUE

HANK | THREE MONTHS LATER: MARCH

Who knew that nine months could feel like forever and nine seconds all at the same time? Not me, that’s who. But I was ready for my forever with Bailey to start now and I could only hope that she wanted the same thing too.

I had asked all of my friends to help me today and even got Ophelia in on the surprise. Without her, this entire thing would have fallen apart. She kept Bailey distracted for the day while my friends and I set everything up. I had been planning this for months and was ready for the wait to finally be over. For her to be mine, forever, if she wanted to be.

I was standing in the newly furnished living room of my downtown apartment waiting for her to be delivered to my door by Ophelia. As the plan went, Ophelia was going to take her out to get her nails done, buy her a new outfit for her birthday, and bring her here without telling her anything. I knew I wanted to do this around her birthday because the best present I could give her was this.

A fresh start. A new place. And a ring.

“Ophie, where the hell are we?” I heard her say from the hallway. My heart started to race and I pulled the jacket of mydress blues down to make sure it was straight. I had pulled them out of my closet this morning and took pride in wearing them for this occasion. Men were only supposed to wear their dress blues for important or formal events. I couldn’t think of a more important event than asking my girl to marry me.

“Just hush up and come on. Hurry up! Why are you walking so slow?” I heard Ophelia bark and tried not to laugh. You would think those two were sisters by the way they argued.

“Uhm, I’m trying not to rush into whatever strange place my best friend is taking me. Ophie, are you even sure we’re allowed to be here? We don’t know anyone in this building. How’d you get the passcode anyway?”My girl always did like twenty questions.“Ophie, what are you doing? You can’t just knock on a random door. Hello? Are you listening to me?”

Ophelia knocked twice on the door just as we planned before swinging it open. Once she did, she stepped out of the way so Bailey could see me standing inside. She stole my breath away wearing an off white dress and flats. Her golden blonde locks were curled and hanging down her back like satin ribbons. Her face screwed up into a confused expression and I moved to her to bring her inside. Her eyes traveled the length of my body as she took in my dress uniform before locking her eyes on mine.

“Soldier? What are you…why are you dressed in your blues? What’s going on?” Her words were hurried and her eyes darted from me to Ophelia who still stood in the hallway, smiling at us. “Ophie, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

“Oh! It’s nothing, sorry, don’t mind me. I’ll just be over here.” Ophelia moved down the hallway and out of sight, wiping the tears from her eyes as she did.

“Hank.” Her voice wobbled as she looked back towards me. “What’s going on? Where are we?” I took her hands in mine and ran my thumbs across the backs of them and tried to steady my breath before speaking.

“I wanted to bring you here to give you something,” I started, pulling out a chain that held two small metal tags on it from my pocket. She held out her hand as I placed the chain inside of it, and inspected them closely. Her eyes flicked back to mine before I spoke again.

“You know what this means right, when a soldier gives his girl his tags?” She shook her head slowly as her mouth formed an O. “When a soldier gives a girl his tags, he’s asking her to be his. And I’d like for you to keep those forever.” I placed my hand over hers that held my tags and closed our fingers around them. Tears started to well up in her eyes as what I just asked her sank in.

“Are you asking me—” Before she could finish her question, I dropped down on one knee in front of her and pulled the ring box from the inside of my jacket. She fell to her knees with me, tears streaming down her face, and squeezed my hand tightly.

“Bailey Brown, will you make me the luckiest man and be my wife?” My voice broke as I said the word ‘wife’, the thought of her as my wife nearly causing my heart to burst. The thought of taking pictures with her in white like I had seen the couple doing last summer was almost too much.

“Yes, oh my god, yes!” she agreed before pulling me into an embrace. We hugged and kissed right in the middle of the living room for a few moments before I helped her to her feet again. Once standing, I slipped the ring on to her finger and pulled her in for a kiss.

“Welcome home,hermosa?1,” I whispered in her ear as I held her close to my chest.

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