Page 128 of Loved

I opened up the box.

"James." She looked at the ring. And then back up at me. And then back down at the ring. She looked so damn happy. The same way she looked when I’d bought her allthose clothes. She never asked me for anything. But I’d give her the whole world if I could.

"Do you like it?" I asked.

"It's beautiful."

I took the ring out of the box, grabbed her hand, and slid it onto her ring finger. It was the perfect fit. I took a deep breath and stared at my ring on her finger. "Now you're mine."

"I've always been yours." She looked back down at her hand and then smiled up at me. "So why did you call Melissa?"

"I wanted her help deciding what kind of ring you might like. And I wanted to run the proposal by her. She knows you best."

"You know me best."

I smiled. I wasn’t sure when that had become true. But it was. And Penny knew me better than anyone else. She was the first person that I could be myself around. She loved every side of me. The good and the bad. And there was a lot of bad. But she was still all in.

I never thought I’d find someone who would love me. I didn’t think that I was capable of being loved or loving someone. But as soon as she fell into my arms I was a goner. And now she was mine. I couldn’t stop smiling. "I'm excited to introduce you to everyone as my fiancée." I ran the tip of my nose down the length of hers.

"I'm excited to introduce you to everyone as my fiancé."

"Hmm." I kissed the side of her neck and placed my lips next to my ear. "I still prefer when you call me Professor Hunter."

"You'll always be Professor Hunter to me."

Chapter 32

Wednesday

The next few days were full of celebrating and laughter and probably too much champagne for an addict and someone underage. But I was too happy to care. Ellen seemed the most excited. Followed by Dr. Clark. And I was pretty sure that Melissa was actually starting to not hate me. Everything seemed perfect. But…there was one tiny problem.

Today we were going to New York City to hunt for apartments. I wanted Ian to drive us. I was used to him driving me around. But I still hadn’t told Penny about him. Or the cameras. I was most nervous about the cameras. I should have confessed everything before I asked her to marry me. But I’d done what I’d done and now I just needed to rip the Band-Aid off.

“Are we all ready to go?” Rob asked.

I still wasn’t sure why he was coming with us. But…whatever. “Um, could you maybe give us a second alone?”

“Yeah, give us the room, Penny. James needs to talk to me bro-to-bro.”

Penny laughed. “I think James was referring to me and him.”

“Oh.” Rob shrugged. “Sure. I’ll just wait patiently on the couch.”

He plopped down on the couch, where he could still clearly hear us from the kitchen. I shook my head. But it didn’t matter, Rob already knew all this. And he’d just bug me for the details later anyway.

“I need to tell you something,” I said.

Penny leaned against the kitchen island. “Okay.”

An awkward silence hung in the air between us.

“Are you going to tell me what it is?” she asked.

I laughed uneasily. “Of course.” But still I didn’t say it.

“This reminds me a lot of the time when you said we needed to talk. And I jumped to the conclusion that you were breaking up with me because I watch too much T.V. Is this one of those situations? Or not? Because the way you’re looking at me makes it actually seem like whatever you’re about to say is bad.”

“It’s not bad,” I quickly said. Even though it actually was.

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