Page 48 of It Started with a Sunset
“I need to let him know that I choose him. Always.”
“Oh, my goodness sakes, this is so exciting! What do you have in mind?”
“I don’t know, because I just figured everything out and there’s no time, so I only have the stuff in my trunk to work with. I have a picnic blanket, so maybe I can have a picnic with him in the big meeting room. I have matches and newspapers and firewood, but no candles. Oh! I do have a couple of flashlights, though, so maybe I can use them as candles. But I have no food.”
“Elle and Everett are still here. I’ll have them run down to Aquamoose Crossing and get you some food for your picnic.”
“Elle and Everett are still there, too?” Wow. Apparently, today was a really bad day to leave early. “Tell them thank you. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“This is all so cute, I can’t even stand it! See you soon!”
It wasn’t long before she and her dad were pulling into the faculty parking lot at Lake Baldwin State. When they got out of the car, she wanted to sprint the length of campus that was between her and the Welcome Center, but she needed to do something else first.
She turned to her dad and wrapped her arms around him. “Thank you for being so good at shining the light. I’m even more grateful for you now than I was as a kid afraid of a spider on my ceiling.” She smiled. “And I was pretty darn grateful back then.”
“You’re welcome. Thank you for being you, and for always letting me into your life, even though I was so bad at it when you were younger.” He tightened his squeeze before he pulled back and glanced down. “Now, do you want to maybe unroll your pant legs before we go find him?”
She couldn’t believe that she could’ve missed something like that. She unrolled her jeans and brushed the sand off them, straightening them as she went, then grabbed the blanket and flashlights from her trunk before heading toward the Student Center. Avery was waiting for them at the doors, holding one open.
“Avery! You’re here still, too?”
“Yes. I wanted to help.”
The halls were partially darkened now, and as they walked down them, she said to Avery, “Oh, hey, I almost forgot to ask you. How did your date go this weekend? Was it fun?”
Avery shrugged. “It was kind of boring, actually.” She glanced over at Summer. “You’ve helped me to realize that I need more adventure in my life.”
Summer smiled and gave her friend a one-armed hug as they walked. “You’ll find the right guy.”
Avery turned to Summer’s dad. “The last time we snuck down these halls when they were dark—well, darker than this—Summer got us out of being arrested.”
Her dad threw her a questioning look, but Summer just waved it off.
When they neared the Welcome Center, Deja pushed open the door to the darkened lobby and held it open for them. Summer’s attention was immediately taken inside the lobby. String lights, the same kind of lights that they had danced under when they had gone to Lookout Hill, lit the way from the ambassadors’ desk down the hall toward the big meeting room.
“What is all this?” Summer asked.
Deja just shrugged. “We all just wanted to help make it special.”
Everett was standing at the corner between the hallway and the lobby, and he took the blanket and flashlights from her arms and walked ahead of her to the meeting room. When she got there, Everett was spreading out the blanket and setting up the flashlights, and Elle was pouring a massive armful of packaged treats on the blanket.
Summer took a deep breath and pulled out her phone. “Okay, I’m going to text Brock and see if he can come in here.”
“No need,” Everett said. “It’s taken care of—he’ll be in here in just a moment.”
She glanced behind her and saw Avery and her dad and Deja smiling and moving to the back of the room where Pavani and her husband, Zain, stood, all giving her encouraging thumbs-up as Elle and Everett joined them. And then Elle pulled out her phone and started recording, even though this didn’t seem like a video-worthy moment.
Summer smiled at her dad and her work family, all standing together. “It’s kind of weird to have you all in here as I profess my love to the man I’ve apparently been waiting my entire life for. But it also feels kind of right, too.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, honey,” Deja said. “Because we really don’t want to leave.”
Summer took a slow, calming breath as she turned to face the door, hoping it would help slow her racing heart as she waited for the man she loved to walk through the door.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Brock
Brock ran his hands through his hair and took one last look at his computer screen and the error saying that the file he’d been working on couldn’t be opened. He knew from talking with Valeria that Summer was worried about whether he would always love her and be there for her. Over time, she would know that he would just by his actions. But he wanted to do something that would help alleviate those fearsnow, so he asked Tess if he could have the rest of the afternoon off and did the one thing he could think of—make a video.
