Page 12 of Pining for Dad's Friend On Halloween
Epilogue - David - Christmas Eve
Bailey is perfect.She curls up next to me on the couch, snuggling against my chest and looking so gorgeous that she puts angels toshame.
I didn’t want to sneak around with Bailey. I didn’t want the risk that her father might find out and know that I’d been corrupting his sweet daughter. She wanted to wait to tell him, though. She feared that the external stress on the relationship, if he were to find out and want to immediately kick my ass, would jeopardize what wehad.
I knew I would let nothing get in the way of me and Bailey, but I went along with it. I wanted her to feel comfortable in everything that we did, ever facet of our lifetogether.
So we dated in what she thinks was secret. Even now, she still thinks it’s a secret. I press a kiss to her forehead and hold her close, my heartbeat finding rhythm withhers.
Everything happened so fast. I stayed with her that night, and the night after. I remembered the relationship my sister had with her husband and how fast everything happened for them. They met at a bar one night and then didn’t part ways until a week later, and that was only because they had to go towork.
My sister also met her life partner while she was onvacation.
The doorbell rings and she perks up. We’re expecting her dad over at my house tonight for Christmas Eve. She thinks it’s so we can tell him about the relationship. She’swrong.
He knows about it. I told him a week after Halloween that I intended to marry his daughter. That she snuck up on me like a fucking thief in the night and stole my heart when I didn’t know my heart was still beating. She changed my life in a second. I’d never felt like that before, so right and at peace. She tells me every night we’re together that she feels complete withme.
“Dad!” she yells, throwing her arms around her old man’s shoulders. I rise and look at him as he hugs his daughter, holding her tightly and putting a kiss on her forehead. He crosses the room and we shake hands, communicating without saying a word. She assaults him again as soon as our hands part. “Dad, it’s so good to seeyou.”
He beams down at his daughter and regards her from a small distance, his hands settled on her shoulders in a tender expression oflove.
“All right,” he says, guiding her softly towardme.
“What?” she says, her face whipping back and forth between us. I go down on my knee and hold open a Tiffany box forher.
“Bailey, I thought that I had caught lightning in a bottle when we both showed up at your dad’s place at the same time on the same night and I thought that I was the luckiest man in the fucking world because that one night changed everything. But I’m not the luckiest man in the world because that night changed everything; I’m the luckiest man in the world because you are in my life at all. If we hadn’t fallen in love that night, we would have fallen in love on Thanksgiving, and if I wasn’t there on Thanksgiving, we would have fallen in love tonight, and I know that because I am falling in love with you right now, right this second, and I’ve been falling more and deeper in love with you every single day. So please, Hailey, will you marryme?”
“James,” she says, falling to her knees and wrapping her arms around me. Her entire body is trembling, tears are falling from her eyes, and her lips are against my cheeks, my lips. I pull her to her feet and wrap her in my arms, crushing my lips to hers, as everything else falls away. She pulls away and looks up at me. “Yes, James. Yes. I love you so much. You’re my man. My man, myeverything.”
“You’re mine, baby,” I whisper against her lips. “You’remine.”
THEEND
