Page 104 of Summer with My Sexy Ex
“Marry me.” The challenge is in my eyes. I’m daring her to meet me halfway.
“Excuse me?” She sits back in her chair and looks around like she can’t believe what she’s hearing.
“Now we’re talking,” Blake claps his hands together. “Let’s do this.”
“Marry me.”
“I…but…what’s going on, Wyatt?” she stammers.
“I love you.”
Her eyes bug, making me chuckle. I stand and round the table until I’m in front of her. Then I kneel and go for motherfucking broke.
“Marry me for real.”
“But we’re already married,” she stage whispers.
“I want a do-over. With real rings and our friends and family watching—”
“Oh god, please say you’ll elope. For fuck’s sake,” Blake says.
“I love you,” I tell her again in case she missed it the first time.
“But…” Tears form in her eyes, and she slides off her chair to join me on the floor. “Why now?”
“Why the fuck not now? I don’t want to waste any more time. I miss you when you aren’t with me. I want to be with you. I want to wake up every day and have your smile be the first thing I see. Your laugh should be the first thing I hear. The first thing I smell needs to be you. I want to help you detangle your hair every time you need it. I want it to get in the way whenever I kiss your neck.
“I need to be there every time you saydammitwhen you’re upset because it’s the cutest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen. I love the way you hold your beer bottle with your index finger instead of your whole hand. And it kills me how your face lights up when you first smell coffee in the morning. The way you react when I call you my good girl? It’s sexy as fuck; nothing gets me harder. How you say the weirdest shit with total conviction when you believe it. And, the expression on your face when I make you come? Fuck baby, you slay me with that. I want it all the time.”
Blake coughs in the background. “TMI!”
I laugh at him, but I don’t let it stop me. “I love how you laugh at the dumbest shit, and when you do, it makes me laugh with you. I’ve never had so much fun doing absolutely nothing than I do with you. You make everything an adventure. Things other people would get pissed about? You totally roll with. You’re smart and fearless. You stand up for what you believe in, and you go to bat for the ones that you love - no holds barred. I love how you take whatever life throws at you and manage it. And most of all, Bristol Anne Moore Reed, I fucking love how I feel when you look at me the way you are right now. Like I’m king of the fucking world. And I know that if you just keep looking at me like that, I can do anything.”
She’s crying, and she’s never looked more beautiful.
“I’ll marry you if she won’t!” Some dude from the back of the bar yells, making us both laugh.
“Don’t make me marry that guy, sweetheart,” I say.
“You love me?” she asks.
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
She nods. “I heard it all.”
I crawl on my knees a few inches forward to close the distance between us.
“You haven’t answered,” I say. “I’m starting to feel a little uncomfortable.” I pull at my T-shirt collar, mostly joking. But only mostly.
She nods.
“Is that a yes? I need words, beautiful.”
“Yes.”
Relief floods through me. I mean, yes, we’re already married, but I needed to hear her say she wanted it for me. And only me. Not to win a game, or because she’s caught up in the moment.
“I love you,” she murmurs against my lips. “I’ve always loved you.”
