Page 98 of The Fantasy League
I laughed because it was true. As much as I would’ve loved to have had him from the beginning, I think we needed to go about it in our own way for us to have gotten to where we are now. Funny how things worked out like that, wasn’t it?
“You holding out any more secrets on me, Abbott?”
“None. I was always in it for the long haul, Red.” He smirked down at me before pressing his lips against mine. “Welcome home.”
EPILOGUE
Two years later
Abel
“You know…the last time you dragged me outside with your hands covering my eyes was the night you asked me to be your girlfriend…” Scarlett trailed off with a giant grin on her face as I guided her to the back door.
Of course she was onto me.
For the last few months, any time we went on a date or did something out of the norm, she thought I was going to propose. One night, she even convinced herself I was going to drop on one knee in the middle of the checkout line at the grocery store. How she had come up with that idea, I had no fucking clue.
She was right in thinking that it would happen soon, but every time she thought it was going to happen, she was dead wrong. Until right fucking now.
“What are you getting at, Red?” I quipped, willing down a smile I knew she couldn’t see.
“Ohhh, nothing,” she replied in a singsong voice.
I opened the door and a chilly spring breeze swirled around us as I walked her out to the middle of the deck. Much like a two years earlier, I had a full setup for a movie night similar to the first one where I asked her to be my girlfriend. The projector was ready with a few romantic comedies—her favorite, not mine—and those twinkle lights she liked were strung all over the place.
This spot was the start of it all for us and there wasn’t anywhere else in the world I wanted to propose to her.Especiallynot the fucking grocery store.
“Stand right here and keep your eyes closed,” I said, uncupping my hands from her face. “I’ll tell you when to open them.”
I took a steadying breath and pulled out the ring that I’d had hidden in my nightstand for months. Last fall, during a bye week, we drove up to the cemetery in Sarasota, where her mom was buried with a picnic basket, homemade lasagna, and fresh flowers. Scarlett spent the afternoon talking to her mom and telling her about the two of us and giving her life updates on Mae and their dads.
Before we left, Scarlett showed me around the town she grew up in and the houses on Pine Street where she spent the first eighteen years of her life that I’d heard so much about. It was surreal seeing the place that shaped so much of the woman I loved.
While she was visiting with a friend at a diner we stopped at before heading back home, I popped into the secondhand jewelry store next door. Initially, I was just trying to get ideas, but the moment I laid eyes on an emerald-green diamond in one of the display boxes, I didn’t need to look any further. The ring was so inherently Scarlett that I knew there was nothing else I’d find that would compare.
Dropping down to one knee, I took another deep breath. My heart thumped so recklessly in my chest I felt like I was going to faint. “Open your eyes.”
Scarlett gasped as she opened her eyes and both of her hands flew up to cover her mouth.
“Yes,” she blurted out before I got the chance to say a word.
“I haven’t even asked you yet.” The corners of my lips tugged upward at her eagerness. “Scarlett, will you—”
“Yes! Yes!” she interrupted me again.
“Red, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t count if you don’t let me finish.”
She threw her head back, and a laugh spilled from her lips before she looked back down at me with tears welling in her eyes.
“Scarlett,” I started. “I’m so in love with you it physically hurts to think about a life without you in it. And I don’t want to spend another day without taking the next step toward making you my wife. So… will you marry me?”
It was the longest millisecond of my life before Scarlett jumped into my arms. “Yes, I’ll fucking marry you!” She crashed her lips to mine before I had the chance to register what she said.
“Did you just say fuck?” I looked at her with widened eyes as I pulled back. Scarlett had her own preferred strand of expletives, but I’d never heard her use that one before.
“I think so? Maybe?” She laughed. “Honestly, I blacked out.”
A chuckle roared through my chest and I held her tightly against me. Scarlett parted her lips and dipped to meet mine. The taste of her cupcake lip balm lingered in my mouth as she pulled away.
