Page 100 of The Player
“You do,” she replied, giving me a sly wink.
“I’ll be available to you, for you to use however you see fit from morning until night… and throughout the night too. If that wasn’t clear, I’m yours. Use me. Please.”
She threw her head back and laughed out loud. “Noted.”
“I’ll clean up after the dog, and you. I might not be great at cleaning up after myself.” I shrugged. “But I’m getting there.”
“You’re doing just fine,” she replied.
“I promise to keep surprising you every day, not the crappy kind that makes you serve me laxative coffee, but the good kind, that puts a smile on your face. The kind that makes you excited to see what’s going to happen next. I’ll listen and I’ll hold your hand when you need me. If you ever feel scared, I’ll be there, ready to fight your demons. Because those demons are mine too, and I won’t rest until they’re gone. I love you, Bee, and I’ll cherish you, always. I’d die for you.”
“I know,” she hiccupped, and I knew she was thinking about everything we’d been through. I hated that it still haunted her, but it was our story, our history. We couldn’t change it, but we could rise from it.
“I’ll take the darkness,” I told her. “Let me carry that, you deserve the light. It’s yours, take it. And let’s be crazy together. Make stupid choices and laugh about them. Not Bonnie and Clyde crazy, more like Dumb and Dumber.”
“Thanks.” She laughed.
“I’m Dumber, obviously.” I winked. “Let’s forget being polite. We won’t shut up; we’ll be as loud as we want to be. We’ll be that couple, the ones everyone else watches, talks about, envies. Because those people? They have the time of their lives right up until the end. They don’t care about anything but making each other happy. And that’s what I want for us. That’s what I’ll promise. Till death do us part, I’ll be the man that makes you happy.” I reached forward to take her hands in mine. “Now let’s make this official before Tiny starts watering the flowers on the backs of the chairs.”
Everyone laughed, and Shelley put Tiny on the ground so that I could bend down and take Bee’s ring out of the pouch attached to her collar. Bee did the same, taking my ring from Tyson, and we stood in front of our loved ones, exchanging rings and smiling as the registrar said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
I never in a million years thought I’d be someone’s husband. But it felt good. It felt damn good. And as I leaned forward, taking her face in my hands and closing my mouth over hers, I kissed her. I poured every bit of love I felt in that moment into that kiss. Every promise and hope. And as my lips grazed hers, I whispered, “You know it was always you, right?”
“I know,” she whispered back. “It couldn’t ever be anyone else.”
Epilogue II
ABIGAIL
“Ihave just officiated the cutest wedding ever, with dogs,” I announced as I walked back into the office.
“Dogs?” Jess replied, her brows touching her hairline. “We’re marrying dogs now?”
“No, stupid. I meant they had dogs at the wedding, carrying the rings. Two of them. An adult rottie and a puppy. It was so cute.”
“Sounds like the perfect wedding to me,” the IT guy fixing our network said from underneath my desk.
“It was,” I replied, and he crawled out from under it to glance up at me.
“Dogs are special.” He smiled. “They’re a gift. We don’t deserve dogs. They’re too good for us.”
I nodded, agreeing, kind of, but we did deserve dogs. Well, some of us did.
“Do you have a dog?” I asked him as he stood up and started typing something on the laptop he’d brought in with him.
He turned to look at me.
“No. I travel around too much. But I know people with dogs. Did you know that petting dogs is good for us? It’s good for them too. It releases a feel-good hormone in the person and the dog. Gives you both a little mood boost.”
“That’s so cute. I love that idea!” I beamed back at him, and he gave the slightest smirk and then turned his back on me to focus on his laptop.
As he was typing, I noticed his tattooed hands flying over the keyboard, and I became conscious of the fact that I was staring. I had a thing for hands. Men’s hands always looked so sexy, but even more so when they were covered in tattoos like his was. I was so transfixed I hadn’t realised he’d stopped typing and was staring at me again.
“You have interesting tattoos,” I stated, instantly feeling stupid at my ridiculous observation.
“She loves tattoos,” Jess butted in and then waggled her eyebrows at me from behind the IT guy’s back.
He didn’t say anything, just leaned over my desk and reached past me to get a pen from my desk tidy, and then he smiled down at me, and I swear a swarm of butterflies invaded my stomach, my heart, and maybe a little part of my lungs too. It had become hard to breathe.
