24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter twenty-four
Three days later…
“ I love you.” Whits slides into the seat beside me on her oversized, fluffy, man-eating sofa and rests her head on my shoulder before looking up at me. “I love you, Cai. I know we said we’d take this slow but I need you to know that I’m so foolishly in love with you, it makes me giggle all the time. I’m happy, and I’m not so sure I want to go slow.”
My heart elates and I shift so I can kiss her. “I love you, too. I don’t ever want to be apart from you, never again. Which is why I proposed, remember? I literally kissed you for the first time, asked you to be my girlfriend, and proposed marriage in a matter of an hour.”
“So you agree?”
I chuckle and palm her face. “Probably, but can you clarify what I’m agreeing to so I know for sure? I mean, it could be anything with you. Remember when I agreed to let you cut my hair?”
“Look, I said I was sorry, okay? You never should have trusted me with scissors.”
“Okay, okay. What am I agreeing to this time?”
Her cheeks brighten and she looks away.
“Don’t do that. Look at me. Tell me what you’re thinking, because there’s nothing I want to know more than what’s going on in your head right now.”
She refocuses on me. “Well, I was thinking that…okay, this is hard. It felt easy when I was giving myself a pep talk in my bedroom mirror just now.”
I lean forward and kiss her nose. “Tell me, Whits.”
She melts into my embrace, the weight of the world lifted from her shoulders. “I will marry you whenever you want me to. Today, tomorrow, next week. Whenever it fits into the schedule, I’ll marry you. I’m ready now, Cai.”
“Tell you what, we can do this one of two ways. We can elope and hurt everyone’s feelings, or we can plan fast and set a date for September. I already have leave scheduled for then, so we can do the wedding and honeymoon anywhere you want.”
“Really? Anywhere?” Her eyes light up and even though I was sure I couldn’t get any happier, somehow it boosts me to another level.
“Anywhere, but one second.” I hop off the sofa and dig in my pocket for the little light blue box that’s been burning a hole in my pocket, just waiting for the right time to present it to her. “I went shopping yesterday, and I got you—”
I’m tackled. That’s the only way to describe what happens. A little, diamond-starved woman launches herself at me, scrambles for the box, and gasps when it opens. I fall backward and she lands on my chest, whooshing the air from my lungs. I cough and wrap my arm around her waist.
“So you like it then?” I’m still out of breath, which is concerning for a firefighter, but then again, I’m not usually anticipating getting tackled by a woman. I might need to rethink that approach to my workouts.
“It’s gorgeous, Cai.” She gazes at it in the box as if she’s just unearthed a treasure chest.
“Can I put it on you, beautiful?” This breaks her stare, bringing her back to the reality that yes, this is hers. She can wear it instead of just staring at it. She smiles and wiggles her fingers impatiently while I slip it on. “I mean, I’m glad you like it, but I didn’t expect this much excitement.” I laugh and squeeze her hands.
Her face goes sour. “I’m not excited about the ring, Cai. Yes, it’s gorgeous, it’s more than I expected, but it’s the promise attached to it that made me go slightly feral.”
“Slightly?”
“Okay, fully, but can you blame me? I get to marry you.”
I frown. “No. I get to marry you, and that’s going to make a lot of men jealous. They can kiss my rear end though. I’ll fight to the death for you.”
“I know you would, and that’s why I said yes. That’s why I’ll always say yes.”
I take a deep breath and let it all sink in. This isn’t how I pictured it in school. I thought I’d eventually get brave, ask her on a date, then one day ask her to marry me and we’d embark on our careers together. Obviously, it never happened, but this is better. This has God’s hand in it, and I can’t be upset that ten years separated us before we got here.
But I am curious about what she’s keeping from me. She keeps averting her gaze, so I tickle her waist and kiss her nose. “Out with it. There’s something else you want to say. Is it about the honeymoon? I meant it when I said anywhere.”
“It isn’t that. I’m happy going anywhere with you, and we can discuss it soon.” She plasters on the fakest grin I’ve ever seen. Whatever she’s about to ask me is going to be painful in ways I cannot imagine. I don’t know how I know it, but I do.
“What’s bothering you?”
I brace for impact.
“It’s nothing bothering me, but I do have the smallest, tiniest, most insignificant favor to ask. You know the paramedic who arrived on the scene of my accident?” I nod, vaguely remembering her face. “Well, we were chatting and she mentioned picking up a few shifts at the high school in Rocosa just before summer break, and how she met this math teacher there.”
A gaping hole opens in my gut. This is going to be worse than I thought. Oh, so much worse.
“So,” she says, long and slow but oh so sweet, making sure it’s hard for me to say no. “After some chatting, I realized she was talking about Des, and I kind of made a big mistake.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Tell me you didn’t make the mistake I think you made.”
“I might have said I’d ask you to set her up on a blind date with him.”
My eyes snap open to find her smiling up at me, sweet and sugary. “Me? Why me? Why don’t you ask my shy friend who doesn’t date to go on a blind date with a random paramedic he doesn’t know?”
“Isn’t that what a blind date literally is?”
“Don’t you change the subject, Whits. Des is going to kill me, you know that, right?”
“Oh, he will not. We can double date if it’ll make him feel better. Come on, she’s super sweet and it would be so fun.” She doesn’t even sound like my Whits. Even she knows this is a bad idea, but she made the commitment, and now I have to fulfill it. For better or worse, I’m hers. And all her crazy ideas are evidently now mine as well.
“Fine,” I breathe. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s not going to go well.”
“I never promised her it would. I only said I’d ask. Thank you, my sweet fiancé.” She lifts up and kisses my cheek before wrapping her arms around my neck. “Now, what do you like best? Scotland, Greece, or Hawaii?”
“You mean as my final resting place when Des kills me?”
Whits rolls her eyes. “No, for our honeymoon. Those are my top three picks.”
I pick her up around her waist and she squeals. “I’m not sure. I’ll research, pick one, and surprise you. In the meantime, we have some making out to do to make up for the trouble you’re bound to get me into.”
I toss her on the sofa and she giggles, not unlike how things used to be in the past. But now, I get to kiss her, and I’ve never been happier.