Chapter 31
The day of the magazine interview is upon us.
It’s been a few days since Belle’s charity event, and the only people we’ve told about our engagement is my family and Indie.
I thought she’d want to go home and tell her parents, introduce me to them properly, but she refused.
She said she didn’t matter to them unmarried so she won’t matter to them married.
It’s sad, but I’m relieved I won’t have to see her prick of a father again. He deserves a knock to the jaw.
However, someday she may want them in our lives again. And when that day comes, I’ll endure him…for her.
Speaking of wedding bells, Belle says she wants to wait to get married.
Apparently there’s some archaic twenty-eight day notice we have to give the Register Office before we can make it legal.
Now she wants to finish her fellowship and me finish out my season, then take a long holiday.
She’s wanting to get married on a beach, just the two of us, which in girl talk means Indie and Cam can come, too.
So, for the past few days, Belle and I have been keeping our engagement quiet. She seemed slightly bothered when I told her I didn’t want to mention it in the interview either. I hated planting that seed of insecurity in her but…
I have plans.
The interview is at Tower Park after the team finishes practice, so Belle plans to meet me here when she gets off work.
It’s a small crew. Two cameras, two camera operators, and the interviewer, who’s a short, little, Irish spitfire that introduces herself as Georgina.
They set up near the east side goal post so their shots can get both the pitch and the stands in the background.
When Belle arrives, my nerves set in. I’d been so calm and cool and collected before. Now that I see her, that’s all gone.
The London sun is beginning to set, bathing the lush grass of the pitch in a warm, heavenly sort of glow. Belle’s dressed in a simple pair of black leggings, hot black boots, and a green plaid button down, subconsciously representing Bethnal Green through and through. She looks perfect.
Her dark hair is long and straight, blowing in the wind as she strolls onto the pitch toward me. I meet her halfway, pulling her in for a kiss that I need to breathe some life back into me.
“Hiya,” I husk against her lips.
“Hiya,” she smiles back.
“How was your day?”
“It was great. Yours?”
“Just another day at the office.” I tweak my brows around the stadium.
“Sedgwick let me in.” She shoots a sneaky smirk at me. “Feels kind of cool to be down here, actually on the pitch.”
My eyes heat. “I have plans for afterwards.” I wink and she bites her lip, a crimson blush colouring her cheeks.
We walk over to join the crew.
“Hello, guys, I’m Georgina. Thanks for chatting with me today.
” She gestures to the two director’s chairs seated next to each other as she takes one facing opposite ours.
There’s one camera angled at us and another angled at her.
“This is going to feel like friends talking, so please be candid, be colourful, have fun. Your fans will love it.”
“Fans,” Belle huffs. “His fans you mean. I have no fans.”
“Oh, you have fans, dearie,” Georgina corrects, her heavily mascara-covered lashes batting excitedly. “You’re a high-risk foetal surgeon dating a famous footballer. Together you two are a power couple and an inspiration to women and men everywhere.”
This brings both Belle and me up short. It’s sometimes hard to realise that people look up to us. I can see how they would admire Belle. She saves lives. But me? I just play football. It makes me even more determined to make my Shirt Off My Back charity event as successful as it can possibly be.
The interview starts off easily. Questions about how we met. What we enjoy doing together. Truthfully, it’s a thousand times easier to answer them now that we’re the real deal. If we would have still been fake dating, this could have been a nightmare.
“So, Tanner,” Georgina asks, her Irish lilt smooth and confident. “Tell me a funny tidbit about Belle. Something that made you fall for her maybe.”
I narrow my eyes as I ponder this for a minute and then start laughing.
“Whenever Belle eats out at restaurants, she doesn’t select her own food.
She either goes along with what her guest thinks she should eat or has the server choose for her.
At first glance, you would think she’s indecisive. But she’s not.”
“No?” Georgina asks, her eyes alight with curiosity.
I turn to look at Belle. “It’s because she likes the adventure of the meal, not just the taste. It’s a very trusting quality that I admire about her.”
Belle’s eyes are locked on mine in shock like she had no idea I ever noticed that. I wink at her and she reaches out to hold my hand.
“Belle, how about Tanner? What is it that made you fancy him?”
Belle smiles to herself like she has an inside joke none of us know.
“Tanner looks like this cool and tough footballer with his man bun and perfectly trimmed beard, so you would assume he’s a pretentious sod.
Most athletes think they have to keep up this persona of prestige and perfection, but Tanner doesn’t.
He is the exact opposite of conceited. He puts it all out there.
No filter, the good with the bad. The cool with the emotional.
He goes from pig to pussy in seconds because he has no ego.
He is who he is, goofiness and all. He’s a softy and that… is hot.”
Her eyes are still locked on mine and express an intensity that winds me. I can’t believe all that she sees in me sometimes.
Georgina clears her throat, her own cheeks red from witnessing the chemistry sizzling between us. “Tanner, when did you first realise you loved Belle?”
Tanner answers Georgina instantly. “I tried to hide it from her for a while.”
This makes me frown because it’s not the answer I expected.
“You did?”
The interviewer asks, “How so?”
He laughs. “Well, one night Belle got a little tipsy out at a club with her mate. I was trying to find her to get her home safely, but she wasn’t answering my texts or my calls.”
My eyes fill with realisation over the night at Club Taint that he’s recalling. That was so long ago. We were still faking it back then. Surely he didn’t love me then. What is he talking about?
He adds, “I was decidedly worried, so I called and texted an embarrassing number of times.”
“It wasn’t that many!” I chime in, calling his bluff. “There were only a couple.”
He quirks a brow. “Because I deleted them from your mobile.”
My eyes widen. “You did?”
He confirms, “While you were in bed.”
I shake my head, stunned. “I had no idea.”
The interviewer laughs with us. “So was that when you realised you were falling for Dr. Ryan?”
This gives him pause as he answers, “As she said, I’m not a man who holds back. So when I realised I had something to hide from her, I knew it was already too late.”
His answer floors me. His words are so simple, so basic and ordinary. But suddenly, everything about him is even more extraordinary. I don’t have time to ponder it before he rises from his chair.
Georgina frowns. “I just have a couple more questions and then you can be off.”
Tanner digs into his jeans pocket. “I have a more important question, if you don’t mind.”
He turns on his heel to face me and my eyes lock on a small, black velvet box in his hands. “Tanner, no. Not here,” I argue feeling the cameras and Georgina’s gasp of breath.
“We started this on camera and we’re going to finish it on camera, Ryan.” He winks and licks his lips. “Belle, when I first asked you to marry me a few days ago, it was rushed and quick and I wasn’t fully prepared. Now I want to put a ring on it.”
I giggle and cover my mouth, my head shaking in wonder at him as he drops down to one knee and opens a ring box, revealing a disgustingly large emerald cut diamond. My hands slice through my hair in utter shock. I can’t believe he’s doing this right here.
He leans in and whispers, “This is how you propose to someone.” He winks and gestures out around him at Tower Park.
I take in its grandeur, its splendour, its magical ambience.
It’s the place he calls home and the place I fell in love with him wearing a T-shirt that said “BIG SPOON.” It’s utterly perfect.
Clearing his throat, he says, “Belle Ryan, I’m officially inviting you to come to Harris Sunday dinners with me from now until forever, or until you can no longer stand my family because they’re horribly obnoxious.”
“Shut up,” I cry through tears. “I love your family.”
“And I love you,” he echoes. “I thought all there was in life was football and family, but it was only because I hadn’t met you yet.
Every step of the way, you have tested the endurance of my heart.
But now I want to go the distance with you.
I want to do life with you for so long that I won’t be able to remember what it was like before you. ” He pauses. “Will you marry me?”
I laugh, sniffing back my tears. “Yes…again!” I jump out of my chair and launch myself into his arms as he stands. He holds me as I wrap my legs around his waist and squeeze every part of him against me as hard as I can.
Here we stand, on the pitch next to the goal post, confirming our life goals to each other.
“I don’t want to get married on a beach. I want to get married here,” I state and kiss him fiercely.
He laughs against my mouth. “I think that can be arranged.”
I gaze into his eyes. “I’m crazy in love with you, Big Spoon.”
“I’m crazy in love with you, Little Spoon.”