Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Bray
I can see in her face that she’s worried that I’ll bail on her.
And for the first time in my life, I feel a fire lit under me to prove to a woman that I’m here to stay.
Those forty-eight hours of not seeing her were a sucker punch to my gut.
I missed her. I thought of her constantly.
I missed Ava jumping into my arms. I missed lying in bed with Carly.
I could have stayed longer at work, but when the opportunity to leave early arose, I jumped at the chance to wake her.
Now, I need a plan, a plan to prove that I’m serious. I don’t want her constantly worried that I’ll up and leave her. That’s not fair to her or Ava.
I walk into Ava’s room. I hear the shower turn on as Carly gets ready for work.
I look over to Ava’s bed and immediately know that she’s not sleeping. Ava has always been the worst fake sleeper. Her overexaggerated snoring is her telltale sign.
I sit down on her bed. “Geez, I wonder if Ava is still asleep?” I pretend to talk to myself. I see her lips twitch. “I guess I’ll just drink this hot cocoa since she’s not awake.”
Ava sits upright and opens her eyes wide. “You have hot cocoa!” she says excitedly.
I hold it above my head, out of her reach. “What were you doing awake?” I ask, giving her a suspicious look.
“I…” She trails off and blushes and bites her lip just like her mother does.
“Ava,” I prod, giving her a sharp look.
She leans up and whispers in my ear, “I saw you kissing Mommy.”
Oh, shit. I guess the cat’s way out of the bag. I weigh my options for a long moment. Do I tell her the truth? Do I run and get Carly? What do I do?
“Are you and Mommy gonna get married?” Ava asks as she stays up on her knees so she can look into my eyes.
I swallow hard. But not from the fear of doing what she’s saying, from the fear of not doing it. What have I been doing for three years? I love this woman with all my heart. She knows nearly everything about me now. And she still loves me, well, I think she loves me.
“Can you keep a secret, Ava?” I ask.
“Oh, yeah. I’m great at secrets. I haven’t told anyone that Annabeth kissed Kaden on the playground,” she says, and then her eyes go wide, and she puts both hands over her mouth.
I chuckle. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Her shoulders slump a little. “OK,” she says, but her tone tells me she isn’t so sure that I’m good at secret keeping.
“Come here,” I say as I pull her onto my lap. She sits and looks up at me.
“I love your mommy, Ava. And I love you too, and I want the three of us to be a family,” I start. The words pour out of my mouth without much thought. I’m speaking from my heart for the first time, maybe ever. And damn, it feels good.
Ava’s eyes grow wide as does her smile. “I love you too, Unca Bray,” she says as she throws her little arms around my neck and squeezes.
I squeeze her back, planting a kiss on the top of her head, while inhaling that baby-shampoo smell that I know won’t last much longer since she’s already requesting grown-up shampoo.
“Are you going to tell Mommy that you love her?” Ava asks as she pulls back to study me.
I clear my throat to give myself a moment to think. “I want to. But I feel like I need to do something big. I want to not just say that; I want to show her how much I love her.”
Ava leans forward so our noses are touching. “You mean, like a surprise?”
I nod, and she giggles and holds out her pinky finger. “What’s that for?” I ask.
“You have to pinky promise that you will let me help. I want to surprise Mommy,” she insists.
I grin at this little girl who has such a vise grip on my heart. “OK. We need to come up with a plan,” I say.
She nods enthusiastically and claps her hands. We both hear the shower turn off and look toward the door.
“Let’s get you ready for school. Maybe Mommy will let me walk you today, and we can start on our plan,” I suggest.
“Really?” she asks.
“Really,” I reply as I kiss her forehead and place her down on the ground so she can take her drink that I’ve set on her bedside table.
It’s book club night, and guys are sitting in a circle in Roxy’s bookstore. Ava and I chatted about ideas on her way to school. She’s adorable. She wanted me to fill the apartment with balloons or flowers. Not the worst ideas, but I want something bigger. It has to be epic.
We finish talking about the book, and I look around at my friends. “I need your help,” I start.
Gray raises an eyebrow. “With what?”
“I am in love with Carly, and I need you all to help me with a grand gesture,” I say, the words coming out quickly before I can stop them.
Hutch leans forward. “About damn time,” he says.
I groan. “Dude, come on,” I growl.
Kasen just leans back and laughs. Fucker.
“You took long enough. I’ve aged two decades,” he says.
“You asshats aren’t helping,” I grumble. I really do need ideas.
“OK, what do we know about Carly?” Roxy asks as she looks at me. I can tell by her smirk that she’s known all along that I was in love with her friend.
“She loves chocolate, rom-coms, and flowers,” Hutch says.
I think about Carly. She loves all things sweet.
She loves animals but never had one because her ex didn’t like them.
She loves going to the zoo with Ava. She loves the color pink even though she jokes that it’s cliché.
She loves books. She loves teaching and being around young people.
She says they are inspiring and fun, and give her a better perspective on life.
She likes to make pancakes in the morning when she has time.
She loves curling up on her sofa with a book and a cup of herbal tea with two spoonfuls of sugar.
She always says she wants to travel, but she’s never gone anywhere until recently.
She once told me her dream was to go to Paris.
I feel awful that I couldn’t talk her into going after our Italy trip, but she wanted to get back as soon as possible, so she had downtime before school started.
Everyone throws out their own ideas. From pink roses to her favorite pop songs, each of us says the little things that we see in Carly every day.
“Any of this helping?” Hutch finally asks.
I shrug. “I…sort of have an idea. It’s got a lot of moving parts, but I want to give her everything she’s always wanted.”
“At once?” Roxy asks, her eyebrows shooting up to her forehead.
I grin. “Sort of.”
“Continue,” Roxy prods.
“What if I could make all her dreams come true?” I muse.
“Like what, you win the lottery and buy her a castle with a real dragon and moat?” Roxy jokes because once, when we were all drinking on the rooftop, talking about our dreams, Carly joked that she wanted to be a princess in a castle with dragons and moats.
“Yeah, Roxy, I’ll just rent a dragon from the local dragon shop,” I say sarcastically.
Gray laughs. “I mean, I could wear a blowup dragon costume if that’s your vibe.”
Fletcher starts laughing and slaps his thigh. “Fuck, I’ll wear one too. This is gonna be epic.”
“Fuckers, I need you to be serious. I don’t want to troll her, I want to marry this woman,” I say and then clench my jaw. What the fuck did I just say?”
Roxy gasps. “OMG! Are you going to propose? Please say yes, please!” she says excitedly.
I throw my hands up in the air. “No, hold up. I…” I trail off as I consider this. I do want to marry her. Why am I waiting? Fuck, should I propose? What do I do?
“Fuck yeah!” Hutch says. “I think we have a proposal to plan.”
“Hell yeah, we do,” Fletcher adds.
“If you think I’m wearing a kilt for this weird-ass princess-and-castle-themed proposal, you are sorely mistaken,” Kasen mutters.
Roxy waves him off. “Don’t be a…what is it you always say, oh yeah, a daft prick,” she teases.
He glares at her, and she smirks.
“Well, shit…OK, fuck it. I don’t want to wait.
We need to brainstorm and fast,” I say, because we have less than a week until the next happy hour and I need a plan.
But I know I have to do it there. That’s where we first met.
It seems right that I ask her to marry me there in front of all of our closest friends.
“We need to call Vito and Drew. You think I can get them to fly out to be here for it?” I ask my friends as I look around at each one of them.
“For sure, I’ll text them now,” Fletcher says.
And just like that, all my friends start formulating to-do lists as I start to explain what I’m thinking. This will take a team effort, but if I can pull it off, it’ll all be worth it.