Epilogue #2
I groan against her throat, allowing a laugh from her as I pull myself away so I can throw on my suit jacket. The only problem with that is for a second, the jacket goes upside down, which causes the very important contents of the jacket to fall on the ground with a thud.
Fuck… fuck fuck fuck…
I’m wide-eyed as I look at the ground where a light blue ring box is staring at me. I look up to Gabi, who sees it too.
“Maddox… is that?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck shit fuck…
What do I do? I had a whole night planned. Dinner. Dancing. Karaoke (obviously). Then a grand proposal with champagne and roses and the whole nine yards.
I could pretend she didn’t see it. Or that I didn’t see it. That we’re both seeing things.
But that’s not me. That’s not us. But what is us? Doing things the completely wrong way.
“This isn’t how I planned it.” I scramble to try and remember what I wrote down to say in my “all things engagement” notebook, but the words are escaping me. But as I look at Gabi, who has tears filling in her eyes, it hits me that it doesn’t matter what I say. I need to tell her how I feel.
That I can do. I’ve been doing it since the moment I met her.
“Gabrielle, nothing in our journey has gone according to plan. Neither of us thought we’d meet each other in Vegas.
Hell, that night I didn’t even know if I’d get to see you again, and that’s before you went back to my hotel and changed my life in so many ways.
Then there was the time I tried to ask you out and didn’t have the words and sent you the cringiest voice note known to man. ”
“I still have it by the way.”
“Of course you do,” I say with a laugh. “But every word in that message, all of those first conversations, there was one thing I knew. And that was you were it for me.”
I feel bad that her tears are going to ruin her makeup before we even leave the suite, but judging by the smile on her face, she doesn’t care.
“I didn’t plan on falling in love with you at first sight. I didn’t plan on being put in the friend zone and then somehow falling more in love with you. But I did. And I was going to wait Gabi. I would’ve waited forever.”
As if on cue like he’s a paid actor in this scene, Ace lets out a sneeze. We both look at him, and swallow our laughs because the little guy looks like he scared himself with that one.
“Then there was the joy I felt when we found out about him. And the day he came into this world.” I pause, reflecting back to that whirlwind day.
How the hell I made it there in time still baffles me.
The MVP of that journey is forever Simon Banks, who I’m going to see if I can get the approval to join the Poker Club. I have a feeling he’d fit right in.
“What I’m trying to say is that there have been so many times in our relationship that were unplanned. Unexpected. I don’t think a single thing we’ve tried to do has gone according to plan.”
She knew it was coming, but she still lets out a gasp and covers her mouth when I go down on one knee.
“Gabrielle Devereaux, I had this big idea to go back to the karaoke bar tonight. We were going to sing again, and then I had the same room reserved upstairs that we spent our first night in together. I was going to do this, only better, and ask you to be my wife. But here we are, in a regular hotel room with your parents walking in any minute and our son probably needing a diaper change, but the question is still the same. Gabrielle, will you marry me?”
She shakes her head, but the smile on her face doesn’t mean she’s saying no. “You didn’t need to do all of that. You could’ve asked me on the airplane here. Or in the kitchen last week. No matter where you would’ve asked, the answer would still be the same. Yes Maddox. I’ll marry you.”
My tears are out before I can think to hold them back as I take the ring out of the box and slide it onto her finger. Shelby got her ring size for me, but I still breathe a sigh of relief when it slips right on perfectly.
I’m standing up and embracing her in an instant. I’m holding her so tight that I end up spinning her around, our laughter filling the room. Apparently, this is quite the show, because I hear laughter from Ace join in.
“You like that?” I ask as I put her down, both of us sitting on the ground next to our son. “Do you want to be a ring bearer at Mommy and Daddy’s wedding?”
In true five-month-old fashion, his only response is letting out a sound so loud, and so disgusting, that you can’t help but laugh.
“A blow out? Really?” I ask. “Couldn’t have waited for Grandma and Grandpa to get here?”
“I got—”
“Absolutely not,” I say as I pick Ace up, the smell immediately sending a shot of disgust to my stomach.
Another thing no one fully warns you about with parenting—they might be little, but their smells aren’t.
“You think you’re going to change our son in that dress?
Take the chance of ruining it? Not on my watch. ”
She smiles and stands up with us. “You go change him. I’ll get his bottle ready for my parents. You might’ve sped up the proposal, but I’m still counting on that date night.”
I lean in for the kiss that I forgot to give her when she said yes. Of course, it’s not as deep as I’d like considering I have a squirming baby in my arms, but it’s perfect, nonetheless.
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
“Hey,” I say, turning around one more time. “You’re sure you’re okay that I proposed this way? Followed by the grand finale of our kid stinking up the room?”
Gabi walks over and presses a kiss on Ace’s cheek before taking my chin in her fingers, turning my lips to hers in the most perfect kiss to seal the moment.
“I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”
Thank you all so much for reading Unplanned Play!