Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
“JoJo, why are we doing this tonight? You’re not getting married for another nine months!” I shouted over the dubstep music pounding loudly in the background.
Tonight, JoJo had insisted we celebrate her bachelorette party, even though I told her I already had it planned for Vegas in six months.
JoJo ignored me, pounding back another shot. “What has gotten into you?” I asked, sipping on my whiskey sour.
“I just wanna have fun tonight!” JoJo jumped up from the table and grabbed Natalie, one of her employees whom she had also conned into going out tonight.
She tricked us! This was in no way her bachelorette party. I had the entire thing planned: male strippers, booze on top of booze. We would be staying in one of the classiest casino hotels in all of Las Vegas. This was nothing compared to that!
The night had started off like normal: me turning into a Peeping Tom and gazing at Luke’s house.
It’d been pretty quiet since our last conversation, but I felt like we had begun moving in the right direction again.
I thought it was pretty clear that there was still something between us, but now I wasn’t so sure.
He’d been normal, but he’d been too normal.
Something seemed off.
He had started running with me again in the mornings.
But we didn’t really talk a whole lot, especially since it was always time for him to go to work and for me to go to sleep.
He did flirt with me a little, sneaking in small touches and flipping my ponytail randomly—no doubt just to irritate me, which it didn’t.
The only thing it did was make my heart grow a little bigger in my chest. Other than those small encounters, things had been uneventful.
I thought about pulling a prank on him again, like old times.
I thought it would break the ice. I even bought several boxes of plastic wrap for the ol’ toilet seat prank.
I had done that to my brother once, and it was epic, except that my mom made me clean up the mess he had made, and he laughed his head off the entire time.
But instead of actually following through with my plan this time, I chickened out.
JoJo even started to “bock” at me like a chicken.
She and Ryan both confessed to me that they had a running bet on which one of us would finally break down and profess our love for the other first, but Luke and I were both stubborn.
I thought he was even more stubborn than I was.
Me? I was just a big fat chicken. That was my excuse.
Looking around the buzzing bar, I half-yelled, “Can you make sure she gets home safe?” to a few of the other friends JoJo had tricked into coming out tonight.
Amanda nodded her head, and then we both laughed when we saw JoJo doing a poor rendition of the sprinkler in the middle of the disco-like dance floor.
I hopped off my bar stool, texting for an Uber to take me home, and pushed past the tipsy dancers surrounding my best friend.
“Hey.” I grabbed her arm, and she slung her arms around my neck. “I’m gonna head home, okay?”
JoJo scrunched her eyebrows at me and looked down at her watch. Then, she smiled at me and nodded.
“What? Is it an acceptable time to let me go home now, Mom?” I joked.
She nodded her head and grinned. Her eyes twinkled, and my stomach lurched as alarm bells went off in my head.
“JoJo…what’s going on?”
She turned around and started to dance again. I stood there, confused beyond belief, as she yelled, “Just remember to fall.”
“What?” I called.
My phone vibrated in my hand, and I realized my Uber was waiting.
I waved at JoJo, still confused about what had just happened. She wagged her eyebrows at me.
God, she was so tipsy. Ryan really had to stop training in the field so much.
When the Uber driver pulled up to my house, I paid him, and he grunted in response. Not the friendliest of Uber drivers, but whatever. I wasn’t up for a chat, anyway. I was too concerned about whatever JoJo had been spouting when I’d left.
“Just remember to fall.”
I mean, let’s get real for a second. I fell all the time. I was clumsy, so her advice kind of sucked.
Out of habit, I looked at Luke’s house and felt the burning urge to bang on his door.
Maybe it was the amount of alcohol in my system, or the long cab ride that gave me time to think about how I wished he’d been at the bar with me tonight, or maybe I was just tired of waiting around for him to make a move.
I was the one who basically said we were over. But he was the one who said that bit about bending rules. I thought he meant he wanted to bend the rules for me.
Maybe he didn’t know whether I wanted him to or not.
But I did.
I really, really did. I didn’t care anymore. I wasn’t just bending my rule, I was breaking it in half.
I’m in love with a Marine, and I don’t care who knows it!
My fist hit his oak door three times, flesh pounding harder and harder with each knock. I tapped my heeled feet on his porch and bit the inside of my cheek. I even walked over to his front window to see if I could make out anything inside, but I couldn’t. It was completely dark.
His car was parked out front, but he wasn’t answering. Was he sleeping? Maybe? I pounded again and again until my hand literally felt like it was going to fall off.
“What the hell!” I yelled, pissed he wasn’t answering.
I huffed and threw my hands on my hips.
“This would be a really good time to answer your door, Luke!” I said aloud, and then I heard a loud noise from the direction of my house.
Coming from my porch.
I stepped back and peered around the tree. There was Luke, staring directly at me.
I yelled, “What the hell are you doing?!”
“Waiting for you…” His voice held laughter, but something else was lingering, too; I just couldn’t pinpoint it.
“Oh. ”
I walked slowly, trying to control my hammering pulse. Should I just blurt it out? Just tell him that I wanted to throw my rules out the window and give in to him? Maybe I should go with the punch line: “I love you.”
Eek. Maybe that was too strong. He did say he wanted to marry me… But let’s face it, that was a total exaggeration. Right?
“What…” I cleared my throat. “What are you doing?”
“Well,” he said, and he laughed.
“Why are you laughing?”
He smiled widely and looked away. “I came over here to see your reaction.”
My shoulders fell, but my heart rose. “Reaction to what?”
He fanned his arms out toward my door, and I held my breath. I was beyond excited that he had taken the time to prank me. I was right, after all. Things were getting better. He and I were getting better.
When I pushed open my door, my mouth fell to the fucking ground.
I didn’t know if I should cry, laugh, kiss him, or punch him.
Then it hit me.
The memory came at me fast, the words burning in my brain.
From : [email protected]
Subject: Thinking about it
Body:
I want some flowers or something romantic…and a ring. Then MAYBE I’ll consider being your wife… ; )
P.S. Sunflowers are my favorite.
What filled my entire house—every inch of it—were beaming, yellow sunflowers. There were so many I couldn’t even walk inside my door. They were all over the floor, in bouquets and vases, some even propped up on my entryway table and all the way onto my barely visible kitchen island.
When I spun around and looked at Luke, he was biting his lower lip, teetering it back and forth between his white teeth.
I whispered, “This is the ultimate prank, Lucas Wells.” Then, JoJo’s words finally made sense: “Just remember to fall.” That was what she’d said to me when I first started to fall for this perfect, steady, strong-willed man.
I didn’t know it then, but nothing could have kept me from falling for him.
Not his bantering personality, his lewd comments, the pranks, the insults…nothing. Because Lucas Wells, Marine or not, was worth falling for. Every. Single. Time.
“So what do ya say, Doc?” Luke was standing in front of me, his white T-shirt illuminating his tanned skin. The scar between his eyebrows stood out to me, and I reached my hand up and traced my finger along it, feeling his warm breath on my face.
“Rules are meant to be broken, right?” I asked, my mouth turning up at the corner.
“Damn straight they are,” he answered, and then he placed his lips onto mine, pushing me against the door frame. I felt sunflower petals brush against my bare ankles as his hands cupped my face, intertwining in my wavy hair. A small sound escaped me .
“This is my proposal, by the way,” he said when he removed his mouth from mine.
My eyes snapped up from staring at his full lips. “What? I can’t marry you!” Heat crept onto my cheeks. “You are not proposing to me right now!”
He only grinned.
It’s way too soon for all of that…I think.
I looked down at his lips again. “We haven’t even had a real relationship. Ever.”
He shrugged. “Who said it wasn’t real? Are there rules to defining relationships, Doc?”
I rolled my eyes. “I mean… not really.”
He kissed me again, his tongue sliding over mine. I pushed my body up against his, ready to put this conversation aside for another time.
“Will you at least be my girlfriend?” He kissed me once more, deeper this time.
I smirked. “I’ll think about it.”
He shook his head and chuckled. “I knew early on that you were different. I just knew.”
“Just knew what?” I asked against his mouth.
“That you’d be the one to break me. You’ve had a hold on me from the moment I met you, Cammie.”
My breath was stolen away from me. “How could you know that? I thought you hated me in the beginning.”
His throaty laugh rumbled against my chest. “I hated you because I knew you’d be the one to destroy me…in the best way possible.”
I took a deep breath, feeling my heart attach itself to his. “So, you’ve always known?”
“Mmhm. You’re different,” he mumbled against my mouth.
I placed my hands on his head, kissing him deeply. Pulling back, I asked, “Well, what took you so long?”
He looked down at me, searching every inch of my face. “I was afraid.”
My eyes squinted. “Of what?”
“Of losing you.” He let out a small laugh. “And to think, I basically lost you before I even had you.”
I reached up again and pecked him on the mouth. “I’m right here…as long as you don’t have any more women running around with your last name…”
His mouth twitched. “The only woman that’ll have my last name is you .”
I grinned, shaking my head. “Let’s talk later.” Then, I pressed up against his solid body.
He pulled back quickly. “Not until you tell me you’ll be my girlfriend.”
I smiled. “I’ll be your girlfriend, because I more than like-like you.”
Luke’s arms eagerly went underneath my legs, and he carried me all the way back to his house. I giggled the entire way.
“When I’m through with you,” he stated, walking toward his bedroom, “you’ll be begging to be my wife.”
And there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he was right.