EPILOGUE
HANK | THREE MONTHS LATER: MARCH
W ho knew that nine months could feel like forever and nine seconds all at the same time? Not me, that’s who. But I was ready for my forever with Bailey to start now and I could only hope that she wanted the same thing too.
I had asked all of my friends to help me today and even got Ophelia in on the surprise. Without her, this entire thing would have fallen apart. She kept Bailey distracted for the day while my friends and I set everything up. I had been planning this for months and was ready for the wait to finally be over. For her to be mine, forever, if she wanted to be.
I was standing in the newly furnished living room of my downtown apartment waiting for her to be delivered to my door by Ophelia. As the plan went, Ophelia was going to take her out to get her nails done, buy her a new outfit for her birthday, and bring her here without telling her anything. I knew I wanted to do this around her birthday because the best present I could give her was this.
A fresh start. A new place. And a ring.
“Ophie, where the hell are we?” I heard her say from the hallway. My heart started to race and I pulled the jacket of my dress blues down to make sure it was straight. I had pulled them out of my closet this morning and took pride in wearing them for this occasion. Men were only supposed to wear their dress blues for important or formal events. I couldn’t think of a more important event than asking my girl to marry me.
“Just hush up and come on. Hurry up! Why are you walking so slow?” I heard Ophelia bark and tried not to laugh. You would think those two were sisters by the way they argued.
“Uhm, I’m trying not to rush into whatever strange place my best friend is taking me. Ophie, are you even sure we’re allowed to be here? We don’t know anyone in this building. How’d you get the passcode anyway?” My girl always did like twenty questions. “Ophie, what are you doing? You can’t just knock on a random door. Hello? Are you listening to me?”
Ophelia knocked twice on the door just as we planned before swinging it open. Once she did, she stepped out of the way so Bailey could see me standing inside. She stole my breath away wearing an off white dress and flats. Her golden blonde locks were curled and hanging down her back like satin ribbons. Her face screwed up into a confused expression and I moved to her to bring her inside. Her eyes traveled the length of my body as she took in my dress uniform before locking her eyes on mine.
“Soldier? What are you…why are you dressed in your blues? What’s going on?” Her words were hurried and her eyes darted from me to Ophelia who still stood in the hallway, smiling at us. “Ophie, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
“Oh! It’s nothing, sorry, don’t mind me. I’ll just be over here.” Ophelia moved down the hallway and out of sight, wiping the tears from her eyes as she did.
“Hank.” Her voice wobbled as she looked back towards me. “What’s going on? Where are we?” I took her hands in mine and ran my thumbs across the backs of them and tried to steady my breath before speaking.
“I wanted to bring you here to give you something,” I started, pulling out a chain that held two small metal tags on it from my pocket. She held out her hand as I placed the chain inside of it, and inspected them closely. Her eyes flicked back to mine before I spoke again.
“You know what this means right, when a soldier gives his girl his tags?” She shook her head slowly as her mouth formed an O. “When a soldier gives a girl his tags, he’s asking her to be his. And I’d like for you to keep those forever.” I placed my hand over hers that held my tags and closed our fingers around them. Tears started to well up in her eyes as what I just asked her sank in.
“Are you asking me—” Before she could finish her question, I dropped down on one knee in front of her and pulled the ring box from the inside of my jacket. She fell to her knees with me, tears streaming down her face, and squeezed my hand tightly.
“Bailey Brown, will you make me the luckiest man and be my wife?” My voice broke as I said the word ‘wife’, the thought of her as my wife nearly causing my heart to burst. The thought of taking pictures with her in white like I had seen the couple doing last summer was almost too much.
“Yes, oh my god, yes!” she agreed before pulling me into an embrace. We hugged and kissed right in the middle of the living room for a few moments before I helped her to her feet again. Once standing, I slipped the ring on to her finger and pulled her in for a kiss.
“Welcome home,hermosa? 1 ,” I whispered in her ear as I held her close to my chest.
“What?” she exclaimed, pulling away from me and looking around.
“This place, it’s ours. I’d like for you to move in with me, here, if you want.” I gave her a hopeful smile and I watched her face light up even more.
“Of course I want,” she squealed before jumping into my arms.
At that moment, Ophelia and the guys walked in from the hallway. Another girl I felt like I recognized from somewhere came in holding Kolbi’s hand. Before I could ask any questions, the sounds of Bailey and Ophelia’s squeals filled the room as they jumped around ooing and ahhing at Bailey’s new ring. My friends all congratulated me before Kolbi introduced me to the girl.
“Hank, this is Magnolia,” his deep voice cut through the ear-splitting squeals with ease. I extended a hand towards her and she took it to shake.
“Nice to meet you, Magnolia,” I stated, giving my friend a sideways glance. He only smiled at me. Why does her name sound so familiar? And then it hit me. No fucking way .
“And you too, Hank. Congratulations on your engagement.” She was tiny compared to Kolbi and had long, dark hair. Her fair complexion was a steep contrast to the deep brown color of his skin. I looked at my friend and gave him another sideways glance that said, ‘you’re not serious right now’ . But he only smiled at me.
“Thank you. Thank you for being here.” I gave her a friendly smile before looking towards Malcolm and Conrad to see if they understood who our friend had brought with him tonight. They both just shrugged at me. Bailey grabbed my arm and pulled me into another hug as our guests moved into the kitchen to pour some champagne.
“I’m so excited to be your wife, Hank Martínez. And I’m so excited to move into this place with you. I can’t believe you did this.”
“I’m so excited to make you my wife, Bailey Brown. You sure you wanna do this thing? I’ve been told I’m kind of a nerd,” I chuckled softly before kissing her on the nose which resulted in her scrunching her face up at me.
“Oh I’m sure. I’m sure now and I’m sure forever,” she started before pressing her lips to mine once more. “Make me yours, Hank.”
THE END