Chapter 55
A Happily Ever After
Olli
Two years later
“So did you do it?” Brooker asked and I immediately shoved off the bench we were on.
“Brooker, stop antagonizing him,” Christenson called from his cubby without looking over at us. “He’ll propose when he’s ready.”
“But I need to know if she liked the ring we picked out,” he whined.
“I picked it out. I just asked everyone for a second opinion.”
“And we gave it to you weeks ago.”
“Do you want me to ask Rosa to get involved?” Jimenez asked.
“No.” I threw the last of my things in my bag and stormed out of the locker room. They’d been hounding me about proposing for weeks now and it wasn’t helping my nerves. I wanted this to be special, give her all that rom-com magic. I just couldn’t think of a good enough plan.
“I heard that,” Kodi said, leaning against the wall across from the locker room door.
“I forgot something,” I grumbled, turning to go back and beat Brooker’s ass.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Kodi grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the door. “Don’t beat up Brooker. I kinda figured you were thinking of proposing.”
“Hmph. What gave me away?”
“You nearly tackled me when I tried to check the mail a few weeks ago. And since it’s not anywhere near my birthday or Christmas, there’s only so many conclusions a girl could jump to.”
I groaned and rested my head on hers. “Are you upset? Or willing to give me ideas?”
“Upset? No. We talked about this, love. I’m excited to marry you. Though I have been thinking that —”
“What?” I shot straight up and grabbed her by the shoulders. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said through some chuckles. “I just don’t think I should take your last name. My middle name’s Katherine. So my initials would be …”
“God, Kodi, don’t scare me like that.”
“What? Having my initials be a hate group is important!”
I kissed her forehead and looped our arms to guide us out of the stadium.
“It is, I’m sorry.”
“Good. Which leads me to my next thought, how would you feel about taking my last name?”
“Oh.” It wasn’t something I’d ever considered because of … sexism, I guess.
“And I was thinking you’d keep your athlete name as Kean, like a stage name. And then it’ll be our sexy little secret. How do you like the sound of that, Mr. Davey?”
I thought it was hot any time Kodi wore my jersey, but her calling me by her last name was something entirely different. She was calling me hers and I wanted to prove to her that’s exactly what I was.
“Good. Very good,” I mumbled before kissing her, letting our tongues tangle for longer than was appropriate for being at work. “Let’s get home. And I’ll show you just how much I like it.”
“Nuh-uh.” Kodi pulled away and started skipping ahead of me. “Now that I know you like it, I’m withholding that name until there’s a ring on my finger.”
“Kodi!” I shouted after her, but she took off in a full-on sprint to the parking lot. I gave her a solid five seconds before dropping my bag and running after her. Like I planned to do for the rest of my life.