CHAPTER 11 BEN
She smells of sunshine when she joins me in the family room.
“What do you want to do today?” I ask.
She kicks her feet up on the coffee table and leans back.
“I’m doing it.” She offers me a smile. “I honestly don’t have any ideas.
It’s my first day of freedom, my first day as an engaged woman, and it’s my birthday.
I one part feel like I need to maintain a low profile and one part feel like I want to party from dawn till dusk. ”
I laugh. “I am down for either, but I do have some gifts I’d like to give you, and I have a pretty crazy idea if you’re interested.”
“Definitely interested,” she says.
“You don’t even know what it is yet,” I point out.
“And I already trust you.”
“Not the smartest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” I tease.
She laughs. “Let’s start with the presents.”
I stand up and head over to the kitchen where an envelope sits on the table. I pick it up and walk it over to her, and as I set it in her hands, she glances up at me.
“What’s this?”
“Open it.” I nod toward the envelope.
She carefully and neatly slides her finger along the back to open it, and then she pulls out the papers inside. She unfolds them and looks them over, her expression unreadable until she finally looks up at me.
“Are you serious?” she asks.
I nod slowly. “I don’t want you to feel like the main reason I proposed was for the media. The main reason is for us. This felt like the right thing to do—a way to benefit us and our charity efforts.”
“This is so generous, Ben.” She shakes her head a little. “I don’t know what to say except…” She looks up at me and grins. “I’m going to cost you a fuck ton of money.”
I laugh. “I’m here for it.”
She stands and moves toward me. “Thank you,” she whispers. “So, a diamond ring and the promise to match my sponsorships…seems like I am making out pretty well for my twenty-third so far.”
“And it’s just getting started,” I say with a grin.
I hand her the next box, and she giggles when she opens it and pulls out the package inside. “Dehydrated marshmallows,” she reads off the label.
“So you can add as many as you want to your own cereal,” I say. “And, you know, stop stealing mine.”
I surprise her again when I take her to Jack’s place for lunch, where her whole family is gathered to celebrate her day. We all sing happy birthday and then she opens the gifts from her family.
They don’t do standard birthday presents in this family.
Luke gives her a board game with the promise to have a game night.
Jack gives her a gift card to her favorite restaurant with the promise to take her to dinner just the two of them.
Ellie and Kate give her a bottle of vodka with a calendar for her to choose three dates for happy hour over the next few weeks.
Her mom gives her a gift set of popcorn and toppings with an invitation to come watch old movies with her.
They give each other time. They give each other experiences. They don’t give each other things.
And I appreciate that. We don’t need more things. We need more time with the people we’re closest to.
It’s sort of in line with some of the things I’ve gotten her, too—the sponsorship match, for one thing, but there’s more.
It’s not until we’re back at my place that I give her the rest of her gifts. We’re outside in my yard, a fire lit in the firepit on this warm May evening. The glow of the flames crackling in front of us set a romantic tone.
I hand her a box first, and the neat freak in her emerges like it did earlier when I handed her the envelope. She tucks a finger between the folds of the paper to unwrap neatly. I’m the opposite. I tear that shit off like someone’s gonna take it from me if I’m not quick enough.
She gently shakes the lid of the box to separate it from the bottom once the paper’s off, and she fishes through some tissue paper to pull out a custom jersey.
It’s black with the number eighty-eight, and the numbers are outlined with some sparkly shit that Ellie assured me chicks dig after I went to her for sizing advice.
The back has my name and number, too, along with the words The Future Mrs. in that same sparkly shit written in script font just above my last name.
I didn’t tell Ellie I was having that part added on, and when I first saw it earlier this week, I admit I had a moment of terror as I realized for the first time what the fuck I was doing.
And once that moment passed, I emerged on the other side sure I was doing the right thing. Tears fill her eyes as she reads the words on the back.
“Oh my God, Ben,” she murmurs. “I love it.”
“Your new Sunday uniform,” I say with a light laugh, and I ignore the twinge in my chest that tells me maybe she won’t be wearing it after the first few weeks of the season.
I hope she is.
I keep trying to ignore the feeling that I will find a way to fuck this up, but the further down I push that feeling, the more it seems to want to claw its way back out.
I hand her another box, this one smaller, and she opens it just as neatly. Once she gets the lid off, she pulls out a key.
“To your heart?” she asks, offering me a cheesy smile.
I laugh. “To my place in Montana.”
It’s a bigger gesture than I’m letting on. I let few people into that home. It’s my sanctuary, my escape from the brand I’ve built and the character I’ve become.
I let even fewer people have a key—metaphorically, since there’s also a keypad, but the same people who have a key have the number to the keypad.
The housekeeper who stops by every other week to dust. Craig, my best friend from high school, the guy who manages my gym and one of the few people in this world who I trust—I gave him one in case of emergency.
That’s it.
Not even my mother, though she lives a full ninety minutes away from my house there and would have no reason to visit it if I wasn’t there.
My dad doesn’t, either, but I’d give him one if he needed it. I don’t even let George, a close friend of my dad who manages my stables there, have a key. It’s not because I don’t trust him…I do. It’s because he doesn’t need one.
And Kaylee doesn’t need one either. Yet I want her to have one. She raises a brow at me. “I take it this is meaningful?”
I lift a shoulder. “It’s one of four in existence.”
“Yours, this one…and who do the other two belong to?”
“The housekeeper and a buddy from high school.” I glance up at her and when our eyes connect, I hope she can see the sincerity in mine.
“If you’re ready to blow this joint, to head somewhere a little quieter, a little calmer, a little more peaceful—a place you once described to me in a way that made it feel very much like you had already been there even though you hadn’t—I’m ready to take you there.
We can leave right now if you want, which is the crazy idea I had earlier, or we can leave in the morning.
Or we can wait a couple weeks and go after Kate and Jack’s wedding. It’s up to you.”
Her brows draw together. “What do you mean, a place I’ve described before?”
“A while back you had mentioned the thing you want in your future. A huge plot of land with running and hiking paths, a place with peace and quiet and open sky and cool air. You said you wanted chickens and horses. You told me if I know of a place like that, I should take you there.”
Her jaw slackens. “You have chickens and horses?”
I nod. “Fresh eggs for breakfast, still warm from the chicken’s ass.
I have three horses, but sometimes others come to board.
There’s a high school girl nearby who rides competitively and she’s boarding two horses there for the summer.
My dad’s buddy tends the stables. Oh, and I also have a lake.
” I wrinkle my nose. “I know it wasn’t on your list, so I hope that’s okay. ”
“Okay?” she repeats. “Uh, yeah, I think it’ll be okay. It sounds like heaven.”
“It is heaven.” I don’t mention how the picture she painted is all there, including the man—me—but minus the pitter patter of little feet.
“I think we could enjoy a little refuge from all this media attention lately. Maybe people care up there about the gossip, I don’t know…but, unlike here, they leave me the fuck alone.”
“It sounds like utter perfection,” she says.
“I have a few loose ends I need to tie up, and I have to figure out how to break it to my brothers that you’re taking me to Montana when this whole thing is supposed to be fake.
Oh, wait!” She holds up a finger like she just got an epic idea.
“Let’s switch with Luke and host our first family dinner on Monday.
We can break the news then and we can leave Tuesday morning. Does that work?”
“Tuesday morning,” I repeat with a firm nod. We don’t have a kitchen table big enough to accommodate a family dinner, but these are small details that can be solved.
I can’t fucking wait for Tuesday.