Chapter 18 #4
“No. Let me finish before Jace’s family starts selling tickets.”
He looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or panic.
I opened the box.
Inside was a ring.
Not an engagement ring.
Not flashy.
A heavy gold band, simple and solid, with one small star engraved on the outside.
Drew stared at it.
I took it out and held it in my palm.
“I know I’m nineteen,” I said. “I know you’re almost twenty-two. I know showing up in Colorado with jewelry and legal documents is unhinged.”
His brows shot up. “Legal documents?”
“Later.”
“Texas.”
“Let me finish.”
His mouth closed.
Mostly.
“I am not asking you to marry me tonight.”
Something flashed through his face too fast to name.
“Good,” he said roughly. “Because I might say yes just to be stupid.”
My heart kicked.
I kept going.
“This is not me asking for your money or your name or your father’s empire or your NFL future or whatever ESPN thinks you’re worth someday. This is me asking you to believe that when I say I want you, I mean Drew Travers.”
His eyes dropped to the ring.
“There’s an engraving inside,” I said.
He took it slowly.
Like it might hurt him.
His thumb brushed the inside of the band.
His face changed when he read it.
No midnight.
He closed his eyes.
My tears came again, but I kept my voice steady.
“You gave me ‘You don’t need luck.’ I’m giving you no midnight. Because I don’t want the breakup. I don’t want the clean break. I don’t want the fake boyfriend anymore.”
His eyes opened.
“I want the real one.”
Drew’s breath left him.
I pulled the folded papers from inside my coat.
He stared at them.
“I also had my father’s lawyer draft this.”
“Isa.”
“It says I waive any claim to Montgomery money. Richard money. Family business money. NFL money. NIL money. Trusts. Inheritance. Whatever. If you ever choose me and I choose you, I get nothing from you financially unless we both decide otherwise later with actual adults involved.”
He looked almost angry then.
“Baby, I don’t want a woman who needs paperwork to prove she loves me.”
“I know.”
“Then why—”
“Because you needed proof that I understood what I did to you.” My voice broke again. “Not because I think love is paperwork. Because I know what it felt like when my mother made you feel bought. I know what my silence cost you. This is me saying I heard you. I heard all of it.”
He looked at the papers.
Then at me.
Snow clung to his beanie. His cheeks were pink from the cold. His eyes were bright with all the things he was trying not to feel.
“I don’t want your money,” I said. “I don’t want Richard’s approval.
I don’t want my mother’s pride. I don’t want a bigger prize than Tristan Vale.
I want your coffee texts. Your bossy protein lectures.
Your couch. Your hands. Your stupid cut-off shirts.
Your quiet house. Your towels folded like you’re expecting inspection.
” My mouth trembled. “I want the man who made a cold kitchen warm because his mother taught him how.”
Drew’s face crumpled for half a second.
Just half.
But I saw it.
I stepped closer and held out my hand.
“I love you,” I said. “You do not have to forgive me tonight. You do not have to trust it right away. But I’m done lying. I love you, Drew Travers. I loved you before I knew how to be brave enough to say it.”
He stared at me.
Then at the ring in his palm.
Then back at me.
“You should’ve said this before I left.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know if I trust it yet.”
“I know.”
His jaw flexed.
“You’re really bad at arguing now.”
A laugh escaped me.
“I’m evolving.”
His mouth curved, but his eyes stayed wet.
“What if I need time?”
“Then I’ll give you time.”
“What if I’m still mad?”
“Then be mad.”
“What if I want to kiss you and still be mad?”
My heart slammed.
“That sounds very on brand for us.”
He looked at me for one long, impossible second.
Then he moved.
Fast.
One second there was snow and space and fear between us.
The next, Drew had me in his arms.
He picked me up like I weighed nothing, spinning me once on the deck while I clutched his shoulders and made a sound that was half laugh, half sob. Snow whirled around us. Somewhere inside the house, people screamed like he had scored a touchdown.
Drew buried his face in my neck.
I held on.
Hard.
“I’m still mad,” he said against my skin.
“I know.”
“I still don’t know if I trust this all the way.”
“I know.”
“I love you so much it makes me stupid.”
I pulled back enough to see his face.
“There he is.”
His smile broke through then.
Full Drew.
Dimples.
Trouble.
The man I loved.
“I wanted you first,” he said.
“I know.”
“I saw you first.”
“I know.”
“You took forever.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” He looked at the ring still clenched in one hand. “No midnight?”
“No midnight.”
He slipped the ring onto his right ring finger.
It fit.
Of course it did. I’d guessed from memory and panic and maybe some divine intervention from the ghost of every woman who had ever chased the right man into the wrong weather.
He looked at it.
Then at me.
“Looks good.”
“You look good in commitment.”
“Baby, I look good in everything.”
I laughed through tears.
Inside the house, Jace’s voice shouted, “Can we come out now, or are you two about to make this weird?”
Drew didn’t look away from me.
“Already weird,” he called back.
The door flew open.
Jace, Hannah, their mother, their father, two teenage cousins, and someone’s grandma spilled onto the threshold like a live studio audience. “We watched it live from the Ring Camera in HD.”
Grandma wiped her eyes with a napkin.
“That was beautiful.”
One teenage boy whispered, “Dude, Texas proposed.”
“I did not propose,” I said.
Jace grinned. “You brought a ring and legal documents into a snowstorm.”
“I clarified. “My love life is not content.”
Jace grinned. “Too late, Texas I already clipped and downloaded the last five minutes.”
Drew wrapped one arm around my waist and pulled me into his side.
I elbowed him.
He grunted dramatically. Then he looked down at me, eyes soft enough to undo the whole world.
“All I want for Christmas—”
“Don’t,” I warned.
His grin widened.
“Don’t say it.”
“Baby.”
“No. It’s cheese.”
“I’m the king of cheese.”
“I know,” I said, my chest opening around the truth now that it was out and alive between us. “That’s why I love you.”
The deck went quiet.
Even Jace shut up.
Drew’s face changed.
He bent his head and kissed me.
Not for show.
Not to prove anything.
Not to make fake look real.
Real had finally stopped needing help.
When he lifted his mouth, Jace’s mom clapped.
Then everyone else did too.
Drew groaned. “This family is a nightmare.”
Jace’s grandma lifted one finger. “A supportive nightmare.”
I leaned into Drew’s chest, laughing so hard I could barely breathe.
Snow fell.
The ring shone on his hand.
The bracelet warmed against my wrist.
And for the first time since I made the stupidest rule of my life, midnight did not feel like an ending.
It felt like something we were going to survive.