“Let us see it,” I said to Wes, standing in the parking lot of the Bayport Country ClubearlySaturday morning.
We were meeting for a goddamn 6:30 a.m. tee time Wes scheduled, and if it weren’t due to uscelebratinghim, I’d have stayed my ass in bed.
“I don’t have it on me.”
“You’re so full of shit.” Gabe chuckled. “You’ve been carrying that thing around in your pocket for the last three weeks.”
“Okay, fine,” Wes relented, dipping his hand into his pocket, earning a laugh from the three of us at being caught.
“Burning a hole, is it?” Lucas joked.
“Shut up,” Wes snapped playfully. “I’m just afraid of her finding it if I leave it at home. She’s a sneaky little shit.”
He held out the box in his hand, and I took it, flipping open the top to reveal the diamond ring inside. “Damn.Nice. And you had Callie help you?”
Lucas took it, looking it over as Wes nodded. “Yeah. I took a page from Luke’s book, since he had Morgan help with Callie’s. I had a pretty good idea of what she’d like, but I wanted to be sure.”
Wes and Morgan were going to Aruba for vacation with Morgan’s family—her parents, her two brothers, and their wives. And Wes was planning to propose while they were there. They were leaving that evening, taking a flight out ahead of her family so they could have a couple of days to themselves, which was why we were golfing this morning.
I chuckled. “Haley is losing her mind.”
“I guess she knows Brody’s wife and asked her to record it for her.” Wes rolled his eyes, but he was smiling.
“She’s just excited to see you making an honest man out of yourself,” I teased.
“Yeah, and it could be worse. She could hate Morgan,” Lucas said. “At least they get along.”
“They get alongtoo well,” Wes scoffed. “They gang up on me. Ask Blake. At Sunday dinner, they’re damn near relentless together.”
“They are pretty brutal on him,” I agreed with a laugh. “It’sgreatentertainment for me, though.”
“Yeah,” he mocked. “Yuk it up, ya dick.”
I snorted out a laugh as I clapped his shoulder. “Damn, you getsassywhen you’re nervous.”
Wes sighed. “I amnotnervous.”
Gabe, Lucas, and I all shared a look. Wes was mostdefinitelynervous about the proposal. “You’ll befine,” Gabe said. “She loves your crazy ass.”
We finished our golf game just before eleven. After saying goodbye to the guys, I made my way back to my car. Switching gears from the early morning at the country club, I shot off a text to Haley, telling her that I was on my way to her place and to be dressed and ready.
I gave her no context. I didn’t answer her questions when she texted back, asking what we were doing. I just swung by my place, got Maverick into my Jeep along with some things I might need for him—food, his water dish, treats, his leash—and headed over.
For the first time in a long time, things felt calm, even when I was away from Haley—but they were always better when Iwas with her. I was still going to therapy, and while my sessions had dwindled to an as-needed basis, I still saw Nate twice a month.
I had a bit of a breakthrough a few sessions ago, when I finally spoke the words, “It wasn’t my fault.”
I never realized the power that speaking something out loud could have. However, when I uttered the words for the very first time and said them as if I wasactuallystarting to believe them, I felt a weight lift.
Thanks to Haley.
I wasn’t going to pretend I didn’t put in the work myself to finally get to a point where I could say those words out loud, and I still had a way to go before I believed them entirely. If it wasn’t for Haley, however, I don’t know that I’d ever have gotten to that point at all.
I meant what I told her that day when I said that she saved me. There wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t believe it. She came into my life when I needed it most. And shestayed, even when she saw the broken pieces I tried to keep hidden from everyone else. She saw them, and shestayed.
Haleychoseto walk beside the broken and help me heal.
There was nothing that I would ever be able to do or say to show or tell her how much she meant to me, how much I loved her. But I was damn sure going to spend every day trying.
