I laughed. Sam didn’t.
“I’m serious, Hailey.”
Oh…you are?
It wasn’t a concerned surprise. If I extrapolated out how I felt to the future, I could easily see it. I was just surprised he would be willing to—
“You look confused,” he said with a smile. “Let me explain something. When I know something is good for me, I don’t question it. I dive right into it. Not to make this about someone else, but with Tamara, we dated for about two months before I proposed to her, and that was only because I felt I had to wait longer. I’m not going to propose to you now, not naked and not with the shit with the King’s Men still out there. Things need to calm down some. But I am here to say when we take care of that shit, I want to make you mine forever.”
I…
Wow.
Yes.
Yes, I agreed.
“Promise me you’re not setting me up for something.”
Sam shook his head.
“If I am setting you up for something, corny as it fucking sounds, it’s happily ever after. So what say you?”
I knew exactly what I’d say.
“This is Hailey Cook from Devil’s Patriots TV, saying yes, I say yes.”
Sam laughed, pulled me in for a passionate kiss, and then looked me straight in the eyes. I knew what was coming next. I could practically sense it on him.
“And I say I love you, Hailey.”
And the words came out before I could think otherwise, but everything about them was completely true.
“And I love you, Sam.”
Epilogue
“You really fucking did it, huh?”
Hailey, sitting across from me on the bed—in my main bedroom—had a huge grin on her face.
“Yep, I sure did,” she said. “Quit working for WPTV, posted the unedited footage on YouTube, it’s going viral, and now I’m going to be my own journalist. I’m going to be a YouTube star.”
I couldn’t even fucking fathom what the hell that meant. The few times I’d looked at these “YouTube stars,” I felt like I was watching the dumbest fucking thing I’d ever seen in my life, and that was saying quite a damn bit. I’d sooner go to a kindergarten classroom and play with the kids than watch a ten-minute clip of some online “star” playing video games or making screeching noises.
But, hey, I didn’t expect Hailey to know the world of bikers like she had. Maybe I’d surprise myself one day and…OK, I couldn’t go that far.
“Well, guess this means I’ll have to be your sugar daddy, huh?”
“Hey now, have a little bit of faith in your girl!”
Your girl. My girl.
It just sounds so…
Right.
“I’ll do well. It’ll take some time, but it’s not like I was making a lot of money before. So even just the minimum will be enough for us.”
