I grinned and swung my legs back and forth.
Me: Kinda serious, but not bad. <3 Plz come. You’ll love it.
Michael chuckled from under me. “You haven’t told her yet?”
I raised a brow up at him. “I didn’t have time last night. Someone wouldn’t let me leave the bedroom.”
After we showered, Michael drove us to St. Barbars as I held an ice pack to his face despite him telling me not to. I wanted the swelling to go down. He would have to go to work like this on Monday morning.
When we checked into St. Barbars, Carol gave us a tense smile. I stuck Michael’s name tag right on his chest, letting my left hand linger there, my heart filling with so many butterflies when I saw the ring again.
I must’ve stared at it for so long last night. I just … I couldn’t believe that I was engaged to him. It was really real. It’d happened so soon, but everything always felt so right with Michael. We had gotten through everything I could ever even imagine, and we had come out stronger.
Michael grabbed my hand and walked with me toward Mom’s room. I rested my head on his shoulder as we walked down the hallway, hand in hand.
How will Mom and Serena react when I tell them? Hopefully well.
When we walked into the room, Serena sat with Mom, looking as if she’d sprinted there. Victor and Damien were talking with James in the corner of the room. Mom gave me a look, eyes wide.
“Oh my gosh,” Serena said, staring wide-eyed at Michael’s black eye. She frowned at him and glanced between us. “This sucks … but at least Mason will be sitting in jail for a bit longer for what he did.”
“Michael,” Mom said, shocked. “What happened to you?”
“Long story,” Michael said, “that I think we’d all rather not get into right now.”
Serena nudged Mom. “I’ll give you the deets later. Let’s just say, Mason is an asshole.”
Mom nodded, a pained expression on her face, then turned back to me. “Is this what you wanted to tell us, sweetie? Serena made it sound like you had somegood newsto let us all in on.”
I glanced up at Michael and grinned. God, this was really happening. After looking back at my family and friends, I pushed my hand toward them and smiled even wider, which I hadn’t even thought was possible.
“OH MY GOD!” Serena leaped up from her seat, snatched my hand, and pulled it close to her face, as if she couldn’t believe I was engaged.
Engaged… it sounded so weird to even think.
“Oh my God!” Serena pulled me into a hug and jumped up and down, spinning me around with her. “My best friend is getting married!”
Mom grinned at me as if she had known this entire time what Michael was up to behind my back, plotting a proposal. “Only had to get a black eye before it happened,” Mom said to Michael, giving him a wink.
Mom pushed herself toward me and pulled me into a hug. “I’m so happy for you. You don’t know how hard it has been to keep this to myself for the past week. I’ve almost slipped so many times.”
“You knew about this?” I asked.
“Yes! Michael came by a while ago,” she said, smiling at him.
“Okay, serious question.” Serena glanced playfully over at Damien. “We’ve been dating for five years,” Serena said, wiggling her fingers in the air and letting out a giggle. “Where’s mine?”
CHAPTER36
MIA
“Faster, baby,” Michael said, placing his hands on my hips and moving them back and forth for me.
I curled my fingers into his taut chest and moved my hips with his, loving the feeling of him inside of me.
We had stayed almost the entire day at St. Barbars, celebrating with my friends and family and visiting Mr. Bryne, who was as happy for Michael as Mom had been for me. We had taken him out to the garden and to meet Mom for the first time, picked oranges from the orange tree out back, and told him about why Michael had a black eye, to which he responded with a curt, “Good.”
And now … we were back at home with the sun setting over the trees. I threw my head back, feeling Michael’s thumb slip between my legs, rubbing small circles over my clit.
