“Sounds good,” Kellie agreed as she burrowed in against me, the warmth of her breath tickling my neck.
For a long moment, we sat there and enjoyed the stillness. The quiet. The peace. We were both caught up in our own heads, tangled in our emotions,. Processing. Remembering. Reliving.
Above our heads, a shooting star trailed across the sky.
“Did you see that?” I asked, pointing toward where it had gone.
“It’s beautiful,” Kellie murmured, holding me even tighter.
“You’re beautiful,” I told her honestly.
“I’m a mess.”
“Yeah, but you’re my mess.”
“You’re a good guy, Jake Samuels.”
“I’m trying to be.”
“And you’re a great dad. Cassie’s a lucky girl,” Kellie told me after a moment, and I don't think she was aware of the effect her words had on me.
Gulping down the lump of emotion in my throat, I said the words I’d been holding on to for years. The words that had destroyed us the first time around, and the ones I owed it to Kellie to share with her.
“I called Cassidy to get her permission to ask you to marry me.”
ChapterTwenty-Five
Kellie
“What?” I shrieked so loudly that everything else stopped.
The frogs stopped croaking. The cows stopped groaning. The insects fell silent. All I could hear was my heart beating as I stared at Jake.
“I wanted to ask you to marry me,” he stated matter-of-factly, like his words didn’t just upend my world.
“I don't understand,” I spluttered, my mind whirling at a million miles an hour, struggling to keep up.
Jake chuckled, which was the absolute most perfect thing to do. It broke the heaviness and allowed me a chance to digest the tsunami-size bomb he’d just tossed out casually.
“Kellie, I loved you. I know we were young, and people were betting against us, but I didn’t care. I wanted my day to begin and end with you. I wanted you with me always. You were my best friend and the person who owned my heart.”
“Jake…” I whispered.
This man sitting in the dirt with bugs dive-bombing us was pouring his heart out to me, and I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to. For so long, I’d wanted to hear these words come out of Jake’s mouth, but I never trusted myself to believe it was possible. All those lonely nights, I wished for him to be there, holding my hand, telling me he loved me and that it would all be okay. Those terrifying days when it was just Cassie and me. I was completely overwhelmed and clueless, and it was Jake’s face I pictured when I needed something to center me.
Lifting my hands, I cupped his face before kissing him so softly it was barely a breath. Then, still not believing this could be real and could be my life, I pinched him.
“Ouch!” Jake complained, rubbing the spot. “What’d you do that for?”
“I needed to see if you were real.”
“Why wouldn’t you think I was real?”
“Because what you’re saying… I must be dreaming,” I confessed, looking up at him with hearts in my eyes.
“After we’d spent the night, not sleeping in the back of my truck, we came back to the house for breakfast.”
“I remember that. Your mom kept asking me if my mom knew where I was. It was weird… she’d never been that nosy before.”
