“You look beautiful.” He tucks a curl behind my ear, fingertips lingering against my skin. His touch is warm, familiar, everything.
“I look like someone who barely made it out the door with matching shoes.”
“And still beautiful.”
Heat floods my cheeks, spreading down my throat in a slow, molten wave I can’t disguise. Kyle watches the shift in me with a tenderness that steals something out of my chest, and he inhales. When his eyes lift back to mine, the change in them is unmistakable. Hisexpression settles into something deeper, weighted with meaning.
“I didn’t plan on running up here to do this,” he says, voice low and careful, as if he’s lifting something precious into the light. “But I know in my heart that this elevator matters more than either of us wants to admit.”
A tiny tremor moves through me, my breath catching in the space between us. I feel the memory of that day like a physical pulse beneath my skin, impossible to ignore. This elevator, where he leaned across and looked at me like I was a problem he desperately wanted to solve, even though neither of us fully understood why. The place that held the first quiet proof that the world had shifted under our feet and neither of us would walk the same again.
Kyle steps closer, closing the space so gently it feels like a vow in motion. “Almost a year ago, I didn’t know how to trust that someone could want me for exactly who I was… not the last Hendrix brother or the guy the media had high expectations for.”
I feel my heart push painfully against my ribs as my breath stutters.
“I didn’t know how to believe that if I reached for something real, it wouldn’t fall apart in my hands. Not because of you, but because of me. I didn’t think I’d earned anything that good.”
His fingers slide down my spine, grounding, steady.
“But then you walked into my life like you already knew the parts of me I kept trying to hide. And insteadof running, you looked at me like I was someone worth choosing.”
The elevator hums, the soft mechanical glide beneath our feet the only sound for a long moment.
“And somewhere between that first elevator ride and every moment after,” he says, voice roughening, “I learned how to let myself want something that scared the hell out of me. I learned how to let myself want you.”
His forehead nearly touches mine, eyes locked on mine. “Once I did… I never stopped. I know exactly what I want now, because every day since that elevator you’ve shown me who I get to be when I’m with you.”
I feel something inside me tip, slow and inevitable, like a truth I’ve been circling finally clicking into place. My fingers curl lightly in the fabric of his sweatshirt, anchoring myself to the weight of his words and certainty in his eyes.
“Kyle—” My voice shakes with the devastating tenderness of being seen this clearly. “You don’t have to say any more. I already?—”
“No,” he breathes, his thumb brushing a soft stroke along my jaw. “Let me finish. Please.”
There’s no desperation in the request, only the aching need to lay something at my feet that he has carried for too long. His gaze flicks down to my mouth, then back to my eyes, and the look there is so full of emotion it steals the breath right out of me.
“I wake up every day choosing you, not because it’s easy, or because we figured everything outovernight, but because choosing you feels like something my heart learned without asking my permission.”
The elevator hums beneath us, slow and mechanical, as if even the building is listening.
“And I want to keep choosing you,” he continues, voice steady and rich with promise. “Not just today. Not just in the good moments. But in every fight and every stupid headline. In every early morning snuggle and every late-night panic spiral. I want to choose you in every messy, beautiful, impossible part of our lives.”
He takes a breath, like he’s gathering courage he doesn’t need. “Because everything that matters between us… started right here.”
The elevator slows—just a gentle shift under our feet—but Kyle doesn’t look away. His hand slips into his jacket, and something breaks open inside me, like a door that’s been waiting too long to be touched.
“Alycia,” he whispers, and the way he says my name is a vow all by itself. “I’ve been trying to find the perfect place to do this. I kept thinking it had to be big or romantic or planned. Something worthy of you.”
Something in me shudders open, a tight, breathless stutter of air I can’t quite hold on to. My chest feels too full, like my heart is trying to press closer to him before I’ve even moved. The elevator hums beneath us, the world shrinking to the small space between his words and my pulse, and I know that nothing about my life will ever be the same after this breath.
“But the truth is…” He gives a small, almost helpless laugh. “Every moment I’ve ever had with you that mattered happened in the places we didn’t plan. The places we stumbled into. The places where we were just… us.”
The elevator dings softly, and the doors begin to open, but Kyle’s hand flashes out and presses the emergency stop. The door freezes halfway, and a hush settles over us as Kyle pulls a small velvet box from his jacket.
“Alycia Torres…” His voice barely cracks as he opens the box, his eyes shimmering with emotion he doesn’t bother hiding. “Will you marry me?”
He looks at me with a depth that feels like sunlight breaking through storm clouds, and the world holds perfectly, beautifully still. For a moment, I can’t breathe because everything inside me recognizes this moment, like my heart lived its whole life waiting for the shape of his voice in this elevator, saying my name like future and promise and something sacred.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out except the smallest, cracked whisper. “Kyle…”
