I kissed Mark’s cheek and yawned, not wanting to have this conversation now, not wanting to disturb the feeling of the sunshine on my face and the soft breeze in my long blond hair.
“Do you remember the night Peachtree High won state?” he whispered.
I laughed, my head still on his shoulder. “You mean the nightyouwon state?”
His turn to laugh. “Well, I mean, I didn’t want to say that... but if that’s how you remember it.”
Mark had been the star of the Peachtree Bluff basketball team all four years, had been recruited by several wonderful colleges, and had gone to UGA on a full scholarship. He probably could have gone pro if he wanted to, but that wasn’t Mark. After he graduated, he’d been ready to come home, take over the family shipping business, take over the care of his mother, who, I’ll be honest, was the only black mark on the man’s record. Thank the Lord for me that crazy bat had moved to Florida for more sun and fewer taxes.
Everyone had been jealous of Mark and me, Peachtree High’s version of a power couple. He would play in the NBA, and I would be the basketball mogul’s trophy. Only, I didn’t want to be a trophy. I wanted to be a star. And that was all on me.
“Do you remember how that felt, Emerson?” Mark asked now. “All those fans cheering in the stands, that anticipation of those final moments, feeling like your entire life hung on that shot, knowing that, win or lose, you would never be the same?”
I smiled. “I couldn’t ever forget it, Mark.” Those nights became a part of us. A piece of me would always be the flyer, the top of the pyramid. Sometimes I longed for the simplicity of those days, for the feeling that life would never get better, I would never get better. Sometimes it scared me that maybe I had been right.
“That’s exactly how I feel right now,” Mark said.
I laughed and sat up, looking at him. “What do you mean, that’s how you feel right now?”
He cleared his throat. “You know, Em, this wasn’t really how I was planning to do this, but I can’t wait anymore.”
I could feel my brow furrowing. “Do what? What are you talking about?” My pulse quickened, but I had no idea what was coming next, no inkling of how my life was getting ready to change.
“Emerson, I used to look at you when I was standing on the free-throw line, when you were jumping up and down in that crop top and car-wash skirt, and I knew even then that everything I would ever do for the rest of my life would be for you. I wasn’t only making those free throws for you. I was making a future for you. For us.”
Now my heart was beating really fast. Part of me thought this was just a typical Mark confession of undying love. The other part of me thought that maybe this was something more. “Mark, I—”
He cut me off. “I tried to move on, Em. I swear I did. But no one else is you, and it is so abundantly clear to me that you are the one true love of my life. No one is ever going to make me feel the way you did.” He took a deep breath. “The way youdo.”
I was having a hard time swallowing or breathing or any of the other things that are supposed to be automatic biological functions, because he was pulling his feet out of the water and shifting onto his knee.
I wanted to stop him, say something, do something. But before I could, Mark reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring box.
“Oh, my God,” I said, my hand over my mouth. “You have a ring.”
When they have a ring, it’s not a spur-of-the-moment thing. It’s a real thing.
“Emerson Murphy,” Mark said with a huge grin on his face, “will you marry me? Please?”
I gasped, and I could see the hope written all over his face. Did he seriously think that I would say yes? That a big, sparkly ring could counteract all the conversations we’d had about our future? I couldn’t count the number of times over the past few months we had talked about the impracticality of this. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, stay in Peachtree. He’d contended that he couldn’t leave his business behind and run off to LA. I was willing to commute, to fly back and forth, to live a life between two places. But Mark wasn’t. And that was the sticking point for us every time. That was where we always ended the conversation, where it got too hard.
I couldn’t bear to say no to his proposal. I loved Mark with all my heart. And maybe this proposal meant he would change his mind, he would be willing to compromise. But I couldn’t quite say yes, either. I wanted to marry Mark. I even wanted to have his babies, which was a big damn deal, considering how important looking flawless in a swimsuit was to my career. But I also wanted to go back to my old life. No, I wasn’t wild about the traffic or the high rent, but I was wild about the thrill of being in front of a camera, of becoming someone else. It was an incredible feeling.
But this was an incredible feeling, too. Thinking about spending my life with Mark, waking up with him every morning and going to sleep with him every night. It was all I had wanted as a girl.
“Mark, I...” I started, but I didn’t know how to finish.
He was looking at me now, his green eyes so full of anticipation and hope, his hair mussed from the day on the farm. He was so handsome, but he didn’t know it, preppy in that good Southern way where he could put on a tux and take you to the ballet, pull on a pair of work boots and plow a field, or don camo all day in a deer stand and bring home dinner. My heart swelled so full of love for him that I leaned over and kissed him.
“Is that a yes?” he said, pulling back from me.
Damn. I knew I shouldn’t have kissed him.
I bit the inside of my cheek. “It’s a let me think about it for a minute.”
“A minute?”
I shrugged. “A day?”
