She watches me carefully.
“But then I met you.”
My voice roughens. “And suddenly the noise didn’t matter anymore.”
I take her hands. “You drown out the background,” I share. “You make everything quiet in the best way. You make life—and love—easy.”
Her eyes fill immediately.
“I didn’t know easy,” I continue. “Not like this. Not like coming home and knowing where I belong.”
Her bottom lip trembles.
I drop to one knee.
The world narrows to her face. She gasps softly, hands flying to her mouth. “Dixon,” she whispers.
I pull the ring from my pocket, opening the box with fingers that finally stop shaking. “I don’t want the road calling me away anymore,” I tell her. “I want you calling me home.”
Tears spill freely down her cheeks now.
“I love you,” I confess. “Not in the passing way. Not in the heat-of-the-moment way. In the stay-forever way.”
My voice breaks slightly, but I don’t look away.
“Will you marry me?”
There’s a beat.
Two.
Her hands tremble as they drop from her mouth.
“Yes,” she breathes. Then louder, through tears and laughter and pure disbelief—"Yes.”
The word hits me like sunrise. I stand, sliding the ring onto her finger.
It fits.
Of course it fits.
She throws her arms around my neck, and I lift her without thinking, spinning her once like the world finally aligned. “I can’t believe this is real,” she laughs against my shoulder.
“It’s real,” I murmur into her hair.
She pulls back, cupping my face. “This,” she replies, voice soft but sure, “this is what life should be.”
I raise a brow.
“What’s that?”
“An easy ride,” she smiles.
The phrase settles between us like something sacred.
An easy ride.
Not because it’s effortless.
