“She’s protective.”
“Very.”
By midnight, the crowd had turned over but was every bit as large and raucous as it had been during the game. Any hope of a quiet conversation drifted out into the Tampa night.
I stood up, my heart pounding.
This was it.
Diego caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up.
I wove my way to the bar where Finn was jugglingorders and Mark was cashing out a customer.
“Hey, you,” I said.
Finn looked up. “Hey, yourself. Hell of a night, right?”
“Yeah. Listen, can you take a break? I want to show you something.”
“Show me what?”
“Just—can you come with me for a minute?”
Finn glanced at Mark. Mark, the traitorous bastard, shook his head “no” and looked around at the crowd of men waiting on drinks.
Finn shrugged. “We’re kinda slammed. Can you give me another hour? It should thin out at some point.”
I couldn’t wait.
Not one minute longer.
The crowd be damned.
I tapped a few men out of the way, clearing a place on the bar, and vaulted to stand atop it.
Finn stepped back, eyes wide, mouth open. “Babe, what are you doing?”
The crowd was staring now. Even guys eating at tables had stopped and looked up, curious about the idiot standing on top of the bar.
“EVERYONE,” I called out. “PLEASE, EVERYONE. CAN I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION?”
Slowly, conversations quietedto a dull roar.
I sucked in a deep breath and turned to Finn, motioning for him to join me on the bar counter. His whole face scrunched up, and he started to protest, but Mark and Jacks were there and ready, shoving him forward and helping him up to tower over the crowd.
“Chase, what’s going on?” Finn asked, concern in his voice now. “You’re acting really weird.”
Jacks’s hand reached up and offered me a microphone.
Finn’s face lost the last of its color.
“I love you,” I blurted into the mic.
He blinked.
“The past nine months have been the best of my life,” I said, the words tumbling out now. “Every day I wake up next to you, I can’t believe how lucky I am. You’ve changed everything for me—my whole life, my whole world. I can’t imagine going back to who I was before I met you. Before I ran into you on that sidewalk and you looked at me like I was something worth knowing.”
Finn’s expression shifted from concerned to stunned to something soft, his eyes bright in the dim light.
