Either way.
“I guess whether I am proposing depends on your answer,” he mused.
Her stomach flipped. This was for real. He was doing this.
“I’ve gotta be out there in five minutes.” Sam whisper hissed. “And you chose now to ask me?”
“Well, we’ve gotta beat Mach down the aisle,” Tanner said with an eyeroll.
“He’s not actually…” Sam glanced over to where Mach stood with the winner of his contest.
But that was a whole different story.
“Three minutes,” Hans said from beside her. “So Tanner, please get to it, propose to your girlfriend before the band starts up.”
“This is real. You are choosing now to do this?” Sam asked, her eyes unfocused because this was not at all like she’d expected.
Not that she’d had huge expectations or anything. She just figured if he asked, it wouldn’t be on the fly in a hurry before she sang about cheese sticks.
“I had to choose now because otherwise the whole thing wouldn’t work,” Tanner said, his eyes glittering with mischief.
“What?” she asked. “What wouldn’t work?”
“That.” He nodded to the stage.
“You make no sense sometimes.” She leaned into him.
He took her hand with a reverence that made her heart seem to skip a beat. Then, when she thought he was going to drop to one knee, he pulled her onto the stage instead.
Like right on the stage. In the middle of it where there was a spotlight and a stadium full of people and he just pulled her right there and pointed to the front row where…
Oh God.
Everything stilled. The whole stadium seemed to freeze, waiting to see what the hell was happening.
Babushka, Aunt Etta, Betty Jane… Mom. Dad. Even Dan stood there. And they all had handwritten poster board signs that spelled out SAY YES!
Betty Jane and Aunt Etta also held up the crochet puppet masterpieces of Sam and Tanner.
Holy goodness. This was planned.
Not a passing thought before she took the stage and prepped the crowd for his band. No. This was a thought-out moment, carefully crafted for her by the man she’d fallen in love with.
“You did this,” she whispered.
This was a man she was going to murder because he could not pull a stunt like this right before she was supposed to be on. She sort of choked on the future. Hiccuped.
An audible gasp from the crowd brought her back to the present.
The Dimefront guys came on the stage. They started playing the first chords to her new song. The one she’d been working on with Tanner about playing hide and seek with the right person. The one they’d tapped out on the keyboard at his apartment the first night they… that.
Tanner fell on his knee, holding a fucking huge diamond ring. How was she warm and cold and numb and feeling everything all at the same time?
And why was she crying?
She snatched the ring from him, holding it up so she could get a better look.
“Holy… Tanner, this is…”
