The crew went about their business then. They were probably disappointed with not getting a firework reaction out of her.
“You recognize it?” I asked her.
She smiled in remembrance, and I was struck with the need to kiss her beautiful smile again, “Tenny Park. How could I forget our first date?” she asked.
“Just wait til you see the next one I have planned, baby,” I whispered and wrapped my arms around her and pressed a kiss against her temple.
After spending hours hopping around to all of the Brecklin bars, we started to get our drunk asses back to my place. We shared a loud uber to Taco Bell and then feasted like kings in my tiny living room space.
Paige and Max, and Ashlie and Smitty decided to crash at my place in the living room and extra bedroom.
Poor Paige and Max were sharing the cot in my extra room, which I don’t think they would’ve done sober.
Jules and I retired to my room then.
I closed the door softly.
“Dance with me,” I whispered to her.
She giggled, “we just danced the last three hours away,” she said softly back.
I grabbed her hand gently and pulled her close to me.
“No, slow dance. Here, stand on my toes.” We’d done this hundreds of times as high schoolers, messing around in the Hurley’s almost permanently vacant kitchen. I remember always thinking that was sad, how Jules never had anyone waiting for her at home. But she had me. Always.
Her head only made it to the middle of my chest. She wore heels so often I sometimes forgot how tiny she was.
“You’re so small,” I teased her.
She kissed my chest and looked up at me. Killed me when she did that. Made me feel invincible.
“Fuck, babe.”
…And then we did just that.
Coming down from our high, with our limbs tangled around each other, I faced her in the dark and dared to ask what had been in the works for what felt like an eternity.
“Julianna, will you move in with me?”
She turned to me, looking so serenely beautiful.
“Yes,” she smiled. “I was hoping you’d ask.”
Feeling my chest swell, I grabbed the back of her neck and kissed her, “You don’t even know where I’m going and you just said yes?” I asked, amazed.
“I’m going with you, wherever you go,” she said confidently with a nod.
“Texas.”
“Texas,” she repeated and smiled. “They signed you, didn’t they?” She touched my cheek, “Congratulations, baby. I’m so proud of you.”
The next morning, she put on a white dress with a blue ribbon on it for my graduation, which matched my blue robe. My parents couldn’t make it, but that was okay because she was my family. She was probably the one who cared the most and was the proudest of this degree anyway.
My dad found it funny that she cared so much about a piece of paper when my real accomplishment was signing with an AHL team in Texas.
She sat with Paige and Ashlie during the ceremony, Paige would be taking another year to graduate, so she wasn't up here with us. Ashlie was in cosmetology school back home in Northfield but had come up to watch Smitty walk.
Jules took about a thousand pictures of me and with me, which felt a little ridiculous, but it made her happy, so I obliged. I had missed her graduation back in December because it was a game weekend, so it was the least I could do.
