Change of Hart(90)

I broke out into a wide grin. “Addison, yeah. She’s amazing.”

“I’m glad,” she said, patting me on the arm. “I always wondered when the right woman would come along and snatch you up. You’re too good of a catch to be single the rest of your life.”

“Well, speaking of that,” I said with a devious grin on my face. “Can I ask for your help with something?”

“Sure,” she said. “Am I gonna get a scoop to go along with it?”

“Oh, you’ll get a scoop alright.” She sat down next to me on the bench and I filled her in on my plan.





Just as I had said, the team was gelling well and the game went off exactly as planned. Well, exactly as our team planned. I had four sacks and several pretty significant blocks. You could say I was burning off nervous energy. It worked. We won 24 - 14.

As the team started heading toward the tunnel to make their way to the locker room, I headed to the fifty-yard line and the seats reserved for family members. As I passed our head trainer, he intercepted me and completed his one and only hand-off on the field. Then I glanced over at Catherine Hernandez who was in position and ready to roll.

When I got to Addison and Jaxon, I noticed she was in the middle of a lively discussion with someone I didn’t recognize. Probably one of the new girlfriends. They were always rotating in and out. Jaxon noticed me, however, and was doing a bang up job of trying to contain his excitement. I stepped up on a leftover water cooler and hauled myself over the railing, wrapping my arms around her waist from behind.

“Oh!” she said in surprise before realizing it was me. “Jason, you scared me. What are you doing up here?”

Just then, Catherine and her cameraman came walking up to us, making sure to capture every moment.

“Well,” I started, “when we first started dating we had the worst trouble with publicity. So I’m here to make sure it doesn’t happen again by making my own public statement right here, right now.”

I pulled the black velvet box out of the waistband of my pants and dropped to one knee. The stands weren’t even close to being empty yet and Catherine had worked it out for this moment to not only be broadcast on all the monitors in the building, but on TV as well. So it came as no surprise when I heard a collective gasp coming from around the stadium. But the loudest gasp I heard was from the woman right in front of me.

“Jason, what are you doing?” she whispered, her eyes wide with disbelief.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” I said with a smile. “I’m proposing. Now hush so I can get it right.”

I cleared my throat before continuing. “Addison Bryant, I will never forget the day you dropped into my life. I was perfectly content living for my career. But then you showed up with your bright eyes and your big, joyful smile and I was a goner. I’ve heard people talk about how love just bowls you over when it shows up, but I never expected it to feel like this. You’re all I ever think about. You’re all I dream about. You are the single most important thing to me. I love your humor. I love the way you stumble over your words when you get nervous. I love your strength. I love the way you love Jaxon. I love you so much, I feel like our souls were just waiting to find each other. And now I feel like a total wuss for saying all this mushy stuff in front of all these people. But here’s the gist of it,” I opened the box to reveal a nearly flawless three-carat round diamond solitaire set in platinum with gleaming pave-set diamonds along the band. I only knew all that because I picked it out myself. I was pretty proud of that fact.

“I love you. I want you to be my wife. I want to be your husband. And I want us to be a family. Will you please do me the honor of marrying me?”

Her hands were covering her mouth and tears were streaming down her face. When the shock finally wore off a few seconds later, she wiped her face and turned to Jaxon. “Well, what do you think, buddy? Do you think I should say yes?”

Jaxon just rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air in exasperation. “Just say yes already, Mom! I already told him it was ok for him to marry you!”

She turned back to me quickly with an amused look on her face. “What is he talking about?”

“What?” I shrugged. “I had to get permission from the man of the house before popping the question. It’s practically a requirement before proposing.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Well in that case,” she said with a smile on her face, “since you already have Jaxon’s permission . . . yes,” she said softly. “Yes, I will marry you.”