“You see as I tried to remember the moment I knew I first loved you, I realized there are too many of them to pick from. Because I fell, and fall, in love with something different about you every single day, Ships. You never cease to amaze me. And you’re always making me see you in a new light.
“So I brought you here today because you’re the one, Saylor. You’ve always been the one. And I don’t want to wait another day to tell you that. I don’t want to go through a year of details and planning to have a wedding. That’s not us. We’re spontaneous and unpretentious and only care what our family and friends think . . . and I don’t want to ask you to marry me and then have to wait forever to make you officially mine. I wanted to do it in one fell swoop because why wait? The most important thing I’ve learned from your parents is this: don’t wait for the perfect time to take a chance on your dreams. And you’re my dream, Saylor.”
Speechless, swamped with love, and beyond amazed at him and this idea, I do the only thing I can. I step into him and plant a kiss on his lips. The guests hoot and holler as Hayes slides his hands around my waist and pulls me into him while our kiss lingers before pushing me away and chuckling. “Nice try, but I’m not finished yet.”
He steps back, and with love in his eyes he clears his throat. “Saylor Rodgers, I promise to spend a lifetime loving you just like the first time I saw you—treat you like the princess you are, respect that you’re a badass superhero who can take care of herself, and love that, as much as you are a lady, there’s a little girl inside of you who still likes to play too.”
My heart can’t take any more. It’s so full it might burst. Tears well and slide down my cheeks to meet the smile on my lips. A sob hitches in my chest as I stare at the incredible man in front of me. He squeezes my hand, and his eyes well with tears before he glances to the house up the hill from us. To where my mom or dad used to walk out to the patio and call to us in the tree house. Their way of making sure we knew they were watching in case we were doing things we shouldn’t be doing but probably were. His smile softens when he meets my eyes again and I know he’s remembering them too.
And it feels as though they are here with us right now.
“I want to make more memories with you. Like kisses in a thunderstorm, frosting in your hair, sequins on Oscar night, pepperoni pizza with jalapeños, sitting on the floor watching movies with a dog asleep at our feet, and kids giggling in their bedrooms’ type of memories with you. You’re it for me, Saylor. Always have been. Always will be.
“I know we don’t need an official document or rings on our fingers to tell us we belong together, because we’ve always known it. Always will. But the part of me who looks at you every morning and is proud as hell to call you mine, wants everyone else to know it too. So I brought you here and spoke my heart to ask you a single question. Will you say I do?”
I blink several times as if I’m still trying to believe this is real . . . and happening. But when I look down to find a ring I didn’t even realize he had, being slipped on my finger, I know it is. The ring is sparkly with an inset diamond in the band and the fairy lights around us reflect in it. And even better, as I watch him slip it on, I realize he already has a wedding band on his finger.
I narrow my brow and look up to him. “I wasn’t taking any chances.”
“I can see that.” Looking at him, there isn’t a single doubt in my mind I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Not. One. I stare at our hands together. Our rings. Our fingers intertwined. Then back up to him. “Hayes Whitley, I. Do.”
Our friends and family cheer wildly as I step into him and kiss him with every ounce of love I have within me. My arms are around his neck. His hands frame my face. Our hearts beat against each other’s as one.
When he leans back, his chocolate eyes swim with the love he feels for me. “Saylor Rodgers, I do too.”
We kiss again like we’re each other’s air. Until my laughter bubbles up and over and my lips spread into a smile against his.
So that’s what forever tastes like.
“You really brought your A-game this time.”
He throws his head back and laughs.
Away from the glitz and the glamour, and in a field where we once ran as kids. Under a tree house we shared our first kiss in, and on the property my parents once owned and filled with their unmistakable love. With a small circle of friends and family before us, and fairy lights twinkling around us. . .
I marry my best friend.
The boy who stole my chocolate chip cookies.
My kisses.