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“Yes. Yes, I did. Because I wanted you out of that godforsaken apartment. I wanted to take care of you. If that makes me an asshole, then I’m gladly an asshole.”
“I don’t need you to take care of me. I can take care of me.”
“Do you think I go around paying random people’s bills? I don’t. I did that for you, just you.”
“Again. I can take care of me.”
“But you don’t have to. I’m in love with you, woman. That’s why I did this. That’s why I had to do this.”
I blanch, emotion welling in my chest, my eyes prickling. He’s said what I didn’t know I needed to hear, the words that change everything. “Can you say that again?”
“I will say it over and over for the rest of our lives if you let me. I love you. So damn much it’s killing me right now. But I get it. I need to pull you all the way into my life, I need to take care of you and you just can’t trust me enough to do it. But damn it, I have given you no reason not to trust me, and at some point you have to take a risk. At some point—”
“I love you, too,” I rasp out on a ball of emotion.
“What?”
“You know I do, Cole. You know I do.”
He shackles my arm and pulls me to him. “Then why are we apart? Why are we doing this?”
“I am scared. There. I said it. You could, you can, hurt me.”
“Sweetheart, I’m right there with you,” he kisses me, a fiery intense kiss, that has me clinging to him, until he tears his mouth from mine and says, “Marry me. Be my wife.”
“What? What?”
“You heard me. Marry me.”
“I —what about my job and your job and—”
“You don’t need that scholarship. You have me. You have to just let go of the money thing. It’s our money if you marry me anyways. But we can go to the board. Or we can wait until you graduate. Whatever it is we do, we will decide together. Just say yes. Lori. To us. To all of it. We’ll work out the details.” He turns me and sits me down on the couch and then he’s on his knee, a blue box in his hand. He opens it and inside is this stunning round, sparkling diamond. “Marry me.”
Tears start to stream down my face. “Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you.”
“You aren’t supposed to cry, sweetheart,” he says, reaching up and stroking away the dampness on my cheeks.
“I know. I just—it’s beautiful and we’re—I can’t help it.”
He sits down next to me and kisses me. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Cole slips the ring on my finger and I stare down at it. He brings my finger to his lips and kisses it. “It looks good on you.”
“I can’t believe you bought a ring.”
“I couldn’t either,” he says. “I thought you’d turn me down. I wasn’t even sure you’d give me the chance to ask.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For pushing you away. For being too afraid to give you the trust you deserve. Cole, you—”
He kisses me, a deep, drugging kiss, and whispers against my lips, “All that matters is what comes next. Ask me what comes next.”
“What comes next?”
