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Chapter Eleven
~Thomas~
Two years later…
I sat in the hard, plastic chair between my dad and Coco’s dad, waiting for her turn to take the stage. Her commencement was being held on the hottest day I’d ever lived through, but I was pretty sure not all of the sweating I was doing was due to the heat.
We’d been worried that a long-distance relationship would be hard, but it hadn’t been as bad as we’d expected. We’d talked every single night on the phone, and most weekends we met halfway between wherever we were so we could spend time together in person.
Once I’d graduated, I’d taken a job only forty miles from her campus, and though we had discussed moving in together then, we decided that she should finish out schooling in the dorms. I wanted her to be able to focus on her last year of school, and she didn’t actually want to risk sleeping next to me every night and winding up pregnant by accident.
And now, here we were. Getting ready to spend the next chapter of our lives together. I felt over my pocket for the hundredth time since I’d sat down, ensuring that the ring was still safely tucked away.
“Constance Brand!”
When the announcer called her name, everyone in our row stood up and cheered. Coco looked over at us and beamed as she crossed the stage, then she took her diploma, shook hands with the dean and continued her march to the other side to join the rest of her classmates.
It was all I could do not to rush over to her and pull her into my arms. I was so fucking proud of her. And this damn ring was burning a hole in my pocket.
Forty-five minutes later, the ceremony finally ended, the graduates threw their caps in the air, and the crowds started breaking apart. It was another twenty minutes before Coco fought her way over to us.
Respectfully, I let her embrace her parents first. But the moment she turned to me I pulled her into my arms and kissed her fiercely.
“Congratulations,” I told her, smoothing her hair away from her face. “I’m so proud of you!”
“Thank you.” She beamed at me. “I’m fucking starving. Please tell me we’re going to eat now.”
“We are,” her dad assured her. “But first, I think this young man here has something he needs to do.”
I reached into my pocket and palmed the ring, then dropped to one knee in front of my future wife.
“Constance,” I said, looking up at her and blinking back tears I hadn’t expected. “We’ve had an interesting road to get here. But I wouldn’t have chosen any other path, because this one led me straight to you.” I offered up the ring and smiled. “Will you marry me?”
“Is that a Ring Pop?” she asked, incredulously.
“It is,” I assured her. I took her hand and slid it onto her finger. “I knew you’d be hungry. You’re always hungry. So, I had them set the ring inside the sucker.”
“You’re an idiot,” she said, pulling me to my feet, her laughter broken by a soft sob. “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” I promised her. “Forever and ever.”
She held the ring up and stared at the diamond encased in red sugary goodness, then she laughed again and stuck the sucker in her mouth.
“Was that a yes?” Bill asked, irritation clear in his tone.
“It was a yes,” Coco said around the ring. “This better not be my dessert.”
“I have an entire sheet cake back at the apartment for you,” I promised her.
“Promise me,” she said seriously, taking my hand and staring up into my eyes. “That once we get married, you will always have cake in our house.”
“I solemnly swear,” I promised her.
Honestly, I’d do anything to make her happy.
Forever and ever.
