Page 87 of First Down, Second Chances
“Sixteen thousand,” he corrects. “Let’s be accurate.”
Dinner is chaotic in the best way. We eat on my couch because Taysom insists the dining table is “too formal for a Tuesday,” and Miley keeps trying to steal food even though she already got her contraband salmon. The pasta isn’t burned, which I make sure to point out at least twice.
“You know,” Taysom says, setting his plate on the coffee table, “I’ve been thinking.”
My heart does a little flip. “Oh?”
“You’ve been here for almost a year. Your lease is up next month.”
“Yes?” I draw out the word, not sure where he’s going with this.
“And my lease is month-to-month now.”
“Okay...”
He shifts on the couch, turning to face me fully, and suddenly he looks nervous.
Taysom Reed, who plays in front of 80,000 screaming fans every week, looksnervous.
“Charlotte Mercer,” he says, and then he’s sliding off the couch onto one knee, and oh my gosh, this is happening—
“What are you doing?” I squeak, launching myself off the couch
“Well, I was going to propose, but if you want me to stand up—”
“No! Don’t stand up. Don’t move. Don’t—” I clamp my hand over my mouth because I’m either going to cry or laugh or probably both.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small velvet box. ”I had this whole speech planned.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. About how you’re the bravest person I know, and how you make me want to be better, and how I can’t imagine my life without you in it.” He opens the box, and the ring inside is perfect—simple, elegant, so completelymethat I know he put thought into every detail. “But now I’m looking at you and all I can think is that I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life making you laugh and burning pasta and spoiling our cat.”
I’m crying now, definitely crying.
He grins. “So what do you say, Charlotte? Will you marry me?”
I jump into his arms, nearly knocking him over. “Yes. Yes, absolutely yes.”
He catches me, laughing, and slides the ring onto my finger. It fits perfectly.
“I love you,” I say against his lips.
“I love you too.”
Miley chooses that exact moment to jump onto Taysom’s back, meowing loudly, and we both dissolve into laughter.
“She approves,” I say.
“She better. I ran this by her last week.”
“You asked a cat for permission to marry me?”
“I asked the cat, your father, Kyle, Willa, and your boss. I’m very thorough.”
I kiss him again, long and deep, and think about everything that led to this moment. Getting fired. The fundraiser. The long distance. The leap of faith that brought me here.
All of it. Every complicated, beautiful piece of it.
When I was younger, I used to worry about my hair, about being selfish, about wearing the wrong outfit.
But sitting here on my living room floor, engaged to the man I love, with an overgrown cat trying to steal my ring—
I’ve never been more right about anything in my life.
