“You should let me pick you up in a bar sometime. I’ll steal your panties before you even get a drink.” I wiggled my eyebrows.
She laughed, but it faded. “I want to be strong enough for you,” she admitted quietly, lacing her hands behind my neck. “I want to be able to stand at your side…not behind you, and I can’t do that if I’ve never been on my own.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself.” My heart clenched. “I can trust that you love me. You don’t have to live in my house for me to know that.”
She took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “Right. And it’s not that I’m not choosing you.”
“You’re choosing you,” I said unflinchingly.
“Right. And we’ll have sleepovers.” She nodded.
“Just like when we were kids.” I grinned.
Her face fell. “I mean, not just like when we were kids, right?”
I gave that some thought. “Well, I did always love taking baths with you.”
“Roman!” she backhanded my chest lightly. “I’m serious. I know you love me, and you know the sex is great.”
“Just great?” I threw on my best wounded look.
“Shut up,” she demanded, blushing. “It’s earth-shaking. Happy?”
“Definitely.” I grinned and tugged her ass a little closer, so our hips aligned.
She swallowed, her breath catching a little. “Right. What if…” She pressed her lips in a flat line.
“What if…” I prodded, keeping her gaze locked on mine.
“What if me moving out shows you that everything that’s going on between us is just because I’m…convenient?” She cringed.
“Convenient,” I drawled slowly.
“You know because I was already living in your house?” It was only the stark tinge of fear that raced through her baby blues that kept me from dismissing that ridiculous notion.
“I’m glad you mentioned that,” I said instead, maneuvering slightly to get the small, tiffany-blue ring box out of my pocket. “I don’t think this is convenient.” I put the box on the counter.
Her eyes flared, and she gasped.
“Eyes up here.” My heart pounded even harder than it had after that sixty-one-yard run this week, and my stomach threatened to turn over on me.
She jerked her gaze back to mine.
“This isn’t convenient. This is scary as hell because we’ve both got everything on the line. Teagan, you’re my best friend. My oldest friend. Our relationship is at the core of who I am, and we’re risking it all because what we can be is just that good. I’m so in love with you that I know you’re it for me. I’ve never loved a woman the way I love you, and I never will again.”
Her lips parted.
“You and me? We’re the endgame. I don’t care if we’ve been together for weeks, months, years, or decades. We. Are. The. Endgame. So if you’re asking me if I’m going to get distracted, or fall out of love with you because you need a little independence, just look at that box. I’m in this.”
Her lower lip trembled. “You don’t think it’s too fast?”
“I told my mom I was going to marry you when we were five years old,” I whispered, leaning forward to brush her lips with mine. “I wouldn’t call twenty-one years too fast. And the truth is that I know you might not be ready, and that’s okay.”
“It is?” Her brow furrowed.
“It is. That ring right there will wait until you’re just as certain of us as I am. No rush. No wedding date. No pressure. Just the promise that the minute you’re ready to say yes, I’ll be here to slip it on your finger, whether that’s tomorrow or in ten years. My love isn’t going to waver.”
She glanced toward the box. “And if I said I wanted it now?”
My pulse skittered. “Then I’d drop to one knee and ask you to marry me. That’s how certain I am that we’re going to make it.”
She pushed at my chest, and I backed away, my stomach falling to the floor. Then she hopped off the counter and gave me a shaky smile. “Prove it.”
I blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Prove it. I want it now.”
My heart stopped. Breathing, thinking, moving…it all stopped.
“Roman?”
I sucked in a breath, snatched the ring box from the counter and fell to one knee on the linoleum. I’d probably thought of this moment a thousand times throughout my life, and now that it was here, my thoughts were all a jumbled-up mess, but I managed to crack the lid on the box and hold it up.
She didn’t even look at the diamond. Her eyes were fully locked on mine.
“Teagan Ray Hall, I’ve loved you since we were kids. I’ve been in love with you since we were teenagers. I will love you every day for the rest of my life. I’ll ask as many times as you need and wait for as long as I’m still breathing. Will you do me the incredible honor of being my wife?”