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I thought I’d been to crazy parties in the past, but nothing prepared me for a Demon’s Wings family Christmas Eve party.
It wasn’t that it was wild, with drugs and booze flowing freely. It was the amount of love I felt envelop me as soon as the house started filling up with guests. Everyone was family, no matter if they were blood-related or not. I was with Mia, so automatically, I was everyone’s son. Braxton was her friend, so that meant he was their son too.
The two of us couldn’t really understand that kind of family acceptance, but we welcomed it.
Kids of various ages ran around the gigantic Malibu beach house, screaming and playing without a care in the world. Parents watched over them, even as they drank virgin eggnog and warm apple cider and carried on their own conversations. It was loud and crazy, and I wanted to do this every year with Mia right beside me.
I wiped my sweaty palms on my dress pants. Mia told me no one ever really dressed up for her parents’ party, but I wanted to look good for her tonight. Jeans and a T-shirt just weren’t going to do it for the moment when our lives changed.
At least, I hoped they changed.
She could so easily say no to me when I asked her to marry me, and that was why I was sweating through my black button-up, even though it wasn’t hot in the house. All day, I’d been agonizing over what she would say when I popped the question, and my stomach had been tied in knots because of it.
Mia’s dad slapped me on the back as he passed me, giving me a wink on his way to talk to one of Mia’s many honorary uncles from OtherWorld. In the two days since we’d arrived for the holidays, Nik Armstrong had encouraged me and given me all the advice he could think of on how to make this proposal as perfect as possible.
But the truth was, I was still winging it.
Braxton leaned up against the wall beside me, his eyes watching the crowd around us. But no matter how hard he tried, his gaze always went back to the girl across the room. Nevaeh was dressed in jeans and an ugly Christmas sweater, her glasses making her eyes look like those of an adorable owl the way she kept blinking at my cousin every time she caught him looking at her.
I was getting all kinds of mixed vibes from Braxton where she was concerned, but I trusted him not to touch her with anything but care. At least, for now. She’d just turned sixteen and there were a few years before she was no longer jailbait, but my younger cousin had a hell of a lot of patience.
“Your anxiety is making me edgy,” he finally growled, looking at me for the first time. “Just do it and stop being a pussy.”
Muttering a curse, I pushed away from the wall and crossed the room purposefully. Mia stood talking to her cousin Lucy and a few other women, but when she saw me coming, she turned her back to them, giving me that smile that had my knees going weak.
If she said no, would she ever smile like that at me again?
Fuck.
“Hi,” she greeted, her voice dropping as she stared up at me through her lashes. “I missed you.”
“Baby.” I pulled her into my arms and bent to kiss her forehead. Feeling her soft gasp, my cock went rock hard, but I ignored the pressure in my balls and, with my next inhale, took a step back.
“Don’t go,” she begged, then let out a soft whimper when I dropped to one knee in before her then and there, in front of over a hundred people. “Barrick?”
I swallowed the lump that was suddenly trying to suffocate me and pulled the ring box out of my pocket. I hadn’t been able to find the perfect ring, and in the end, had customized one for her. The three-carat princess cut stone was surrounded by little pink diamonds. Inside the band, I’d had it engraved with the date we’d met—the day she’d turned my world upside down.
Or maybe right-side up.
“I know this is sudden. It’s only been a few months since we met, but the day I set eyes on you, firecracker, that was the day my life truly began. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life knowing that we belong to each other in every way. Will you marry me?”
Her chin began to tremble, and my heart stopped when twin tears fell from her beautiful green eyes. Around us, the entire house was so quiet, I could hear the waves hitting the beach outside. Even the littlest kids were no longer running around, but focused on the two of us.
Each second that ticked by with her just standing there crying was like a hundred years. Then she was throwing her arms around my neck. “Yes,” she sobbed. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Barrick.”
I locked my arms around her, holding her in place as I pressed my face to her stomach and sucked in a deep breath, fighting my own tears. “Baby,” I choked out. “Ah fuck. I love you.”