I ride the heavens with him by my side. Always by my side.
When the wave crests and dissipates, I find myself in his arms as he strokes my hair gently back from my face.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers. “So fucking perfect. The most beautiful, perfect thing that God ever created on this earth.”
I laugh and bury my face against his chest.
“I don’t think we’re going to make it to the restaurant.”
“Fuck the restaurant.”
I giggle and wrap my arm around him, wanting to be as close to him as possible without having him inside me.
“The van was a nice touch.” I look around us. “Where did you even get it?”
“I was at work when I got your text, so I borrowed it from maintenance.”
“Thank you for coming,” I whisper.
He guffaws. “Didn’t have a whole lot of choice with you squeezing and spasming all over my cock like that.”
I smack his chest. “That’s not what I meant.”
He laughs and grabs my hand, bringing it to his mouth and kissing my knuckles. “I know, babe. I know.”
I wasn’t sure how he’d respond to the text I sent half an hour ago with my location and the message:
Flat tire. Damsel in distress. Don’t you dare be fucking ashamed. Let’s play, baby.
“I love all of you, you know that? Your sweet side, your rough side. All of you.”
He turns over on his side, propping himself up on his elbow and looking at me, the only light from the small overhead van light.
“You mean that?”
I nod vigorously. “Of course I do. I love you.”
He stares at me a second longer. “Then I better lock this shit down. At least that’s the way Chloe put it before she left on Tuesday.”
He twists and reaches behind him and my eyes widen in shock when I see what he has in his hand when he turns back to me.
“You’re shitting me.”
A grin splits his face. “I am most certainly not shitting you. Miranda Marie Rose, will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
I lift my hands to his cheeks. I swear I can’t breathe. My eyes can’t stop shooting from the diamond ring to Dylan’s face, then back to the ring and then back to his face.
“Are you serious?”
He looks concerned. “Of course I’m serious. Jesus, Miranda. How did you not see this coming? I love you. You’ve changed my entire life. Changed me.”
He sits up and helps me sit up too, then cups my face. “Be my wife. Make my happiness complete.”
Tears spill down my cheeks and I nod, over and over again I nod because I’m not sure I could voice any actual words in this moment.
He grabs my hand and fits the ring onto the fourth finger of my left hand like he’s eager to do it before I change my mind. Ridiculous man.
I throw my arms around him. “I fucking love you, do you know that?” I cry, so happy, so incredibly happy.
He pulls back from me and grins, then tugs me forward and kisses one cheek, then the other. “I always did love your tears.”
Daddy’s Sweet Girl
One
Mom’s getting married today. Again. This will be husband number three. The rehearsal dinner last night was the second time I’d met the husband-to-be, Paul, and his son.
And let me just say: I don’t get it. The man is beautiful. I mean, we’re talking godlike gorgeous. He’s blond, has a chiseled-jaw, straight nose, and is Viking kind of handsome. He keeps his hair short and there’s some gray at the edges of his temple, but he’s the kind of mid-forties that women complain about—how it’s not fair that men get better looking as they age.
His son is a mini-me version of him, but I barely even looked at the guy. Frankly, he’s just gotta be a douchebag who screws everything that moves being that good looking at twenty-four years old, right? Plus he’s a doctor. Well, a doctor in training, anyway. On his dad, the gorgeousness has had a chance to age and settle into some fabulous grooves like a fine wine. Much more attractive.
And the man is marrying my mother.
Um. What?
My mother is also in her forties. But where Mr. Winters wears his age like an aforementioned god, Mom wears it like… hmm, how shall we put this? Let’s just say that my Mom’s an aging beauty queen who’s three plastic surgery attempts did little more than twist and pull her leathery, tanning-bed-worshipping ass into a simulacrum of a slightly melted Barbie-doll on meth?
Okay, so she doesn’t do meth.
Coke is her drug of choice.
She’s never been able to hold down an actual job because of it.
See what I’m talking about?
She’s a real winner.
Mr. Winters is the head of an oncology department of a prestigious Boston hospital. So again, what on earth is he doing with Mommy dearest?