“Yes,” she said, putting them both out of their misery. “Yes, of course, yes!”
“Thank God.” He surged to his feet, wrapping his arms around her and hugging her hard enough to lift her off of her feet, before setting her down to slip the ring on her finger.
“You’re shaking,” she said, shouting to be heard over the cheers of the crowd.
“I was nervous,” he said with a laugh. “This seemed like such a clever idea, but a few seconds ago it hit me that I was going to have a few thousand witnesses to watch me bawl like a baby if you said no.”
“You’re crazy.” She shook her head, before leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. “You know I’m way too smart to say no. And I love you too much.”
“I love you, too,” he said. “What do you say we say good-bye to the fans, and take our celebration somewhere more private?”
“I say Mia and Tulsi will kill you if you don’t let them celebrate with you,” Marisol said, shifting out of his arms as she spotted John and Laura Mae stepping onto the other side of the stage. “And I think there are two other people who want to congratulate you.”
She motioned over his shoulder, knowing she’d made the right choice reaching out to his family when Robert’s surprise transformed into an expression of profound joy and relief. For a second, he looked like he might actually break down and cry, but he pulled himself together, welcoming John with a hard hug before accepting the flowers and guitar his mother had carried on stage and leaning down to give her a kiss on the cheek that sent a long “awww,” echoing through the crowd. Then Robert handed the guitar and flowers over to a roadie and pulled his mom in for a big hug and the “awww” became another round of applause as the collective ovaries of every woman in the audience exploded simultaneously.
Marisol hung back, wondering if she should leave the stage so the family could have their moment, but then Laura Mae pulled away from her son and held her arms out to Marisol, shouting, “Get over here, girl,” loud enough to be heard over the roar of the crowd.
A moment later, Marisol was tight in the grip of her first mama-type hug in years, fighting the urge to cry. And then Laura Mae kissed her on the cheek and said, “Welcome to the family, sweetheart,” and dry eyes were a thing of the past.
But even as she cried, Marisol was filled with the kind of happiness that came from being in love with the right man, the kind of man who saw the beauty of her heart, not the scars it had acquired throughout the years. The kind of man who had taught her that people might not be perfect, but love could be, and that sometimes all you needed to have the strength to face the cruelty in the word was one pair of strong arms and one heart that believed in your dreams.
As Robert kissed her tears away, moments before hustling her offstage, she knew she’d finally found the place where she belonged, and that every dream that mattered had already come true.