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Everything becomes clear.
Everything.
He’s holding a single orange balloon up between us, revealing the words written in thick black marker. A gasp leaves me, and I take a step back, cover my mouth. “Connor…”
Slowly, carefully, he gets down on one knee. “So…” he asks, motioning to the balloon.
I reread the words: Be my End Game, Ava?
I nod without thinking because what’s there to think about? “Yes!” I squeal, bouncing on my toes. “Oh, my God, yes!”
His eyes widen. “Yeah?” Why is this boy even surprised?
“Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Connor laughs, and I don’t miss the way his eyes fill with tears and his chest rises and falls with every breath.
“Here,” he says, reaching into his pocket to reveal a safety pin.
I take it from him. “Um…”
“Pop it,” he laughs, getting to his feet and holding the balloon closer to me.
“Oh!” I’m so overwhelmed with emotions that I can’t even think, and I can’t stop laughing. I pop the balloon, but it only falls halfway, the string still in Connors’s grasp, and as I watch him fidget with the deflated balloon, I realize why.
Tied to the end of the string, hidden inside the once air-filled balloon, is a ring. The ring.
“God, I hope it fits,” he breathes out, slipping the ring on my finger.
My hand trembles as I hold it between us, watching the diamonds glint. “It’s perfect,” I cry out, and it is—both the fit and the ring itself. I don’t know much about jewelry, especially engagement rings, but “It’s so beautiful, Connor!”
I tear my gaze away from the ring to look up at him just as a single firefly floats between us.
I gasp. Again. And Connor and I remain speechless as we watch it fly around us, wrapping us up in its wonder.
“Ava…” he whispers, and I lift my teary eyes to his. “I love you so much.” And then I’m wrapped in his arms, lifted off my feet, and he’s kissing me.
In this miraculous moment, surrounded by hope, I kiss the boy who made me believe in magic again.
I wrap my legs around him, kiss him deeper, and he moans against my tongue… just as cheers fill my ears, and I quickly pull away and snap my head toward the sound.
On the second-story balcony, five figures stand, screaming, cheering—celebrating our love with us.
Connor releases me back to my feet, and I laugh through my cries as I catch my mom; Trevor; his girlfriend, Amy; and Connor's dads, Corey and Michael, all here to witness this moment.
I run—sprint—dragging Connor behind me. “Mama!” I shout, and I feel like that little girl again, loose curls flying everywhere, running to her mom when she’d returned from deployment. “I’m getting married!”
* * *
“He passed out,” Trevor says, his voice super squeaky from the helium he’d just inhaled. Man-child.
We’re all sitting around on the couches in a hotel suite with orange balloons covering the ceiling, set up earlier by our families. On the drive here, Connor mentioned that he had the poolhouse fully furnished and had planned to celebrate there, but since Amy is heavily pregnant, he wanted to ensure she was comfortable and could rest whenever she needed to.
My future husband, y’all… so incredibly thoughtful.
I smile over at him, about to tell him how I can’t wait to have his babies, but he brings the opening of a balloon to his mouth and inhales the gas because he, too, is a giant man-child. Then he says, his voice matching Trevor’s, “I landed on a fork.” He taps a finger on the middle of his forehead. “Fucker got me right here.” His eyes widen and shift directly to Amy’s huge belly. “Sorry for swearing, baby,” he squeaks, rubbing her stomach.
The room erupts with laughter, and my heart fills with bliss.
