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“Sure, I do. I have to be ready,” Summer smiles. “And now I am. Hit me with it.”
God I love this girl. I smile at Summer and then I reach up and take one of her hands in mine. I stay on my knees, and I stop smiling, wanting this moment to be serious so she doesn’t think I’m joking or anything.
“Summer Malone, I have loved you from the moment I set eyes on you, even if it did take me a while to admit that to myself. I want to spend forever with you. I can’t imagine my life without you in it every single day,” I say. “So, here’s the question. Will you marry me?”
Summer looks at me in shock for a second and then her eyes fill with tears, and she nods her head.
“Yes,” she says. She sniffles a bit. “Yes, of course I will.”
I come up and pull her into my arms and we kiss. Our kiss tastes of Summer’s salty tears and I reach up and wipe them away with my thumbs as I kiss her. I pull back from the kiss and smile at her.
“That was the right answer,” I say.
Summer smiles back at me and I get up and sit on the couch beside her. I lean down and pull the small blue velvet box from my jeans pocket. I open it and hold it out to show Summer. Her hands go to her mouth, and she squeaks and then more tears flow.
The ring is a yellow gold band with a dazzling one carat diamond set in the center of a circle of smaller diamonds.
“It’s absolutely beautiful,” she says.
“A beautiful ring for the most beautiful girl in the world,” I say.
I take it out of the box and hold it out and Summer gives me her left hand. I smile and push it onto her engagement finger. It’s a perfect fit and I breathe a sigh of relief, glad that I guessed it about right when I was trying to show the assistant in the jewelry store the width of Summer’s finger.
She holds her hand out in front of her, her head tilted to one side and admires her ring. The tears are running freely down her face again and once more, I reach up and brush them away.
“Are you happy?” I ask after a few minutes have passed and Summer has mostly stopped crying.
“Happy?” she says with a soft laugh. “That’s an understatement. You know when we talked earlier and got everything out in the open?” I nod my head and she smiles and goes on. “When we finished that talk and we were still together and stronger than ever at the end of it, I thought to myself that I was the happiest I had ever been. And now not even an hour later I am even happier than I was then.”
“Then that’s going to be my mission,” I say. “To only ever make you happier than you are at any given moment and to never ever hurt you or make you feel sad.”
She puts her hand on my cheek and looks me deeply in the eyes. She smiles.
“I love you more than life itself,” she says.
“You’re my everything, I love you so much,” I tell her.
EPILOGUE
Summer
Three Months Later
Alot has happened over the last three months, but I think the most important things are my moving in with Tyler and me finally meeting Daisy. Daisy is such a sweet kid and we hit it off straight away. She has finally told her mom that she’s looked her dad up and Tyler and I have started to talk to Daisy’s mom and organize things between us now that Daisy wants to see her dad on a regular basis.
She is coming to spend the next school holiday break with us, and she’ll be staying for a full week. When Tyler asked me if it was ok, I told him I loved the idea but that we couldn’t expect Daisy to stay in one of the guest rooms, that she is family and deserves her own room. Tyler agreed and that weekend we went into town and got a load of things to convert a guest room into Daisy’s own room.
I have just finished putting the finishing touches to the room and I stand in the doorway and look in. What was once a characterless room that looked like something out of a Travel Lodge with its neutral colors and boring furniture, now looks like something that I hope Daisy will love.
Three of the walls are now painted yellow and the fourth wall, the feature wall, is papered with a wallpaper with a beautiful daisy pattern on it as a tribute to our Daisy. The floor is white oak wood, and it has a big, fluffy white rug in the center of it.
Daisy’s bed is up a ladder and beneath it is a couch where she can sit and watch the giant TV that is hung on the opposite wall. I have also sourced a wardrobe and a chest of drawers that are white and match the room, and I have made a bookshelf to match and filled it with books that I hope Daisy will love. Some of them are my own teen favorites and some of them are some of the YA books I read and love now. Some of them are recommendations from the bookstore assistants when I told them what I was doing. And of course, there’s a full box set of Harry Potter books for her to read.
I have just made her bed with pretty yellow and white bedding, hung her light-shade up, and the room is ready for her. I hear Tyler coming up the stairs. I have just called him to say the room is ready and to come and take a look and see what he thinks. He comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. I lean back against him and put my hands on top of his arms.
“Well? What do you think?” I ask him.
“It’s perfect,” Tyler says. “Daisy is going to absolutely love it.”
