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The game-ending cheers and celebration lasted for a good ten minutes before the stadium began to clear out. Sawyer and my friends opted to wait in the parking lot where there was bound to be a raging tailgate party. I stayed at my seat, watching as reporters interviewed Seren who was completely in his element. He ran his hand through his sweaty hair as he laughed at something a reporter had asked him. I beamed with pride knowing he got his dream. Not his dad’s dream. But his dream. Though, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind, his dad was looking down and so incredibly proud of the man he’d become.
I couldn’t help but relish in the fact that the Seren Grayson all these people were just getting to know wasn’t the Seren Grayson I knew. They didn’t know all the things he’d been through. Or, all the things he’d done to get me to fall for him (and hate him at the same time). They knew the superstar. The guy with the heart to take his team to a national championship.
“Grace?”
Goosebumps popped up all over my body at the sound of his deep voice. I glanced down, not even realizing he’d finished with his interviews. “You did it!” I gushed.
He climbed up the wall between the field and me and pulled himself over the railing. He wrapped his sweaty body around me. “Can you even believe it?”
“Your dad would be so proud of you,” I assured him.
“Are you proud?”
“Yes!”
He chuckled and pulled back to look at me. “This night couldn’t be any more perfect. We won. My whole family’s here. And you’re gonna marry me.”
I laughed. “I said someday.”
He released me and stepped back, dropping down onto one knee.
My eyes widened. “Don’t kid around like that.”
He stared up at me with flushed cheeks and sweaty hair. “Grace, I know we’re young and we live in different states right now, but I’ve loved you since the night you pulled into my driveway. It was like a rush of adrenaline coursed through me, and I knew you were gonna change my life. And you have, Grace, in so many ways.”
Tears glazed my eyes and my bottom lip began to quiver.
“It doesn’t have to be tomorrow or even next year, but say what we have is forever and say you’ll marry me.” His eyes shifted behind me and he held his hand out to the side as if to catch something.
I glanced over my shoulder. My mom and Maureen stood a few rows back with their arms linked. Holly and Laney grinned like fools beside them with their phones recording everything. Saint sat alone in a seat playing on his phone, not the least bit interested. And, Sawyer eagerly tossed something down to Seren.
My attention returned to Seren who held a ring box.
He opened it and a gorgeous Tiffany-cut diamond ring sparkled inside. “What do you say, Grace?” he asked, the vulnerability of a child softening the areas around his eyes. “Will you spend forever with me?”
My eyes moved from the ring to Seren who anxiously awaited my answer. He’d come into my life so unexpectedly and turned it on its head. But, oddly, now when I looked at him, everything else just faded away and I only saw love in his eyes. Yes, we were young. And, yes, we lived in different states. But Seren Grayson was it for me. And I knew, with much certainty, I was it for him. “Yes.”
“Thank God,” he said like he actually thought I’d say no.
I held out my shaking hand, and he slipped the ring onto my finger. I had no time to admire it because he stood and pulled me into his arms, kissing me in front of our audience who broke into applause. The amount of happiness I felt in that moment took over my body, and I knew there was nowhere in this world that felt more like home than Seren’s arms. I don’t know who pulled out of the kiss first, but when we did, we didn’t look to our audience. We looked up at the night sky. Our fathers had something to do with bringing us together, and, I think deep down, we both knew it.
The End
