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Could I do it? Should I do it? We had only just met. But, as he said, when you know, you know. And I have never had anyone treat me like he has. Never.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’ll marry you,” I told him with tears rolling down my cheek.
“You will?” he said as happy as I was.
“I will,” I repeated knowing it was the best decision I had ever made.
He took my hand and slid the ring onto my finger. It was a little big but that was okay. We could fix it. We were in love and love could fix anything.
He got off of his knee and kissed me. It was my first kiss as an engaged man. It was wonderful. I had never been happier in my life.
With Sey’s arms around me, I turned to my parents. They still hadn’t looked at Sey. They hadn’t moved their eyes from the floor. Was it that they couldn’t stand to be wrong? They had said that no one would ever love me, but this was the proof that they had been wrong.
A man loved me so much that he had asked me to marry him after two dates. Didn’t that say every there was to say about me? I was lovable. I was worth someone’s time.
“Well? Aren’t you going to say anything?” I asked needing to hear their defeat.
It was then that my mother looked up at me. Her eyes locked on mine.
“Your grandmother Agatha died. Her funeral was yesterday. There will be a reading of her will. We expect you there and try not to be late,” she said before both of them got up and walked out.
I watched them stunned. I couldn’t speak or move. I had to have heard them wrong. Or maybe it was a joke.
“Grandma Aggie is dead,” I heard someone say.
I was the one who said it. It was meant to be a question for the two people who were leaving taking my grip on reality with them. But they couldn’t hear me. I could barely hear myself. And as they left the shop and crossed in front of the window, they brushed past another familiar face. That person was holding a bouquet.
“Titus,” I whispered before his devastated eyes turned towards me, and he ran past the window and out of sight.
Chapter 2
Titus
I couldn’t have seen what I had, could I have? Lou, the guy who had been on more first dates than there are trees in Tennessee, had gotten engaged? That can’t be right. But I had seen it. I was standing there watching it.
Lou had told me who it was he had been texting with. It was with a transfer student who was on the football team. He had arrived this semester so it was after I had been cut. But I definitely recognized the guys singing behind him. They had been my teammates.
Having to close my eyes as I reached my truck, I steadied myself and took a breath. Tears were fighting to get out but I wouldn’t let them. Yeah, I had waited too long. Yeah, I had ignored everything Nero and Quin had told me about telling him how I felt, but I had finally listened. This was going to be the day.
I had made a detour to get the flowers. If I hadn’t, could I had been there to stop it? If I had told him how I felt, would he have still said yes to that guy?
My phone rang snapping me out of my building despair. Pulling it out, I saw Lou’s name. I couldn’t talk to him right now. Knowing I couldn’t pretend to be happy for him, I shoved it back into my pocket.
Looking at the dozen red roses that had cost me an arm and a leg, I tossed them onto the ground. I had been such a fool. I couldn’t be here. I needed to get away. Glad that I had stopped back at my place to pick up my truck instead of coming here directly from the airport, I got in and pulled away.
Within moments, my phone rang again. Pulling it out as I drove, I again saw Lou’s name.
“I don’t want to hear that you got engaged! Don’t you understand that?” I shouted at the phone before tossing it onto the passenger seat.
Knowing that I needed to get as much distance as I could from what just happened, I didn’t head to my dorm. Approaching the freeway home, I turned onto it. Just as I did, the phone rang again. I wasn’t sure why Lou wasn’t getting the point. There was no way I was going to pick up.
Yeah, I had told him I would meet him at the pastry shop but only because his boy had flaked or whatever. But he showed up. Lou didn’t need me there. So, why won’t he stop calling me?
After he called for the fourth time, I turned off my ringer and turned on the radio. I didn’t care what was playing as long as it took my mind off of what I had just seen.
I couldn’t accuse Lou of anything. He had always been upfront about who he was. He wanted to find love and he was going to go out with every guy in the state to find it. I was the one who was too chicken-shit to admit what I was.
The only person I had ever told about liking guys was Quin. I still haven’t even told Nero, and not only had we grown up together, but we were roommates when he proclaimed his love for his boyfriend on national TV. Nero risked his chance of being drafted to the NFL for the man he loved and I still couldn’t come out to him.
