AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It was the day before the game,” Paul says.
“Then your date is wrong.”
Oops.
“I looked it up!” I grab my phone and flip back to February to check the dates and, fuck, Preston is right. I huff and cross my arms. “Whatever, it was the thought that counts.”
I reach into my backpack and pull out the ring I had made for myself. It’s white, black, gold, and red. The Lumberjacks team colors. It’s where I met Paul and Jeremy. It’s where my life turned around. It’s where I was finally safe again.
Paul smiles when he sees it and takes it from me. He kneels on the deck at my feet, and I see Jeremy dig for his phone and I assume start recording. Preston grabs the puppy that’s trying to lick Paul’s face and settles back on the bench with Jeremy.
“Since I didn’t get to do this the night we got married, can I do the honors now?” Paul holds my left hand and the ring. He’s looking at me with so much love in his gaze it’s hard to keep eye contact. I know he loves me, but sometimes, it’s still hard to remember that I deserve that unconditional love.
“Do it, hubs.” My voice cracks, and he smiles at me while he slides the colored band onto my finger, then leans over and kisses it.
I slide off the bench to sit on my shins and reach for his left hand. Paul gives me the band he almost ate—okay, it probably wasn’t my best idea to put it in a sandwich—and I hold his gaze while I slide it on his finger.
Paul pulls my lips to his with a hand on the back of my neck. His mouth is warm against mine, full of happiness and acceptance that I never expected to find. He’s my everything.
41
Paul
All day, I’ve caught myself staring at my wedding ring. The black band is simple, but it represents everything I grew up wanting and ended up terrified of. I’m still a little scared, but I can’t let that fear control me. Loving Brendon is worth the risk.
After a long day at the lake, we’re all exhausted but content. Jeremy, Brendon, and Seymour passed out in the car on the way back to school. Preston is a lot more relaxed when Brendon is asleep, I’ve discovered. We dropped off the puppy, and Brendon didn’t even stir.
Now we’re back at the dorms, slightly sunburnt, exhausted, and I’m waiting for Brendon to come cuddle me so we can go to sleep. The lights are off but the curtains are open, allowing the moon to light his way, and I’m already down to my underwear, lying in bed.
“Come on! I’m tired!” I call to my husband who is taking his sweet-ass time.
The bathroom door opens, and the light from two lit candles casts his face in shadows in the dark room. He’s holding two cupcakes, each with a single candle.
I sit up, confused, and wait for him to come to me, a little nervous that he’s going to drop one and catch something on fire.
“Two?” I ask when he stops in front of me.
He lifts one with a blue candle. “This one is for your birthday. Make a wish.”
I wish to love you for the rest of my life.
I blow out the candle and look up at him, waiting for whatever he has to say next.
“This one,” he holds up the cupcake with a pink candle, “is for your mom.”
That sentence is a punch in the gut. I don’t know what I expected him to say, but that was definitely not on my radar. A knot forms in my throat as I stare at the flame.
I miss you, Mom.
I blow out the candle but can’t take my eyes off the wick. It’s been eight years since Mom passed—since my life was flipped upside down—and not once has anyone thought to include her in my birthday. Every year, my grandparents and friends would try to distract me, not that I blame them, but no one tried to include her.
Every year, the closer it gets to my birthday, the more I worry about forgetting her. I can see her smiling in my mind, but her face isn’t as clear anymore. The edges of my memories are blurring, the sound of her laugh is just out of reach.
I didn’t know I needed someone to remember her on my birthday until this moment.
Closing my eyes, I lean my forehead against Brendon’s stomach and let the tears gather and fall. Not shuddering sobs, just the release of being reminded that she existed.
“She loved you,” Brendon says, putting the cupcakes on the bedside table and running his hands through my hair. “The way you love shows me that.”
