Sweet Cheeks(105)

My hand flies to my mouth. My eyes widen and flood with tears as realization hits when I look back to Hayes in front of me. How did he know this was my dream?

Because he knows me inside and out.

Always has.

Now, he always will.

“What did you do, Hayes?” My words come out in a hushed whisper.

His smile widens. It has a hint of nerves to it but the look in his eyes suggests the nerves are the good kind. The this matters kind.

He glances to the unfamiliar woman off to my right and when she nods at him, the absolute adoration in his expression as he steps closer to me causes goosebumps to erupt across my skin. He reaches out and takes my hand.

“Surprise,” he whispers as every single part of me falls head over heels in love with him all over again.

“Is this what I think . . .?” My voice fades off as I look around us again. Meet the eyes of Ryder who steps up beside Hayes and hands him something, smile so full of love and pride I know the answer to my question immediately.

“I have the stage, Ships. You know how we actors like to hog the spotlight.”

My laugh is instantaneous. My hands tremble in disbelief, and my mind tries to wrap around what he pulled off.

“I tried to think of when I first fell in love with you, Saylor. I thought maybe it was that first day I knocked on your door, asking if Ryder was home, and you peered at me from behind your glasses with a princess crown on your head, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shell on your back, and your mom’s high heels that were five sizes too big on your feet.

“But then I remembered that time in junior high when we ditched school and headed out to the lake. You were the only girl who would climb the tree with us and jump off the top branch into the lake without a second thought. The other guys thought it was so cool you’d do that, and I remember thinking how proud I was that you were with me.

“Or that time in high school when Nick Ramos kept bragging how a girl would never pitch well enough to strike him out. How you asked Ryd and me to teach you how to throw a knuckle ball so you could shut him up. How your dad let us stay out way past when the streetlight came on so we could practice. And how when Nick whiffed on that third strike—where you made that baseball dance to the plate—the entire bleachers roared as you put him in his place.”

I stare at Hayes. The memories I forgot coming back to me. And I’m so overwhelmed that I can do nothing more than stand mesmerized and listen.

“You see as I tried to remember the moment I knew I first loved you, I realized there are too many of them to pick from. Because I fell, and fall, in love with something different about you every single day, Ships. You never cease to amaze me. And you’re always making me see you in a new light.

“So I brought you here today because you’re the one, Saylor. You’ve always been the one. And I don’t want to wait another day to tell you that. I don’t want to go through a year of details and planning to have a wedding. That’s not us. We’re spontaneous and unpretentious and only care what our family and friends think . . . and I don’t want to ask you to marry me and then have to wait forever to make you officially mine. I wanted to do it in one fell swoop because why wait? The most important thing I’ve learned from your parents is this: don’t wait for the perfect time to take a chance on your dreams. And you’re my dream, Saylor.”

Speechless, swamped with love, and beyond amazed at him and this idea, I do the only thing I can. I step into him and plant a kiss on his lips. The guests hoot and holler as Hayes slides his hands around my waist and pulls me into him while our kiss lingers before pushing me away and chuckling. “Nice try, but I’m not finished yet.”

He steps back, and with love in his eyes he clears his throat. “Saylor Rodgers, I promise to spend a lifetime loving you just like the first time I saw you—treat you like the princess you are, respect that you’re a badass superhero who can take care of herself, and love that, as much as you are a lady, there’s a little girl inside of you who still likes to play too.”

My heart can’t take any more. It’s so full it might burst. Tears well and slide down my cheeks to meet the smile on my lips. A sob hitches in my chest as I stare at the incredible man in front of me. He squeezes my hand, and his eyes well with tears before he glances to the house up the hill from us. To where my mom or dad used to walk out to the patio and call to us in the tree house. Their way of making sure we knew they were watching in case we were doing things we shouldn’t be doing but probably were. His smile softens when he meets my eyes again and I know he’s remembering them too.

And it feels as though they are here with us right now.

“I want to make more memories with you. Like kisses in a thunderstorm, frosting in your hair, sequins on Oscar night, pepperoni pizza with jalape?os, sitting on the floor watching movies with a dog asleep at our feet, and kids giggling in their bedrooms’ type of memories with you. You’re it for me, Saylor. Always have been. Always will be.

“I know we don’t need an official document or rings on our fingers to tell us we belong together, because we’ve always known it. Always will. But the part of me who looks at you every morning and is proud as hell to call you mine, wants everyone else to know it too. So I brought you here and spoke my heart to ask you a single question. Will you say I do?”

I blink several times as if I’m still trying to believe this is real . . . and happening. But when I look down to find a ring I didn’t even realize he had, being slipped on my finger, I know it is. The ring is sparkly with an inset diamond in the band and the fairy lights around us reflect in it. And even better, as I watch him slip it on, I realize he already has a wedding band on his finger.