Grinning into her neck, I snickered, “Apparently it has great health benefits, so I think people would argue back at you about that.”
“Yeah, but they don’t look like the way I do in that huge photograph,” she grumbled, just as my phone beeped, showing I was out of time.
Here we go.
Straightening up, I moved so that I was standing behind her, and put my arms around her waist so that we both faced the board. “I dare you to look at it for just a little bit longer.”
Knowing she wouldn’t be able to back down, I felt her tense when the first photo of her with Tabby came onto the screen, both of them leaning on each other, with their heads thrown back as they laughed about something. “What the hell?”
Leaning in so that I was close to her ear, I whispered, “Just watch.”
There were twenty-six photos for her to watch, some taken by DB and her sister, a majority taken obviously by me. She was frozen in place as they moved across the giant screen, but made a groaning noise when she saw one of her holding Liv just after she’d been born, followed by one of me asleep with Liv on my chest… they were my favorites, and I wanted them to join the ones Linda had taken on the walls in our house. I glanced up and then slowly reached into my pocket to get the ring out of it as I saw photo number thirteen take its place on the screen. After the first fourteen photos, it would move onto the ones I’d staged asking her to marry me without her knowing it, and then the big one would come on, so I needed to be prepared.
“What is this?” she whispered so quietly I had to strain to hear her. And then the photographs that I’d been waiting for began. “Watch closely,” I told her, pointing at the first photo – her asleep, with the ring box balanced on her forehead.
“Please tell me there wasn’t anything like a spider in that box.”
Then the next one took its place – the ring balanced in one of the dimples on the base of her spine as she slept. This was one of my favorites because it showed the curves I loved so much, and she was smiling her sleep, too. It was innocent, beautiful, and sexy all at the same time. That’s when it must have started to sink in, but I tapped my finger on her upper lip when she opened her mouth, asking her to stay quiet.
She gasped when we got to the photo of me holding the ring next to her foot while she worked beside me, but didn’t say a word. And then the sunscreen on her butt incident came on, and she couldn’t hold it in. “That’s what it said? I thought you’d written Harry He on me, and figured it was one of the characters from a cartoon or something,” she burst out laughing, quickly stopping when she saw a photo of her in the steamed up shower, with me standing in front of the mirror holding the ring out, and the words Marry Me written in the condensation on the mirror. “Oh my God.”
Walking around in front of her, I waited until the photo that had won the competition came onto the screen, and then dropped onto one knee.
“Josephine Harrison, the first time I saw you I felt sick that you couldn’t be mine. The day you brought our princess into the world was the first day that I feel like I truly started living, because I suddenly had a purpose – my two girls. I promise to love you for the rest of my life because there’s no other option for me, you’re my entire world. I asked Olivia if she’d be my daughter today, and I gave her a bracelet because she’s too young for a ring…”
“What did she say?” she croaked, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Grinning up at her and fighting back my own tears, I shrugged, “Something like ‘Lis, eah’ which is totally a yes. And now I need to ask her mother if she’d make me the happiest man in the world and marry me, because she holds the half of my heart that her daughter isn’t already holding in her hand.”
Her hand flew up to her mouth as I opened the box and showed her the ring that I’d chosen for her. It was a simple two carat diamond in a white gold band. “Yes, fucking yes,” she squealed, tackling me to the ground, and kissing me before I could even put it on her finger.
“Kids, there’s a baby in the room,” Hurst’s voice cut through the make-out session before it could really get started.
Lifting up so that she was straddling me, Jose held her hand in the air and screamed, “I’m getting married to the love of my life, bitches!”