“You punched my cousin.”
“For who?”
He went quiet. “For me. I spent years asking whether you were doing enough for me. I never asked whether I was someone you’d want as a husband.”
My eyes filled. That was exactly what I’d wanted him to understand.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring box. Then he dropped to one knee, right there in the bar.
“I never asked whether I was someone you’d want as a husband.”
I had imagined this moment hundreds of times. Never once in a wedding dress I’d bought out of anger.
“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” he said. “You never did. I love you. I should’ve asked you years ago.” The ring was beautiful. “Marry me.”
For one terrible second, every part of me wanted to say yes.
Then I saw myself in the mirror behind the bar. Mascara running. Dress crumpled from the flight. Ryan twenty feet away, holding ice to his lip. Yesterday I hadn’t been wife material.
