“Always so bossy,” Maddox scolded.
“You love it.” Ben’s confidence was returning now that the words were out.
“I love you. And yes, yes I’ll marry you. We can do something small and quick—”
“Screw that,” Ben said firmly. “For you? I want the whole big shindig. All my—our—family. Friends. The church. Bring it on.”
The smile on Maddox’s face was worth everything. And the truth was that Ben really did want all that. And not just for Maddox. For him too. He wanted his whole family there, his Dad, Camilla, Marilee. Even his mom—things were still tenuous there, but they’d talked more in the past few months than they had in the ten years prior, and she seemed genuinely proud of the life he had with Maddox. He wanted to celebrate what he had with Maddox, how long it had taken them to get to this place, get this right. Because they had, finally. And it turned out that all they had to do to get here was leap.
* * * *