I shook those thoughts away as we arrived at the ice cream shop. We’d been coming here since he proposed all those years ago, but it had been a while. I wondered if his coming back here was to help solidify our refound connection.
As we waited in line, I looked around the place. It hadn’t changed much. Only new flavors were different.
“I’d marry you again in an instant,” Brayden whispered to me.
I looked up at him, feeling all the love I had when he asked me to marry him. “Me too.”
I felt uneasy as Brayden ordered our ice cream cones. We’d been dating on the downlow so as not to get fired for nearly a year. In fact, his one-year work anniversary had been earlier in the week. But something was bothering him or making him nervous, and I had a fear that he was done with me. Why else bring me to an ice cream shop in the middle of the day near our one-year anniversary, when we could have been hiking or planning a night on the town and a longer night of sex?
We sat at an outside table with a view of Puget Sound.
“Nice day.”
Inwardly I groaned. If he was about to dump me, just get on with it. Small talk was only making it worse.
“Yes.”
“Look over there.” He pointed across the Sound. “What’s that?”
I turned to look where he was pointing. I didn’t see anything unusual. I looked closely in case an orca or something was swimming by.
“What?”
“Hmm…it’s gone.”
I looked at him, wondering what the heck was going on. I knew he had a difficult week. Lyle McClean, who’d been hired at the same time in a position just above Brayden, had once again messed things up for him. Six months ago, Brayden complained to me that Lyle had rejected an idea of his and then turned around and presented it as his own. He couldn’t prove it, but from that moment on, Brayden’s work habits changed. He worked more evenings at home and kept his ideas closer to the vest, which ended up earning him lower marks for being a team player from Lyle.
Maybe he was going to chuck it all in; the job, me, and go somewhere else.
“How’s your ice cream?” he asked.
Trying not to cry as I waited for him to break up with me,
I looked down at my cone. I frowned when I saw something on top of it. I stared at it for a long moment before I could process what it was.
A diamond ring.
I jerked my attention to him. He shifted in his chair, looking uncomfortable.
“I love you, Terra. Marry me.”
I gaped. How had I totally misread him?
He gave me a sheepish smile. “Your silence is killing me.”
There was one reason to say no and that was because we were already breaking work policy by dating. But there were so many reasons to say yes, the foremost of which was that I was totally, irrevocably, in love with him.
“Yes.”
He let out a breath. “You scared me.”
I plucked the ring from the ice cream and wiped it clean. He took it from me and put it on my finger. I pulled him to me for a kiss because I just had to tell him I loved him, but the words were too difficult to form with all the emotions running through me.
When we pulled apart, he gave me a lopsided smile. “It’s a done deal now. No getting out of it.”
“I don’t want out of it,” I managed.
“You might change your mind when I tell you that I’ve put in my notice at work.”