“Food poisoning,” I explained. “But look, she still showed up.”
“Think it’ll gain points with Tyra?”
“It should. She nearly died and still got her ass to work.” My heart sinks, and then against every ounce of willpower I have, tears burn my eyes.
Brandon notices immediately, and he looses a breath, tucking me closer as he balances his chin on the crown of my head. “It’s going to be okay.”
“When?” I manage on a shaky whisper.
The question breaks me — even more so when Brandon just holds me tighter in answer.
He doesn’t know.
No one does.
“Will you take a walk with me?” he asks after a while.
I groan, but before I can reject, he pulls back and meets my eyes with his.
“Please?”
I sigh. “That’s not fair. I can’t say no to you when you look like that.”
“Then say yes.”
I do a little temper tantrum flail, whine, and then concede, letting him help me up off the couch.
Once I’m dressed in shorts and a tank top, Brandon and I take the elevator down to the lobby and push out into the pleasantly warm morning. Fall in Florida may not be cold, but there’s a break from the humidity, and the temperature hanging in the mid-seventies with little puffy white clouds and an otherwise blue sky make me smile in gratitude.
Brandon takes my hand as we cross the street to the park, a lush, green patch of land with running trails along the water and right to the beach. This was where we ran into each other in the spring, when he was trying to pretend like he didn’t still want me.
The prick.
He smooths his thumb over my wrist as our hands swing gently between us. “I know it seems like your world has crashed down around you,” he says, eyes on the water, then his shoes, then me before doing the circle all over again. “It’s hard not to lose hope when something so important has been taken away from you.”
“It is,” I agree, but already just being outside has my soul feeling lighter, my heart a little less tight. “But thank you for being here for me. For always being here for me. I…” I swallow at the truth of what I’m about to say. “I honestly don’t think I could do this without you. I think if I had lost pole in the spring when I’d just lost you, I… I…”
I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Brandon squeezes my hand tighter, and then leads us to a little bench in the shade under a wide oak. Spanish moss hangs from the limbs, and I stare at the sun rays peeking through it as we listen to the waves, to the people, to the soft sounds of a Sunday morning.
“You’ll never have to do anything without me,” he promises after a moment. “I’ll be by your side through PT, and when you go back to the studio and no doubt come home frustrated every night until you’re doing the tricks you were before the accident.”
I chuckle. “God, I will try my best not to be a nightmare, but…”
Brandon smiles, and it’s then that I see it — the worry etched in his features, the way his hands are trembling slightly.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
“Nothing,” he lies.
“Brandon…”
“Nothing is wrong, Ashlei,” he says, his eyes meeting mine. “And that’s just the thing, isn’t it? When I’m with you, when we’re together, it doesn’t matter what we’re facing. Everything feels right. Everything feels… whole.”
I smile, looping my arm through his and laying my head on his shoulder. “I love you.”
He’s silent for a long time, and again we sit and enjoy the sun’s warmth, the ocean’s breeze, the feeling of being together — even when things suck.
And then, out of nowhere, he says the absolute last thing I expected.
“Let’s elope.”
I balk, sitting up ramrod straight so I can look at him and make sure it isn’t some sick joke. But when I meet his gaze, it’s as serious and level as if he’d just made a business proposal.
“What?”
“Let’s elope,” he repeats, turning to fully face me and folding his hands in mine. “Ashlei, I know without a fragment of doubt that you’re it for me. You’re the one. You’re my one. I want you and me, forever, and I want it right now. I want to put the biggest fucking diamond rock on your finger so everyone knows it, and I want to marry you somewhere far away where it’s just the two of us, and I want to make love to you on a tropical shore, and I…” He swallows. “I want you to say yes. I want you to pack up what you need right now, today, and I want to be on a jet or my yacht by dinnertime.”
“Why by dinnertime?”
“So I can marry you in the morning.”