“Happy birthday!” I cheered, watching as the shock got replaced with pure freaking joy. When that look was aimed at me, it nearly brought me to my knees.
“You’re amazing,” he told me, shaking his head. “I don’t know what the fuck I have done to deserve you, but I’m so glad you’re mine,” he added, moving toward me, wrapping me up, pressing a kiss–long, deep–to my lips before pulling away. “Could kiss you all day, but, well, we can’t let all these pancakes go cold, can we?” he asked, practically bouncing over to load some onto his plate.
Sitting across from him, I watched as he plowed through about half of each of the piles before declaring he couldn’t do anymore. But that we had to put them away to have for dinner.
“This was the best birthday ever,” he declared, as we got into bed later that night after he did, indeed, plow through the rest of those pancakes, then got serenaded by all our friends and family over ice cream cake. I was half surprised he wasn’t waddling by the end of the day.
He then burned off some of those calories with me until both our bodies were spent and useless.
It was the first night that the nightmares didn’t come.
Lincoln – 1 year
Gemma was a simple woman.
She got joy from our little daily interactions.
She was not someone for whom grand romantic gestures were necessary or expected.
Which made planning one all the more important to me.
The best part was that she suspected nothing. Because the cover was big enough that it didn’t seem like I could possibly be planning something bigger to go along with it.
I was taking her to Jamaica to meet my father.
From there, I was going to ask her to marry me.
I’d had the ring for almost two months. And, quite frankly, it was hard at times not to just get down on a knee and ask her to marry me when she did something sweet. Which, with Gemma, was damn near daily.
But I convinced myself that while she wasn’t someone who expected grand gestures, that she would be all the more floored by one.
So I resisted the urge, I tucked the ring inside my shaving kit, buried that deep inside my other luggage, and kept planning.
Everyone was in on it.
Literally everyone.
The guys and girls from the office, her parents, my aunt, my father.
Because many of them were coming.
Jules, Kai, her parents, my aunt.
For most people, an engagement was a very personal thing. But I knew Gemma well enough to know that she always wanted her loved ones in on all her big news. It would kill her to be a plane ride away from them when she would want to celebrate it with them.
So they would be heading out two days after we landed and got settled.
My family on the island had been helping me with arrangements on their end, scouting out the best places, sending me pictures, letting me know when we could find seclusion and when it was busy. They also twisted an arm or two to get us an overwater villa even though they were almost impossible to come by on such short notice. They figured–and I had to agree–that after an engagement, we would want some time alone to celebrate personally instead of being in my father’s place.
It was all set up.
Now I just had to get Gemma there.
She was unexpectedly nervous about the flight.
Which was sweet.
Gemma generally wasn’t a nervous person. She got nerves, of course, but she always seemed to be able to talk herself down almost immediately.
Like the day she finally found her dream job at a local park, overseeing the planting program, teaching classes at the learning center on the premises to class field trips, helping the next generation get excited about the environment, and then had to go in for the interview.
She got it, of course.
Everyone who met Gemma fell a little bit in love with her.
And since I got most of her, I was happy to share her a bit with the world.
“I don’t know why I can’t stop talking,” she admitted when we finally got to our gate after what felt like a lifetime of going through security.
“You’re nervous.”
“And excited,” she clarified, bouncing around on her heels. “This is going to be so amazing. I haven’t had a vacation–like a real vacation–since I was still living at home. And I’ve never been anywhere like Jamaica. And I am really excited to be able to see like the real Jamaica with your family instead of only the touristy parts.”
“We will hit up both. The touristy spots are pretty fucking awesome too, I won’t lie.”
“Is the water as clear as it looked on the pictures online? And the sand as white?”
“Absolutely,” I told her. Partly because it was true. And partly because I wanted to see her face light up again. I wasn’t disappointed.