Nothing But Wild (Malibu University 2)

Gladly, I can say the same about Katherine. We’ve exchanged emails on more than a few occasions, she being the one to initiate, and we’re taking it a week at a time. More importantly, I no longer feel like something is missing. As a matter of fact, I’ve got everything I need.

The valedictorian wraps up her speech and steps off the podium. The Dean announces the start of the diploma ceremony and graduates begin to line up. Before long it’s Dallas’s turn. I watch proudly as he makes his way to the podium, trailing after his fellow classmates. His name is called and he steps up, takes the diploma from the Dean and shakes his hand.

All good stuff. All perfectly normal stuff.

Until he takes a wrong turn into crazytown. That’s when the man I love rips the mic out of the stand, turns it on, and says, “Testing, testing.”

And all I’m thinking is, God help us all. Me especially.

Brenda who’s seated at the end of my row is giggling like a schoolgirl. Even Dallas’s dad who has a major stick up his backside cracks a smile.

Dallas looks right at me, his suntan deeper against the stark sodium white of his ear-to-ear grin, his face radiating love and joy, and he says, “Hi, babe. Love you,” he shouts while pointing at me, “that’s my beautiful girl, right there.”

Everyone single person in attendance, hundreds and hundreds of people, turn to look at me and my cheeks burn red hot. They feel like they’re on fire. But that infectious grin of his spreads, and soon everyone is smiling and waiting to see what he does next.

The sides of my mouth turn up, and even though at first I wished for an earthquake to crack the ground wide open and swallow me whole, looking into his beautiful face, radiating so much unadulterated enthusiasm for life, I get swept away. Swept up in him and this incredible passion he has for everything. Our relationship included.

He’s a wild one for sure. And he’s also the best man I know. A beautiful boy I had a crush on who’s turned into the man I love. I wouldn’t change a single hair on his head. Why would I when he’s given me the ride of my life?

“I just want to say…love is everything. If you do nothing else in your life, love someone.”

Dropping the mic, which makes a terrible noise, my heart walks off stage and marches right down the aisle until he reaches my row. Standing, I meet him in the middle, drawn to him as by supernatural force.

“I l-love you more than anything,” I whisper.

Because I do. It’s easy to love him when he’s become the man I know he’s capable of being. The person that gives so much of his heart he doesn’t hold anything back for himself. There are no half-measures with Dallas. In his truest essence, that’s who he is and there’s no changing that about him. Nor would I want to. I take him as he is and in exchange I get so much more.

“B-But if you d-do that to m-me again, I’ll put Ex-Lax in your p-protein shakes.”

He seals my mouth with his, a kiss full of passion and longing and promises of what the future holds. And when he pulls away and looks into my eyes, I see all the love I have for him reflected back to me tenfold.

“I have something to tell you…”

Leaning in, he whispers in my ear. And as the smile grow on my face and on my heart, I tell him, “Whatever you want to do, count me in, babe.”