And Then There Was Her (And then There Was 1)

“What’s crazy, baby?”

I felt her shift, and then she was tipping her head back and looking at me. I smoothed my fingers along her forehead, down her temple, and along her jawline. Her skin was so smooth. Flawless. Everything about her was perfect.

This was what it felt like to find The One.

“That I can feel this way about you, and you can feel the same way about me, and we know virtually nothing about each other.”

I didn’t say anything, not because I was speechless, but because I wanted to say it just right, so she knew without a doubt what I meant was genuine and true.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” I leaned down and kissed the center of her forehead. “I am a thirty-five-year-old construction foreman who never thought he’d find someone who completed him. I never thought about marriage or children, a future with a white picket fence and a dog.” I was just letting it all out, opening my heart even more. “But then I saw you on that stage. I heard your voice, and I fell in love with a twenty-seven-year-old singing angel.” We talked for a hours before we finally fell asleep last night, so I now knew some bits of information about the woman of my fantasies.

I stared into her dark eyes. What I told her was the truth, and I expected her to be apprehensive on how real it was. Instead I heard her sigh in contentment.

“Adele Lily Smith, I’d marry you right here and now. That’s how badly my love for you consumes me.”

I saw the surprise on her face, but she didn’t look like she wanted to run, didn’t look like I scared the shit out of her. I didn’t want to keep things from her no matter how much saying that frightened me.

And then she smiled with this dreamy expression on her face. “Oliver Luke Callim, I love you just as much. So much it makes my chest hurt. I’d marry you right here on the spot.”

My heart skipped a beat, and I leaned down and kissed her. “Then marry me. You’re already my everything. Be my wife too. You know nothing has ever felt so right.” I knew I would’ve never stopped searching for her. Never stopped loving her. There would have never been another woman for me as long as I lived.

“Yes,” she whispered, and I kissed her deeply.

And for the rest of the day, I showed my future wife no matter how uncertain most things in life were. Our love for each other wasn’t one of them.

13

Oliver

One month later

“People think this is crazy,” Adele said, but I could hear the smile in her voice.

I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her in close to my body, kissing the top of her head. She smelled so good, like peaches, sun-ripened and sweet. “Let them think this is crazy. Let them think I’m crazy for you. It would be the truth.”

She pulled back and tipped her head to look up at me, her smile blinding. I cupped the sides of her face and smoothed my thumbs along her cheekbones. She was so delicate, so feminine.

She was mine.

I leaned down and kissed her because I couldn’t help myself. For the last month we’d been inseparable. And although we were only forty-five minutes away from each other, it felt like an ocean separated us when I wasn’t near Adele. So, I drove down and stayed with her every night, leaving early the next morning so I could get back up to work and repeat the process. Every day I did this during the week, and then on the weekends, I stayed with her the entire time. It was perfect. It was exactly how it should be.

And now that we were engaged, leaving her every morning was getting unbearable.

There was nothing more I wanted than to be with her always.

I leaned back and looked down at her ring finger. After my impromptu proposal, the following morning I’d taken her to the jewelry store, let her pick whatever ring she wanted. But nothing had called to her. It was when we passed an antique shop, when she’d seen a diamond solitaire with emerald embellishments, that she said that was the one.

And I bought it right on the spot, asked her to marry me all over again, and slipped it on her finger, sealing the deal.

I didn’t want to move away from her, but I reluctantly did so I could grab more boxes out of the back of the moving van while we still had sunlight.

Almost right after I proposed the second time, I all but demanded Adele to move in with me, but in reality it hadn’t taken much convincing. She was all for it, jumping into my arms when I broached the subject, kissing me all over the face, and whispering how she wanted me to ask her right from the beginning.