Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Clara’s mouth drops open, and tears flood her navy eyes in mere seconds. I swear I hear her gasp my name, but then I notice that Eliza is recording me. I blow out a breath, and fuck it, I’m doing this.
My eyes burn as I hold Clara’s gaze with mine. “The speech I gave was unfinished and should have ended like this.” I clear my throat and squeeze my free fingers together. I want so desperately to close the distance between us, but I need the people she loves to know the truth. “I want to thank the love of my life, Clara Drew McDavid.” Her eyes widen, and my heart starts to slam into my ribs. “I have felt lost my whole life until I found her. She completes me in ways I never knew were possible. When I’m feeling down, she’s there to lift me up. She makes me laugh when I want to cuss and break things. She drives me absolutely crazy with her smart mouth, but she also makes me feel something I never thought I’d ever feel again. Alive.” I watch as tears gather in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have won that series without her. Without her support, her love, and her endless belief in me. Nothing in this world has ever felt right before her, but now, I feel like I’m seeing the world in a different light. And it’s all because, at the end of the day, she is there to love me.” A tear slides down her cheek, and I blink back my own set of tears that are threatening to fall. “I made the mistake of trying to hide her and our love, but that won’t happen again. I want everyone here, everyone who loves her, to know that in my whole life, I’ve gotten one thing right, and it was falling in love with her.” I put the mic on the stand and jump down from the bandstand to start for her. “And nothing will keep me from loving her for the rest of my life—not even her.”
I don’t know who reaches for whom first, but soon, we’re a tangle of limbs as our lips meet. I almost cry out in relief when her tongue meets mine, and I devour her whole. I don’t care who is here. I don’t care if I’m too old for her. I don’t care if she’s too young. I don’t care if I lose my job. I have her, and she’s all I need.
I sense people talking, but I don’t hear anything but the beat of my heart. I only feel her lips on mine, and everything else just fades away. How it always does when it comes to her. When I pull back for a breath, our eyes meet, and I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest. Her eyes are dark, hooded, and only for me. She reaches up, cupping my jaw, stroking my cheek. “I love you, Riggs.”
I sigh deeply before I press my forehead to hers. “Say it again.”
She curves her lips, her eyes shining just for me. “I love only you.”
From behind her, Dan complains, “I don’t understand why all y’all fell for hockey players! This is all my fault, isn’t it?”
“Yup. You brought us into this life,” Louisa giggles.
“And we wouldn’t want it any other way,” Austen gushes.
Eliza snorts. “Once you find a hockey man, there is no going back to normal men.”
Against my lips, Clara says, “Because a hockey man loves you fully.”
“And forever,” I add, kissing her top lip.
I then drop to one knee.
Her eyes widen.
While I know it’s tacky to propose at a wedding, it’s also tacky to go into labor, so Louisa can hate both me and Elliot. I don’t care. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the faded green ring box that my da used when he proposed to my ma. Clara covers her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks as she holds my gaze. I open the box to my ma’s platinum thistle-leaf, two-carat diamond ring. It had been given to my da by his ma, and so on back through the family. I hadn’t given it to Peppa because I couldn’t find it when I decided to propose to her, but even when I did locate it, I didn’t give it to her. I think I always knew it was meant for another hand.
Clara’s.
“If you thought I wasn’t going to go get this ring because of a fight—”
“I knew you would,” she says softly, cutting me off. “I knew if I went, I’d give in and say yes, when I needed you to realize your mistake.”
“Love, I knew the mistake the moment the words came out of my mouth,” I insist, gazing up into her eyes. “But it’ll never happen again. Everyone will know how much I love you. How much you complete me and how my life is not worth living without you. I will love you fully for the rest of my existence.” I grab her hand, squeezing her fingers with mine. “I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but I want the good with the bad, but only with you. I want to make a life with you that we’ll leave behind for the world to be in awe of. I want you to drive me insane daily and love only me. As long as you love me, everything else will fall into place. I just need you. Say you’ll be my wife, Clara.”