Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
“Dig in,” says Adrian with a smile.
I take my fork, curiosity driving me, and bring it to the chocolate orb. With two taps, it cracks open, shards of the cold, crisp chocolate dropping to the plate. Yep, it’s hollow as predicted, but there isn’t any gooey fudge inside of it to drip out. I crack open some more of it.
A glint catches my eye. For a second, I think it’s my fork, until I pull it away and realize there’s something else there. “The hell …?” I mumble to myself, leaning in to get a better look. Then I reach with my fingers and pull it out.
I stare at it, confused.
It’s a ring. A shiny silver band with artfully interwoven ridges along its surface.
I literally can’t make sense of it.
Did a chef drop this inside by accident?
“Adrian,” I say, still staring at the ring. “Why did the chef put a ring in my—?”
But when I look up, Adrian isn’t in his seat.
I find him right next to me instead.
Kneeling down.
On one knee.
“Adri—” I choke on my own voice, breath caught in my throat. I literally bring a hand to my chest as I stare at my boyfriend kneeling on the floor by my chair, stunned speechless.
He takes my free hand into his. “Quintin Ruiz.”
“What are you doing?”
“Quintin, I …” His voice shakes. His eyes reflect fear and anticipation. “I can’t begin to put into words how my life feels with you in it. I don’t think I ever will. But I can tell you how it felt before I met you. I was lost. I was a liar, telling myself every morning how happy and fulfilling my life was, as if I was trying to convince my reflection. But after that first night when you insisted to invade my night, I became afraid. I was afraid because for the first time in my life, I found someone who affects me to the core. Someone who makes my cold heart feel alive. Someone who sees me for who I truly am … someone I can’t even see in myself at times. You make me …” He chokes for a moment, his eyes on mine, wet with emotion. “You make me want to be a better man, every morning, every day, and every night.”
I can barely breathe.
What’s happening?
What’s going on here?
“That first night, you said that we have so much in common and should get married. You meant it as a joke. I assumed you had and laughed. But little did we know how much we truly see ourselves in one another. As if our souls themselves have been carrying on a conversation this whole time, seeing things we wouldn’t let ourselves see so quickly. I think our souls knew before we did.”
A tear runs down my cheek.
I have no control over it.
His hands are shaking as he holds mine.
“You said that first night that if you met the right guy, you could marry him tomorrow. I hope you’re ready to put your money where your mouth is, because … I think I can make you happy. No, I know I can make you happy,” he amends himself more certainly. “I want to prove it to you every day, for the rest of my life. I know it’s a high standard, to be as perfect as you deserve, but I’m willing to do it. I must be the luckiest man on Earth to have won the affection of a human being like you. Quintin Ruiz … will you do me the honor of becoming my husband?”
Finale - Adrian
Oh my god, it’s too soon.
I knew it. I should have waited. I should have waited until the end of the summer. Adrian, you idiot. I should have given him time to get used to living with me every day. I should have let him start his fall semester.
He’s freaking out right now. I can see it in his eyes.
He doesn’t know how to let me down easily. He is prepared to bolt out of the room. He wants to hurl lobster fettuccini all over my face. He can’t believe I’d have the gall to do this to him.
I should have waited.
It’s too soon.
I fucked it up. I fucked all of it up.
“Adrian …” he finally says, teary-eyed, as if coming out of a dream.
“Quin?” my quivery, nervous voice squeezes out of my quickly-tightening throat.
Quintin stares at me, our hands held, the ring tightly gripped between them somewhere.
And then he whispers: “Yes.”
I blink. “Yes …?”
“Yes,” he repeats, a touch more certainly. “Yes, I’ll marry you, Adrian.”
Now I’m in as much shock as he was. “You will??”
“I will. I’ll marry you. Yes, yes, yes!”
At once, the room explodes into cheers, which I regret to say effectively scares the shit out of an unsuspecting Quintin, who until this moment didn’t realize everyone who matters in all of Dreamwood Isle snuck in just before dessert was brought out, hiding and listening to my big proposal in the shadows of the restaurant and the kitchen. The lights come up, and applause rings out as I fumble for the ring in Quintin’s shaky grasp, then slip it on his finger.