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“Justine,” I continue, the words spilling out of me, “I love you. I love how you fit into my world, how you make everything better. I love your strength and your talent and the way you see the best in people. I love watching you hold my niece and nephews like you’ve been doing it forever.”
Tears start to form in her eyes, and she looks at me like she knows what’s coming but can’t quite believe it.
“I don’t want to wait,” I say, meaning every word. “I want to marry you, Justine. I want you to be my wife, my partner, my family.”
The words hang in the air between us, and for a moment, she just stares at me. Then she steps back slightly, her hands coming up to cover her mouth.
“Quinn,” she says, and her voice shakes. “We . . . we just started dating. Like, really dating. A couple of months ago, you were engaged to someone else, we haven’t even lived together, and I . . .”
“I know?—”
“Marriage?” she continues, and I can see her mind racing. “That’s . . . that’s huge. That’s forever. Are you sure you’re not just caught up in the moment? Your family being here, the tour ending, everything that’s happened?”
The doubt in her voice makes my chest tight, but I understand it. She’s being rational, cautious, everything I probably should be but can’t bring myself to be.
“Justine,” I say, taking her hands in mine, “look at me.”
She does, and I can see the war between her heart and her head playing out in her expression.
“I know it sounds crazy,” I tell her. “I know people will say it’s too soon, too fast, too everything. But when you know something’s right, you don’t wait. When you know someone is your person, you don’t waste time wondering if you should feel differently.”
“But what if?—”
“What if what?” I ask gently. “What if we’re making a mistake? What if we should wait a year, two years, five years? What would change? I’m not going to love you less in five years. I’m not going to want to build a life with you any less.”
She cries now, but she also listens, really listens.
“I’ve been in a relationship where I waited,” I continue. “Where I followed timelines and did what other people thought was appropriate. And you know what happened? I wasted years trying to make something work that was never right. This, us, this is right. I’ve never been surer of anything in my life.”
“Quinn . . .” she whispers.
“I don’t want to wait,” I tell her, and my voice is raw with emotion. “I don’t want to spend years dating and wondering when the right time is. I want to start our forever now. Tonight. Tomorrow. I want to wake up every morning knowing you’re my wife.”
She looks at me like I’m saying exactly what her heart wants to hear, even if her head screams caution.
“What are you saying?” she asks, though I think she already knows.
“I’m saying let’s get married tomorrow. After the show. We’re in Vegas. My family is here. The time seems perfect, right, and ours.”
She stares at me for a long moment, and I can practically see her thinking through every reason this is insane, every reason we should wait, every logical argument against what I’m proposing.
Then she takes a shaky breath, and her whole expression changes.
“You’re absolutely crazy,” she says, but she starts to smile through her tears.
“Crazy about you.”
“This is insane. People are going to think we’ve lost our minds.”
“Probably.”
“We’ve been together for a few months.”
“The best few months of my life.”
“Your family is going to flip out.”
“In the best possible way.”