Page 113 of False Start

He wet his lips, and then with a steady gaze and intent so pure I could feel it burning through his hands and into my very being, he dropped to one knee.

“Marry me.”

Kyle

“You…what?!”

Giana was aghast — and judging by the faces of the rest of my friends on our emergency Zoom call, she wasn’t the only one.

“I’m pretty sure he just said he asked her to marry him,” Holden clarified.

“Without a ring,” Riley added.

“Without aplan, clearly!” Giana interjected. “Kyle — do you not understand what this means, not just for you, but for her? You are a rookie in the NFL. Camp starts in a few days. We already have you lined up for multiple television and podcast interviews.”

“We don’t need to put her in the spotlight,” I said instantly. “At least… not yet.”

“Notyetbeing the key words,” Giana said. “Because there is absolutely no way she can stay hidden from the media — not unless you plan to lock her in a castle somewhere and never let her see the light of day.”

“How does she feel about it all?” Julep asked gently, her hand wrapped around Holden’s arm in the video frame. “Is she okay with this part of you?”

I swallowed. “We haven’t really discussed it.”

“I can’t believe you proposed in the most un-romantic way,” Giana said. “Without a ring!”

Clay shrugged next to her. “I think it’s kind of romantic,” he argued. “Kyle is her knight in shining armor. Marshall is the dragon with bad breath.”

“Slay that motherfucker!” Leo chimed in, standing up and doing a weird joust with his arm.

Mary tugged him back down into his seat with her lips in a flat line.

“This is serious, guys,” I said, heaving a long breath. “This man is a well-known vet in the area. A doctor. And he’s good at manipulating the system to get what he wants.” I swallowed. “He’s put his hands on her plenty of times without any recourse. But that shit ends now. I will do anything it takes to protect her.” I met their gazes. “Anything.”

There was a long pause, and then Leo folded his hands together, his brows furrowed. “Kyle, I respect that you want to keep her safe. But… is that the only reason you want to marry her?”

“No.”

I said it instantly, as if the fact that he’d even asked it was an insult.

“I just mean, you’ve only known her for… what? A couple months?”

“I’ve known her my whole life,” I argued. “And yes, while we only recently reconnected, I… I can’t explain it.”

“Try,” Zeke said.

And the way he looked at me, the history he and Riley had… I knew he understood before I even said a word.

“Since the day I met her when I was a fifteen-year-old kid, she’s been a part of me. She was just my annoying babysitter at first, but then she was my friend. And back then…” I swallowed. “A friend — atruefriend — was impossible to come by. She showed me what it was to have someone care about me. She keptmesafe in a time when no one else even realized I was in danger. She made me stronger. She brought out the side of me that could move mountains. And then… I fell in love with her.

“I fell hard, and fast — the way only a teenager can. And I know she fell for me, too. We fell in the way two people do when there’s nothing to lose, when there are no stakes, when it’s all just fun and warmth andof course we love each other. You know?”

They nodded, their gazes solemn.

“And then, our worlds came toppling down.” I didn’t need to elaborate — I’d already filled them in on our past. “But even when she hurt me, even when I thought she’d betrayed me, there was still this part of my heart reserved for her. Hell, maybe it was my entire heart. I never could open up to another woman. I never could let anyone in the way I did with her.”

“Relatable,” Leo murmured, and Mary squeezed his arm with a soft smile.

“When I saw her again earlier this summer… I hated her. At least, Iwantedto — but the truth was that as soon as it happened, I was already planning how I could see her again, how I could talk to her, how I could get her to tell me what happened all those years ago.” I tongued my cheek. “I am and always have been hers. And being with her again, fighting through what we’ve had to, surviving what we did… there’s no one in this world I could ever want more than her. There’s no one who could ever make sense. She’s it for me. Period. End of story. She is… everything.”