Page 159 of Learn Your Lesson

Because inside that shiny silver bowl was a shiny gold band — sporting an even shinier marquise diamond.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything but wrap my white knuckles around the edge of that trophy and stare with my mouth open like one of the stuffed fish still littering the ice.

Distantly, I was aware of a warm hand on my back, and then another sliding in to retrieve the ring. I followed it as Will pulled it free, and then I gasped along with everyone around us when he dropped to one knee.

Ava screamed, jumping up and down like she’d been in on this secret all along. She clasped her hands together in front of her face and watched me anxiously, her smile big enough to split her face.

It was too loud for him to profess his love for me, to say the things I could read so clearly in his hope-filled eyes as he watched me from that ice with a soft, almost nervous smile.

But I didn’t need words — not a single one.

I knew.

I knew how much he loved me, it was written in every action he’d shown me since the day I moved into the house. I knew every vow he could make before he even had the chance to make it. I knew this man meant forever when he told me I was his, and I knew the way my heart beat only for him that he was it for me, too.

He just sat there on one knee, holding that ring in one hand and my hand in the other, waiting.

Tears sprang to my eyes, and with a dozen cameras trained on us, I rolled my lips together and nodded.

Will let out a breath like he’d been unsure, like there was any chance in hell I’d say anything but a resoundingyes.He slid the ring on my finger, and then stood, framingmy face with those strong, magical hands of his and kissing me for the whole world to watch.

We only had a moment before Ava was wrapping herself around my legs, and I bent to hug her, too, wiping the tears from my eyes. She pulled at my hand until she could see the ring, and then she was chattering on and on about wedding planning and where we’d do it and who would come andcould she please wear her jersey?!

And I marveled at how one little offer to help out a student’s dad after school had turned into the most life-changing six months of my life. I wasn’t scared in that moment. I didn’t feel the impending doom of every warning my mother had bestowed on me since my birth.

I knew, without a doubt, that in my story?

The man would stay.

The woman would have her independence while being cared for, too.

The child would have her parents, all of them.

And this family would have a happy ending — but not for a very, very long time.

We had too many happy beginnings to have first.

The End