Page 160 of Stay With Me

He stepped back and held one of her hands, then kissed it.

“I had this crazy dream once where I did this, and I totally botched it so I wanted to get it right this time.”

He lowered himself to one knee, grinning widely.

“Sammie?”

She giggled and wiped a tear. “Yes?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“You know what would make me the happiest guy in the whole world?”

Another giggle; another wipe of her tears. “What?”

“If you would make my dream come true.”

Her stomach did a flip. “I can definitely do that.”

“So will you marry me?”

She grinned widely and nodded. “Yes.”

“Good.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a ring, slipped it onto her finger, then stood and held the sides of her face.

He smirked. “You’re stuck with me now.”

“I was already stuck with you, and happily so.”

He tilted his chin down and kissed her when suddenly a cacophony of cheers and whistles, hoots and hollers, bounced back and forth around the walls of the supposedly empty restaurant.

Samantha abruptly released his lips and spun around to see not only Kimberly and Chase, and the majority of the staff, but also James and Evelyn, as well as her mom, dad, Jenna, Andrew, and all the kiddos.

She turned back to Nick. “I can’t believe you did this.”

He laughed and shrugged. “I wanted it to be as much of a surprise as possible. And you’re pretty intuitive so I needed some help to sort of throw you off. So all that stuff Jenna’s been saying to you—”

“Are youserious?She made me think you were going to break up with me!”

He chuckled and made a blatantly guilty face. “But it threw you off right?”

She scoffed and shook her head. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, slipping his arms around her waist. “But your face was totally worth it.”

She laughed and kissed him again, before pressing her forehead against his. “I’m so getting you back for this.”

And the next morning, she did.

Nick meandered sleepily into the kitchen, sliding up behind Samantha and kissing the side of her face.

“Good morning, my beautiful bride to be.”

“Good morning, my handsome future husband.”

She handed him avery specialcoffee cup and sent him to go lounge on the couch while she whipped up breakfast.