Page 132 of The Wrong Game

I squeezed his hand. “This will be fun.”

He swallowed. “Yeah.”

Smiling, I held his hand tighter as the whistle blew on the first quarter and the intern hustled us into place for the game we were going to play. The girl known for running their social media and break entertainment games came up beside us with a camera ready to go, explaining that we were going to try to get three balls into target holes that were set up at varying distances — the final one being the farthest.

“So, which one of you is going to throw?”

Zach immediately pointed at me, and I laughed. “Guess it’s me.”

“You’ll have sixty seconds to get them all. You ready?”

I nodded as she handed me the ball, and on her signal, I fired away.

I nailed the first target easily, running over to the second target with adrenaline surging through me. I missed the first two throws on that one, but hit the third, and the crowd roared when I started running toward the third and last target.

It was a far throw, and I was having trouble getting the ball to fall in the right way to sail through the tiny hole in the target. It bounced off the right, the left, the right again before the crowd started counting down.

Ten… nine… eight…

My heart was beating so wildly, I could hear every erratic thump of it in my ears as I fired another ball. It missed again, and with the crowd screamingtwo, I wound up and fired my last one.

And I made it.

“YES!” I screamed, shoving my fists in the air as I looked up at the crowd. They were all cheering, the announcer going on about how I’d won a $500 Visa gift card. But I didn’t care about the prize. I’d thrown that ball like a champ, andthatwas what I was excited about.

I turned, ready to jump into Zach’s arms, but when I spun around, he wasn’t standing behind me.

He was kneeling.

And suddenly, everything faded away. The roar of the crowd was dull and muted, the breeze nonexistent, the adrenaline rushing through me stopping altogether like my entire body had forgotten how to function at the sight of the man I loved bent on one knee.

He looked up at me with reverent eyes, and all the nerves he’d had before were gone. I wondered then if they were even real, or if he’d been putting on a show to get the scenario to play out just how he wanted. Because there, bent below me, he looked taller than I’d ever seen him in my life.

“Gemma Mancini,” he said, and someone in a Bears t-shirt bent a microphone down so everyone could hear what he said next. “I know you’ve done this before. There was a time when another man promised you forever, promised you he would be faithful to you, and that love story didn’t end up the way you thought it would.”

My heart pinched, and I swallowed, chest aching.

“I can’t go back in time and meet you first. I can’t take away the pain he or anyone else has caused you. But, I don’t want to. Because everything that’s happened to you, everything you’ve endured and survived has made you the incredible woman I know and love today.”

Though the crowd was still distant to me, I heard the universalawwwat his words, and my eyes blurred as I stared down at him.

“Gemma, I don’t want your past, though I’m thankful for it. But, I want your future.”

He opened a box, one he’d been holding in his hands, and the crowd fired up again, but I couldn’t even look at the ring inside it. I couldn’t look anywhere but right into Zach’s eyes.

“If you’ll let me, I promise to cherish you for every single day that I get to take a breath in this life. I promise to hold your hand as we face fears together, and hold your heart with the same respect and care that I would hold my own mother’s.” He swallowed, his own eyes glossing over. “No one has ever meant more to me in my entire life than you do, Gemma. And I don’t just want this game, or the next game, or the game after that. I wantallthe games. And all the seasons. From now until forever, whether we win or we lose.” He paused. “But, webetterwin this one. Because it’s the Packers and that’s just a sin if we don’t.”

The crowd roared at that, the band doing a little diddy that made us both laugh. And before Zach could say another word, I fell to my knees in front of him, hands sliding to frame his face.

“So, what do you say?” he asked. “Spend the rest of your life with the internet-famous Hot Dog guy?”

The crowd laughed and cheered, encouraging me to say yes — as if there were any other answer. But words were stuck in my throat, because all I could do was nod and cry and kiss him to the roar of more than sixty-thousand fans. Zach stood, pulling me with him and wrapping me in his arms as he spun me around. They ushered us off the field with our lips still locked together, and I knew we’d held up the game longer than we were supposed to, but I didn’t care.

“Oh, my God, Zach,” I finally spoke when we were on the sidelines, shaking my head as tears filled my eyes. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you asked.”

“And I can’t believe you said yes,” he said, kissing me again before he pulled back and offered me the ring that had been inside the box.

I held out my left hand, and he slid the gorgeous, tear-drop-shaped diamond set on a rose-gold band onto my ring finger. The sight of it made me cry harder, and Zach wrapped me up again, kissing away the tears.