Page 105 of Try Me
He nodded. “Sure thing.”
We went a few more rounds almost point for point. Man on man devolved into a competition to see who could get under the net and get a shot off the fastest. We collided, bumped, pushed and shoved, and laughed our asses off between hurling insults.
“Grab mine for me?” I asked, when we paused for a water break. He nodded as he jogged over to the sidelines, and I shot a basket and made it in spite of the way my heart was pounding. I needed the distraction.
I retrieved the ball and dribbled to midcourt, watching Chet’s head tip back, his throat work as he guzzled. Behind him the sky was a palette of pink and orange, and the setting sun limned his silhouette in gold. I couldn’t stop staring at him. I never wanted to.
He trotted toward me, flashing me a grin as he handed me my water. I finished it off and winged it toward the sidelines. My palms were so sweaty I almost dropped the ball when I checked it to him.
“I think we should go out tonight. Celebrate your first…” He tapered off as I caught the ball, set it on the court next to me, and lowered onto one knee. “Farrow,” he said softly, his eyes widening.
“I think you should marry me and we can celebrate for the rest of our lives.” For six months I’d come up with and discarded a hundred grandiose scenarios meant to leave him speechless. A hundred different ways to try to show him that I was one thing he was never in danger of losing again. “I wanted to impress you,” I admitted as his eyes roamed my face intently. “Kept dreaming up different things. But none of them were us. This is. It’s where we began, sweating on a basketball court, going round after round, never backing down. From each other or anything else. I don’t ever want to stop.”
Chet’s fingertips dusted over the crown of my head, traversed my cheek, and then cupped my jaw. “Serious?” In his eyes hope mingled with the stray bite of cynicism that still crept up on him sometimes. They were the eyes of the boy I’d once called my best friend, and the eyes of the man I’d fallen in love with over and over in the last four years. I’d seen them dulled by a bad day, shining with victory after he’d won his first case, hot with lust when they met mine from across a room. And my favorite of all: the quiet contentment that happened sometimes when we were just lying in bed facing each other.
I nodded. “Let me spend the rest of my life showing you how serious.”
He swallowed hard and nodded in return, chin tipping toward the sky briefly.“Shit,” he whispered, as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he gripped me by the collar and pulled. “Get up here.” His kiss was warm and urgent and then mellow and smooth. When we broke apart, streaks of indigo had dimmed the sky, and Chet rested his head on my shoulder, lips pressed to my neck. I held him tighter when his shoulders shook, and he whispered, “Yes.”
We didn’t make it out for a celebratory dinner. We did well enough to make it up all four flights of stairs and into our apartment before the clothes came off. As he snapped my shorts free of my ankles, something went flying, landed with a ping, and started rolling down the hallway.
“What’s that?” he panted.
“Ring. Shit, I totally forgot about it.” I’d had it in the inner lining pocket of my shorts.
Chet lurched forward, managing to grab it as I tumbled after him. We landed on the ground in a heap, and he handed it to me to slide on his finger. He eyed it with a soft smile that turned wicked as I spread his legs apart and worked him open.
Afterward, I lay with my head on his stomach, his fingers twined with mine.
He sighed with drowsy contentment. “How is it that I’ve gotten everything I ever wanted and it’s somehow nothing that I ever expected?”
“I ask myself the same question a lot.” I kissed his knuckles, then the ring. “Don’t know the answer. We’re just lucky, I guess.”
“Something like that.” Chet rolled toward me and ran a hand over my hip before perking a brow. “Go again?”
My laughter filled the tiny hallway. “Yeah, but you’re gonna have to give me a minute. Maybe five.”
“Take your time. We’ve got the rest of our lives.”
—The End—