Dante
I asked her to move in with me right after the championship win.
I should have known she would be difficult about it.
She tried making all these excuses, like it hadn’t been long enough, or that she didn’t like the location. The second excuse was an absolute lie. I knew she loved the house. The first one that we hadn’t been together long enough was just that. An excuse.
Our relationship, if you could even call it that, had been the furthest thing from traditional. We were supposed to be working together, but the lines blurred and I fell in love with her. I didn’t get it. She loved me, too. I knew she did. What was the big deal? She wanted a normal relationship? She could have it now. I hadn’t had many girlfriends, but I knew that when you were in a relationship with someone, you asked them to live with you.
I wanted her around. Was that what she didn’t seem to realize?
I wanted to share a bed with her, and I wanted her to be there when I woke up in the morning. The house was huge; it wasn’t as if she was going to be getting in my way. It was way too much space for one person anyway. It was too much space for two people but that, if she wanted, could change.
My mom had cried when I had told her that Quinn and I were moving in together. I knew she was proud of me, but I also knew that she didn’t really agree with the sort of lifestyle that I lived. She was probably waiting for me to turn thirty and realize that I couldn’t keep partying as hard as I was anymore.
Lucky for her I was doing it two years earlier.
The first thing I did with Quinn was take her away. It was just a week, but I just wanted to give her a grace period before we were back in LA and were out as a couple. She wouldn’t be Quinn Blaze, reporter, anymore. She would be Dante Rock’s girlfriend. I knew that life already, but I wanted to give her a little time to adjust and enjoy her relative anonymity before the media shitstorm that was coming.
I chose Jamaica. Montego Bay. We spent the first part of the week at the Hilton and the rest of it in a private villa, fully staffed. We both dropped off for that whole week. There was no television and neither of us used our phones. I knew we wouldn't be able to get away from the drama when we got home, so we were going to make the most of the silence while we still had it. It was what we both needed.
I had been a complete dick to her since the thing with the camera. I knew, rationally, that whatever she was doing with it, she wasn’t going to try and use it against me. She said to me so many times that she didn’t mean to hurt me, which she wasn’t trying and I believed her. I believed her every time, but I didn’t want to take a chance.
I knew I was falling in love with her and I wanted any excuse to spare myself the possibility of getting hurt. I had been a jerk and it just wasn’t fair to Quinn. I was scared and I took the opportunity I saw to push her away. I didn’t want to think about what would have happened if she hadn’t wanted me back. She had taken me back, but there was always the chance that she wouldn’t. That she was done and took that rejection for what it was and just left.
I hated to think of it.
It was like before I met Quinn, I didn’t want anything. I wanted some things, but they were all related to my career. I had wanted to win MVP again, I had wanted a championship win. I wanted record-breaking career stats. I never wanted the other stuff you are supposed to want, like a stable relationship with someone you love, or kids and a family.
I just never thought about that stuff. I never had any reason to. Quinn… she was a reason to.
None of those things ever made sense to think about before. They were things that were permanent and meaningful, and I had never had a relationship with a woman outside of the women in my family.
Once I had Quinn back, all I wanted was to keep her with me.
Mom had been so happy she had cried when I told her that Quinn and I were moving in together. She was the perfect person to ask for help picking out an engagement ring for her. She had never been that proud of me, even when I had graduated or made it into the league.
She wanted grandkids. She talked about grandkids with Gabbie all the time because I guess she thought if there was a possibility for one of her kids to give her grandchildren, it was Gabbie. She and Quinn had gotten pretty close since they were working on the film together. I knew she loved her. I knew Quinn loved my mom, as well. Mom probably saw the grandkids she thought she’d never get from me when I told her Quinn was moving in. That was the first step, right? First, you moved in. then you got married, then you got kids.
I didn’t know whether Quinn wanted kids, but she was just twenty-four.
I asked her when we were getting ready to go out.
Her little movie, the one she made about me behind my back with mom’s help, had been circulated all over the place and had been submitted for a journalism award. This was the real deal too because the people holding the event didn’t tell her beforehand whether or not she had won. It was like that sometimes with some award ceremonies. Not this one.
We were in the bedroom together. She was in a chair having her hair and makeup done, and I was rolling the lint off the tux that I was going to wear.
“Hey, babe?” I said.
“Hm?”
She didn’t look over at me. She had to hold still because the hair stylist was curling her hair. There wasn’t really a smooth way to ask this so I just spat it out.
“Has mom been asking you about kids?” I asked her.
“A little, I guess, she hadn’t asked if we were trying or anything, but she has sort of dropped hints that she was excited about us starting a family.”
“Do you want to? Start a family?”
Quinn paused. It was probably a little awkward for her to have that discussion with me while there were two other people in the room. I didn’t really care. Those people, wardrobe and style people, probably had some of the best-kept secrets of the rich and famous.
“Do you want to?” she asked, not answering my question.
“I don’t think I would mind that much,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, I know mom wants grandkids. I wouldn’t mind having a bunch of little kids running around who looked like you,” I said.
“A bunch? How many is a bunch?”
“I don’t know. How many are you willing to have?”
“Dante… I don’t know, we’ve never talked about this before.”
“But you have thought about it, right? Come on, tell me.”
“One would be enough.”
“What? No way. Only children are spoiled.”
“I’m an only child, what are you trying to say?” she accused.
“I’m just saying since you never had siblings, you don’t know what it’s like. They can look out for each other. That’s an instant best friend, right there.”
“Okay, how about two, like you and Gabbie?”
“More,” I said.
“How could you want more than two?” she asked.
I didn’t know, but I did. This house was so big, I wanted to fill it up. If the number of kids you had was somehow equal to how much you loved the person you were with, then I wanted as many kids as possible.
“How about four?” I asked.
“I hope you're saying that because you're ready to actually raise four children.”
“Why does that sound like a threat?” I asked her. Her hair wasn't done yet, but I asked the stylist and makeup artist if they could just leave for a second so we could talk privately together.
“Are you upset?” I asked her. There was about half of her hair that still needed to be curled but her makeup looked like it was done already. I thought she looked beautiful but the makeup artist was probably going to come back in and touch her face some more.
“I’m not upset. I’m just surprised. Why do you want to discuss this now?” she asked.
“I’ve been thinking about the future.”
“We just moved in together. It has only been a few months.”
“You haven’t been thinking about us being together?”
“I have, but kids? Already? I just… I just think it's sort of soon.”
“How long do you want to wait?”
“I’m just twenty-four. I want to work some more and become more established. I want us to spend more time together getting to know one another. I want to spend time with you alone before we have a kid who needs constant attention and tears me away from you.”
I walked up to her and leaned down to kiss her gently on the lips so I didn’t get any of her makeup on me.
“I haven’t ever wanted a future with anyone before you, Quinn. I haven’t ever wanted a woman to move in with me before.”
“This is big for you. I know. That’s why you should slow down and enjoy it. I’m not going anywhere.”
I kissed her again. She had a point.
She and I… well, I was new at this. She had probably had men in her life before. She had probably even lived with some of them. Maybe even gotten engaged and talked about having kids. It didn’t matter what she had done in the past because we were together now. I wanted her and I wanted all of her. I would respect her wishes if she wanted to wait, but she would have to compromise and do something for me.
I didn’t want to think about not having her again.
I didn’t want to think about other women I’d had in the past or the ones I could have had if she and I weren’t together.
I hadn’t been looking in the first place, but I was done looking now. I had found her. I didn’t want anyone else. I had kept the ring that mom and I had picked out for her in the bedside table of one of the guest bedrooms. I didn’t want her finding it by accident.
My mind was made up—and she was it.
It was just a matter of finding out when a good time to propose would be. I took the ring everywhere with me when we left the house together. It was always on me besides when we were asleep.
I had been really scared about the media attention when we got back from Jamaica and settled into my house, our house together back in Los Angeles would be like. The thing I had forgotten was that Quinn was a reporter herself. She wasn’t a public figure, but she wrote about them all the time. She knew how the media was. She knew they didn’t give a fuck and could be reckless. She also knew how to handle herself.
What did it feel like to have nothing to hide?
Literally, the only thing she had ever done wrong was love me.
Not every publication took fact-checking seriously. The headlines and stories that we came home to after Jamaica were scandalous. They ranged from a little bit true and plausible to outright lies.
There were already rumors that the reason she and I was together was because I had made her pregnant. There were some calling her my secret wife. There were others saying who she was, Quinn Blaze, journalist, but then everything else was ugly rumors. Some said she was blackmailing me. Some said she was a social-climbing gold digger.
If only they knew how embarrassed Quinn was by my money.
There had even been these huge offers from various outlets to give an expose on our relationship. The same hungry publications that were after me before were after me again, and now they had more ways to get to me than before. Quinn wouldn’t break though.
It wasn’t like there was anything particularly scandalous for them to find out about anyway. What did they want to know? About how when Daniella wasn’t in the house, Quinn would cook breakfast? About how she had converted one of the guest rooms into an office for her?
About our sex life? What did they want to know because there were a lot of women would, could answer that question, not just Quinn.
I wasn’t proud of that fact, but it didn’t bother me that much. It was the past.
She didn’t bother refuting or confirming anything. It was nobody’s business but ours.
Unlike being out with my sister or with my mother, I was one-hundred-percent shameless when it came to being out with Quinn. I took her out as often as she would let me. Didn’t matter if it was out to eat, to the bank, or to go shopping. It didn’t matter. Seeing the pictures of us together was very satisfying to me.
I wanted to claim her loud and in public. I wanted everyone to know. They could have as many pictures as they wanted.
We got to the venue. I got out of the car on my side so I could come round the car and open her side for her. She looked gorgeous. Her hair had eventually been gathered at the back of her head in a fancy bun. She looked beautiful, but I always preferred her hair down. The dress she had worn had no straps and was red. It went all the way down to the floor.
We began the walk down the carpet together.
She hadn’t done many of these, but the red carpet was literally just the time when the photographers got to take candid shots of you. They would always make requests, like having two people together in shots as a couple, different poses and also solo shots.
The photographers were yelling for me to get out of the shot so that they could have some of her alone. Watching the flashbulbs, it occurred to me that this was a perfect time. If not now, then when?
I could always pull it out when we were together alone at the house or having a private moment, but then again, what about our life was ever going to be truly private? The pictures being taken at the event today were going to end up everywhere. People all over the world would see them. They would see me proposing to the woman that I loved, and her hopefully saying yes.
I looked down at Quinn. She must have noticed because she looked at me, too.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, leaning into me. She gently touched the lapel of my tux jacket. I held her hand and brought it to my mouth, kissing the back of it.
“Everything’s great,” I said to her.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, smiling.
It was now or never. It wasn’t that serious if I didn’t propose to her right then, but I wanted to do it then. I wanted to claim her as loudly as I could. I looked her right in the eye as I leaned into her so I could whisper into her ear.
“I love you, Quinn,” I said to her.
“I love you too, Dante.”
“I’m so proud of you and I’m so happy I get to call you mine… how about, we make that official?”
“What do you—?” She stopped when she saw me sink down onto the carpet on one knee. I pulled the ring out of my pocket and held her hand. The applause and shouts that broke out just then were deafening.
“Marry me, Quinn,” I said to her. I didn’t know whether she had heard me over all the noise, but I knew she knew what I was asking her. I could see her face. Her free hand was over her mouth like she couldn’t believe it.
Yeah, it was a surprise. The whole country was going to be surprised.
All she had to say was yes. Say yes Quinn. Be mine. Forever.