Eli woke up just before dawn to Tia snuggling into his side. She was damp from the shower and impossibly warm. He glanced at the clock. “You’re home early.”

“Yeah,” she whispered. “It didn’t end up being that bad of a night.” She stroked the messy hair off his forehead. “It’s okay though, baby, you can go back to sleep.”

But she’d used that endearment for the first time and it had Eli’s eyes popping open like a coke can. He snuggled her into him and realized with no small amount of interest, that they were both naked. “I’m not all that tired.”

“I was thinking, Eli,” she said as she shifted against the pillows to get more comfortable.

“Yeah?”

“I wanna do what you said. About controlling our story. Let’s just put it out there that we’re serious. And then we can let them drool all over it for a few weeks before they get bored. And we can just go on with our regularly scheduled programming of being serious with each other.”

Eli smiled into the still dark room. “Tia, that’s not totally what I meant when I said that.”

“Hmm?”

He stroked a hand up her back, reflected on the evening they’d had. The ups and downs. The misunderstandings. How much they still had to learn about one another. And then he pulled her in closer. Felt that warm buzzy connection he always felt when they touched.

His heart jumped a little, but he found he didn’t want to hide anything from her. “I was gonna do something a little crazy at dinner.”

“What’s that?”

Eli rolled away from her and grabbed his suit pants from off the floor, pulled the small velvet box out from his pocket. He swallowed hard. “I was gonna give you this.”             

Tia squinted. “I took my contacts out. Hold on.” She grabbed glasses off the nightstand and flipped the light on. She turned back to him and froze. “What the hell is that?” she blurted.

Eli couldn’t help but laugh at her reaction.

“You’ll have to wait to find out,” he teased, pulling the box away from her. “We’re not ready for it yet.”

She looked up at him like he’d lost his ever-loving mind.

He laughed harder.

He pulled both of them up to sitting, the sheets pooling at their waists. He liked it this way, he could look down and see his newly healed scar. The one that she’d sewed up for him.

He handed her the box. “Go ahead and open it.”

Tia, like a woman in a trance, slowly opened the box like she was about to unleash a kraken onto the world. But when she did, she stared at the contents with something that looked suspiciously like disappointment. “Oh.”

She pulled the thin gold chain out of the box. The one that Eli had stopped at a jewelry shop and picked out after he’d dropped her off at the hospital.

“It’s beautiful,” she said falteringly, looking up at him in confusion.

“It is,” he agreed. “I was hoping that you could wear this on it, as a pendant.” He held out his mother’s ring to her.

Tia’s eyes went wide, filled with tears and spilled over. “Eli,” she gasped.

Eli gathered her up, closed his mouth over hers for a second, tasted her tears. “Tia, I wanted to propose to you tonight. But after I dropped you off at the hospital, I realized that we weren’t quite ready for that.”

Her eyes dimmed slightly.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he tumbled on. “My heart is ready for it. I love you so much, baby. I want to be your husband. So bad.”

“I want that too,” she whispered and almost cracked his resolve.

He took a deep breath. “Our hearts are ready for it. But I don’t think our lives are ready for it. Do you?”

Tia pursed her lips, those serious, luscious lips. Slowly she shook her head from side to side. “We’re still figuring out how to be together. How to fit our schedules together. How to live in the spotlight.”

“Exactly,” he kissed her again. Eli pulled back and took the necklace and the ring from her, strung them together. “Someday, when we’re ready, I’m gonna ask you to marry me. And then you’ll wear this ring on your finger. But for now, you’ll wear it on your neck. And every time you look at it, you’ll think about how you’re marrying me someday. And how, in my heart, we’re already married.”

Tia trembled, full on trembled, when he clasped the necklace around her neck. Well, he tried to clasp it. But he had big fingers and the clasp was ridiculously tiny.

“Damn it,” he muttered in frustration.

Tia laughed and took over, fastening the necklace herself and bolting up from the bed to go look at herself in the mirror. Buck naked with nothing but Elijah Bird’s engagement ring around her neck. “Oh my god,” she murmured at her own reflection. “I’m gonna marry Elijah Bird.”

Eli grimaced. “I like it better when you call me Eli.”

“I know,” she turned back to him. “But when I say Elijah Bird, I don’t mean Elijah Bird Star Quarterback, I mean Elijah Bird High School Mega Crush.”

“Ah,” he grinned at her. “I can handle that.”

***

An hour later, they fell, sweaty and sated, back to the bed. Her hair was everywhere and his grin lit up the room.

“Yes,” he murmured.

“What?”

“Nothing. I’m just saying a general yes to the universe. And to what just happened.” He rolled to face her. “Anytime you’re naked I feel like saying yes.”

She chuckled and rolled to one side, finding better light to admire the ring around her neck. “It’s so beautiful, Eli. And just perfect for me. How did you pick it?”

He stroked a hand over her shoulder and spooned her. “It was my mom’s.”

Instantly, Tia burst into tears, rolling him onto his back and laying across his chest.

“What? Oh, jeez. I didn’t think that was going to be your reaction.”

“No, it’s a good reaction. I’m touched.” She took a few more soggy moments to herself before she sat up over top of him, the ring clenched in one of her hands. “I made a decision, seeing as I’m your almost-fiancée and all.”

“Is that right?” He grinned, tracing his hands up her sides.

“That’s right.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve decided that I want to see my almost-fiancé play in the NFL this season.”

Eli’s eyes widened as he sat up. “What are you saying?”

“Well, of course the decision is up to you ultimately. But if I get a vote, it would be to see you play. At least for one season.”

“You’re sure? Even though it would mean six full months of absolute scheduling craziness? And it would mean my dad basically breaking your fingers off in anxiety when you watch the games from the luxury box.”

“Oh my GOD!” Tia’s hands clapped over top of her head, making Ham jingle in from the other room to see what all the fuss was about. “I’d get luxury seats to the games? Now you have to do it.”

He laughed. “You’re not gonna be able to make it to all the games, you know. Not with your schedule.”

Her eyes softened. God, how did she get so lucky to find him? Even now, when they were strictly dreaming, he was thinking about all the logistical ways to fit their lives together. “I know. But I’ll make it to a few. And I can send Jay or Marcus as my finger cracking proxy for your dad for the ones I can’t make.”

“Tia,” his voice deepened. “It’ll mean a lot of nights away from one another. And rumors and gossip and all that shit.”

She tugged against the necklace gently, holding his mother’s ring in her hand. “It all comes down to whether or not I trust you, Eli. Just like you trust me to work side by side with Owen.”

“And?”

“Of course I trust you.”

He pulled her in for a kiss that had her sighing.

“You know?” she started. “My anxieties were never about you. Well, not after I got to know you. At the beginning, I assumed you were a total player. But after a while, I could tell who you were. That you were in this with me. That you wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize it. My anxieties have been about the gossip sites and the paparazzi and what people will say. And I think I just have to keep reminding myself that I don’t actually care what they think. I care what you think.”

She touched his face. “So, do you think you’re gonna play?”

“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “Because honestly? It would be fun. A hell of a ride to do it one more time. But it’s not who I am anymore. This,” he said as he kissed the side of her head. “This is who I really am.”