Clash

His face gave nothing away, but I didn’t care if he was out there to chastise me in front of everyone or if he was planning on making sweet love to me right there on the field. I wasn’t turning my back on him again.

I told myself to walk, to put one foot in front of the other, but I couldn’t. All I was capable of was running. And fifty yards had never felt so far away and never had I wanted anything as much as what I wanted at the end of those fifty yards.

The crowd wasn’t silent any more. People were starting to cheer; the wave even started to ripple through the stands. But the only thing I really noticed was the man watching me, keeping some emotion that was so intense I could feel it coming off of him in waves contained beneath the surface.

Slowing to a jog, I stopped before throwing myself into his arms. This had to be one of the few times I’d approached Jude and his arms hadn’t been open.

“That was one hell of a speech, Luce,” he said, his face finally breaking into a smirk. Almost identical to the one he’d given me that day on the beach when he’d crashed into me.

“I was wondering how far you’d let me get,” I said, feeding him back his line that day on the beach.

When I’d fallen for a broken boy that had managed to fix me somewhere along the way.

“How far do you think you had until you hit the edge of the world?” he replied, his smirk deepening.

“I’d say I fell over it a ways ago,” I answered, knowing I’d fallen so long ago I couldn’t remember when my feet had been planted on solid ground.

Jude stepped closer to me, resting one hand on my hip. “Then it’s a damn good thing you grabbed on to that rope I told you we’d need when the ground fell out.”

I smiled as his expression softened.

“Damn good thing, indeed,” I said, feeling the warmth from his hand melt away whatever confusion or uncertainty or doubt was left. “Didn’t you say you had something to ask me?” I arched a brow, scanning the crowd and the cameras aimed at us. “Because I’d say we’ve got five more seconds before they send for the SWAT team.”

Jude blew out a breath, that foreign flash in his eyes looking… nervous?

“I wasn’t planning on doing it this way,” he said, one side of his mouth curling up, “but I suppose that’s par for our course, Luce.”

“Did that concussion knock something loose?” I teased, amused at this bout of discomfort rolling off of him.

“No, I still see everything as clearly as I did before,” he answered, tugging on a chain around his neck. “And it’s about time you saw it too.”

Throwing the microphone to the side, he stepped back. The crowd exploded into an equal chorus of cheers and boos.

Then, taking a deep breath, Jude lowered down to the field. On one knee.

Damn. My knees were about to join his.

Sliding the chain over his head, a ring dangled from the end of it.

“I know I’m one royal screw up, and god knows there’s nothing I could ever do to deserve you,” he began, taking my hand in his after sliding the ring free from the chain. I couldn’t fill my lungs, I couldn’t feel my legs below me, but I could feel his hand around mine. And he kept me grounded.

“But I want you, Lucy Larson. Bad. I want you forever. The kind of bad I have for you isn’t the kind that goes away.” His forehead lined, his eyes washing silver. “Ease my suffering. Make me the happiest, most tortured man in the world. Marry me?”

If this was hanging from a rope after the ground had fallen from beneath you, I’d become the best damn rope climber in the history of ropes.

Jude Ryder. The man I loved. The man I couldn’t live without. My husband.

Yeah, that worked.

“Why the hell not,” I answered, never feeling more sure about anything.

His face smoothed with relief. And pure, unbridled, joy.

“Was that a yes?” he asked, already sliding the ring onto my finger. I hadn’t looked at the ring once. I could feel it there, the metal band cool on my skin, but I didn’t need to see it to feel its promise. It could have been a hundred carets; it could have come from a quarter machine. I didn’t care. Because I had Jude. Forever.

“No,” I answered him, tugging on his hand, prying him up. “That was a what took you so long, Ryder. Now get up here and kiss me.” I winked down at him, grinning at me like a fool.

Popping up, his arms grabbed me, folding me tightly against him. “Yes, ma’am.”

Wrapping my legs around him, he lifted me higher, weaving his fingers through my hair. “The name’s Jude Ryder since you’re going to be my wife someday soon. And I didn’t used to do girlfriends, flowers, or dates. And then I met you, and that didn’t work for you. So I changed for you. And you changed for me too,” he said, taking me back in time and keeping me right here in the present, and, looking into his eyes and feeling my lips on his, I felt the future too. It was surreal. The real kind that few people rarely experienced. And here I was, living it. Lifting his lips from mine, he ran his knuckles down my face. “And we worked out something special.”

EPILOGUE

“Does this look straight?”

Looking up from the floor where I was folding clothes fresh from the dryer, I studied the picture Jude was balancing on a step stool trying to hang above the fireplace. Above our fireplace.

Sure, it was rented and sat inside a studio sized apartment that was as nice as one would expect an eight hundred dollar a month apartment in New York to be. But it was ours, the place we got to be together in. So it was pretty great.