“Matt, do you think you could paint me a picture?” I asked.
Matt’s eyes lit up and he jumped up. “Yes, Noah. I can paint you a picture. What of?”
Giving him a wink, I asked, “Can it be a secret?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Grace turn and look at me. I could feel the love pouring off her body and I knew if I turned to look at her she would be smiling.
“A secret? I’m good at keeping secrets. Ask Jeff. I keep lots of his secrets. Like the one of him backing Ari’s car into the fence post.”
Ari spun around and said, “I knew it! I knew that wasn’t me who put that dent in the back of my car.”
Jeff held up his hands as he laughed. Ari walked up to Jeff and snapped his leg with the dishtowel. “You dirty rotten, son-of-a-bitch, bastard, asshole!”
“Assmole, Jeff!” Matt called out.
“Yes! He is an assmole, Matt. The biggest one of them all. How could you make me think I did that, Jeff?”
Tears were running down Jeff’s face as he held onto his stomach. I couldn’t help but laugh, especially with Matt now repeating what Ari had called him.
“Jeff is a dirty rotten, son-of-a-bitch, bastard assmole!”
Grace covered her mouth in a poor attempt at hiding her laughter.
Jeff finally stood and pulled Ari into his arms as she wrapped her legs around him. “You are so lucky I love you as much as I do,” she said before she kissed him hard.
Jeff walked over and set Ari on the counter and placed his hands on the sides of her face. “I am lucky. And I love you too, Ari.”
Ari leaned over and kissed Jeff. You couldn’t help but feel the love from both of them.
Finally breaking their kiss, Ari peeked over at me and winked as I gave her a smile. Jeff helped her off the counter and hit her ass as she walked back to the kitchen sink. Grace’s cheeks were red, but she didn’t say a word to her parents. How could you say anything negative when you just witnessed two people so madly in love? I never saw my parents act like that with each other. Not one single time. My father was never intimate toward my mother, at least not around Emily and me.
My eyes landed on Grace’s as they sparkled and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. What just happened in this kitchen between her parents is what I wanted our future to be like. To be able to show her how much I loved her at any given moment was something I longed for.
It was something I dreamed of.
My plan was to ask Grace to marry me after the grand opening of her and Alex’s nursery. But the moment was now. I wanted her parents to witness the love that Grace and I shared together. I reached into my pocket and pulled the blue velvet pouch out I’d been carrying with me since we got to Mason.
Grace’s mom said something to Grace that caused her to laugh. Her laughter rushed through my veins like fire rushing through an opened pasture. Walking up to Grace, I put my hand on her arm and turned her to me. Her smile was beyond anything I’d ever seen. Maybe it was the moment, or maybe it was just her smile. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. All I knew was that she was smiling at me exactly how Ari was smiling at Jeff less than two minutes ago.
“Grace,” I whispered as I dropped to one knee. Slamming her hands over her mouth, Ari quickly turned around and let out a gasp.
“Grace Hope Johnson, I love you so very much. Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife and letting me love you every day . . . for the rest of our days?”
Tears fell freely from Grace’s eyes as she dropped to the floor in front of me and pressed her lips together as she nodded and then finally whispered, “Yes. Yes, yes, yes!”
Throwing her body into mine, our lips crashed together. This was probably one of the most amazing moments of my life.
Finally pulling our lips apart, Grace looked into my eyes and said, “You totally just won so many points from my father. You do know that right?”
The room erupted in laughter as I pulled the emerald cut diamond that once belonged to my mother, from the pouch. I’d had the main diamond that was in my mother’s engagement ring, which was originally my great-grandmothers ring, pulled out of her setting and made a new setting for Grace. Two rose-colored diamonds sat on either side of the main diamond followed by smaller diamonds that ran down each side of the platinum band.
Grace sucked in a breath as I slipped the ring on her finger. “This engagement diamond was worn by my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother.” Grace’s eyes fell to the diamond as she wiped a tear away.
“Oh, Noah. This makes it all the more special.”
