“You put your boots on the wrong feet, Grant.”
“That was a style choice.”
She laughs, leaning into me. “Out with it, Taylor.”
This is it. Everything is perfect. Birds are chirping. The breeze is breezing. Mia’s in her sundress, sitting there like she owns the whole damn view—and maybe she does, ‘cause I can’t see a single thing but her.
The moment is finally here. The one I’ve been planning for weeks. The one I’ve rehearsed in the barn, in the shower, and once—don’t judge me—in front of a mirror with Mason walking in and promptly threatening to bleach his eyeballs.
Though, this ring box feels impossibly heavy now, like it's made of neutron star material instead of velvet.
What if she doesn’t like it? Worse…what if she says no?
I take a deep breath, my hand closing around the little box in my pocket.
I clear my throat. “Mia,” I start, turning to face her. “These past few months since you came back from London have been—”
The words die in my throat as I pull out the box like some kind of romcom cowboy, my sweaty fingers fumbling. It slips. The box shoots from my hand like a damn cannonball. Not kidding. I fumble. It hits my palm, then my boot, bounces off a rock (of course it does), and starts rolling.
Down. The. Hill.
“Nope. Nope, nope, NOPE—”
“Shit!” I yell, lunging after it like I’m in some low-budget action movie seemingly moving in slow motion.
“Shit!” I lunge for it, and miss by inches, watching in horror as Mama's ring, three generations of Taylor history, heads straight for the river below.
I scramble to my feet, half-running, half-sliding down the incline after it. My boot catches on a root, sending me sprawling face-first into the dirt. I roll, momentum carrying me down the hill like a human bowling ball, arms and legs flailing.
When I finally come to a stop at the bottom, I'm covered in dust, twigs in my hair, frantically scanning the ground for any sign of blue velvet.
“Oh my God, Grant! Are you ok?” Concern bleeding into Mia’s voice.
I grumble a yes and start dusting myself off. “Just eating Texas.”
Then I hear it—laughter, wild and uncontained. Mia stands at the top of the hill, doubled over, tears streaming down her face.
“It's not funny!” I yell, though I can feel a ridiculous grin tugging at my lips. “That's my great-grandmother's ring!”
“Your—your face!” she gasps between peals of laughter. “When you—when you tumbled—”
“A little help would be nice!”
She makes her way down the hill, considerably more gracefully than my barrel roll descent, still giggling. “What exactly am I looking for?”
“Blue velvet box,” I mutter, now on hands and knees searching through the tall grass. “About yay size.” I hold my fingers apart to demonstrate.
We search in silence for a few minutes, my panic mounting with each passing second. Then Mia makes a triumphant sound.
“Found it!” she calls, holding up the slightly dented box.
Relief floods me so intensely I actually feel light-headed. I crawl over to her, taking the box with trembling fingers. So much for my perfect, romantic proposal.
“Look at me,” I mutter, gesturing to my dirt-streaked clothes, the scrape on my arm, the literal twigs tangled in my hair. My chest rising and falling like I just ran ten miles. “This wasn’t the plan. I had a whole damn speech, Mia. Poetry. Actual fucking poetry. Spentdayson it. It was supposed to be with the view, relaxed, barefoot and romantic and… not this.”
She doesn’t laugh.
Instead, she drops to her knees and kneels down in front of me, taking my face between her palms. “This is perfect,” she whispers, eyes glassy, voice trembling. “This issous, Grant. Beautiful mess. Chaos and dirt and heart.”
