Page 87 of One Day

“This was all you, Sonya. Just keep working hard, and I know we’ll make a great team.”

A grin takes up my face, nodding my head eagerly before heading up the stairs. The second I’m in the hall, I run in the direction I left Walker and squeal when I sink into the chair across from him. My hands excitedly drum against the wooden surface.

“Good news?” Walker asks, pulling an earbud out.

“The university is developing my app!” I squeal. “Coach Shay liked my app pitch so much that he pushed for it, and so did Professor Andrews, and the university approved the go-ahead this morning. My app is being built! It’s going to be real, and I get to be part of it.”

“Sunny! That’s fantastic,” he says, untangling himself from his laptop to slide out of his chair and all but lifts me out of my seat. “I’m so proud of you!”

“I’m proud of me, too,” I say when he sets me back on my feet. I move my hands to his cheeks, grinning. “Cowboy, I get to be a part of app development! My app. I can’t believe this.”

“I can. You are so insanely talented. They’d be insane not to want to work with you, and one day, when you're crushing the tech world, I get to say I knew Sonya Cartelli when.”

My lips curl up. “You loved her when,” I say, pressing my lips to his, “and you’ll love me then, too. There’s no end date for us, Walker Bodie. You’re it.”

“Yeah?”

I nod my head. My heart is so unbelievably full of love for the man in front of me and for the life I get to live with him at my side. The life we’re going to build together. There is no more one day at a time for us because forever starts now.

EPILOGUE

WALKER

FOUR YEARS LATER

“You got to wear the hat, Cowboy,” Sonya calls from the kitchen table in my childhood home. A gentle glee in her voice. “You promised me the full Georgia experience.”

“I do not understand your obsession with this thing,” I say, stepping down the hall with the felt hat resting over my head.

Her face lights up at the sight of me in a pair of light wash jeans, pale orange short sleeve button up with the sleeves cuffed, finished off with the worn-in cowboy boots I’ve had since I was seventeen years old and the hat that has stopped collected dust on the top shelf of my closet since Sonya found her way into my bed.

“This good enough for you, gorgeous?” I ask, giving a slow spin before approaching where she’s perched on the edge of the kitchen table.

She answers by parting her legs, letting me step between them. “You have never looked better.” She tilts her head back to meet my eyes, her hands coming down to rest over my hands as they slide up her thighs and under the hem of her sundress. “I specifically like this new addition,” she says, her fingertips pausing on the gold band hugging my finger. “Husband.”

“Wife,” I hum, leaning in to press my lips to hers. Her hands slide up my arms, running over my shoulders until her fingers are tangled in my hair, and mine travel further up her dress. “God, you in a fucking sundress is my new favorite thing.”

She grins against my mouth, sliding her hands down my chest and over the collar of the white undershirt peeking out from beneath my button-down, leaning back before lifting her leg on either side of me. “Yeah? I’ll make sure to wear more. What do you think about my boots?”

I turn my head to take in the white cowboy boots on her feet and when my gaze returns to her, she’s playing with the necklace I gave her all those years ago. The diamond ring on her finger is now joined by a thin wedding band. It never ceases to amaze me just how different things are from all those years ago when we kept telling ourselves we were just friends.

Now, I get to stand here and admire this incredible woman for the rest of my life. I thought I was lucky to get to love her, but then she said she would marry me, and I realized my luck was only starting.

“I love you,” I say, reaching for her hand when she lets go of her necklace. “You know that?”

She nods her head, sliding forward on the table and landing softly on her feet. “Yeah, Cowboy. I know,” she says, hooking her index finger in my belt loop. “But you can keep telling me forever if you want to. I don’t mind.”

I lean down and tangle my fingers in the wild curls at the base of her neck. “Always, Sunny,” I whisper against her lips before pressing them to hers.

Her arms move around my waist, pulling my body flush to hers. It never grows old, getting to have her like this. She’s the brightest star in my life, the clear direction in every route I take.

When I proposed at the end of my first year of law school, and Sunny’s last year of undergrad, I was sure I was pushing my luck. Asking too much of her too soon, but then she said yes.

“We should go,” she mumbles against my mouth, yet to untangle from me. “Your mom is probably wondering where we are.”

“She can wait,” I whisper against her lips, pressing her back against the table. She follows my steps, her hand coming out to rest on the table as I lean down to pepper her neck with kisses. “It’ll be her honeymoon gift to us.”

She giggles and rests her hand on my chest, giving me a small shove back. “I don’t think that’s going to fly, considering we have to inform her we eloped without her.”

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