Page 141 of The Thing About My Rival

The only sounds are coughs and shuffling in the crowd and the thumping of my heart. My palm is slick against the microphone, so I change hands and wipe the dampness on my pants.

Then, a figure appears at the far end of the dark tunnel. Thank fuck. My chest expands with a giant breath of relief.

As she slowly comes into view, the crowd starts up again.

“Wil-cox,”clap clap clap. “Wil-cox,”clap clap clap. “Wil-cox,”clap clap clap.

The players, who’re gathered at the entrance to the tunnel, join in and cheer her onto the field.

I will never see a more beautiful sight than her slightly worried, slightly what-the-hell-are-you-doing face resolutely fighting a smile as she walks across the turf.

When she stops in front of me, her eyes lock onto mine, sparkling in the floodlights.

She bites into her bottom lip before whispering, “I’m going to fucking kill you.”

“Could we save that till later?” I whisper back.

Then I put the microphone to my mouth. “Thank you for coming down. Because I have some very important things to say.”

I cough, my throat suddenly constricted, my chest tight. “You know I love you more than anything in the world, more than I ever dreamed it was possible to love someone. And I am the luckiest man alive that you love me back. Not a minute goes by when I don’t feel undeserving of that.”

There’s anotherawwwfrom the crowd, and a woman in the front row over Wilcox’s shoulder wipes an eye.

“It’s a shame we lost today. The guys are crushed. But we played well, and I know no one will be more proud of those men over there”—I nod to the team—“than you are.”

She turns to look at them and claps over her head, the crowd following her lead.

When the applause dies down, I take the hand of the woman I can’t comprehend living without.

“And you taught me that winning is never the most important thing. It was a rough lesson, not my natural instinct, but I got it in the end.” She smirks, finally relaxing, giving herself to this surreal situation I’ve put her in, giving herself to me. “Thing is, there is one thing I absolutelyhaveto win.”

I drop to one knee, and before my pants have made contact with the turf, the crowd around us erupts with a volume even louder than when we scored.

She half turns away, eyes closed, face flushed, totally mortified. But there’s a beaming smile spreading across her face.

I give it a few seconds for the cheers to fade before speaking again. “And that’s you.”

Her free hand flies to her chest as she tilts her head to one side, eyes filling up.

“Because if I don’t win you, Wilcox, nothing will ever mean anything.”

I have to swallow past a lump in my throat. It never occurred to me that I might get emotional. “With you, my life means more than I ever imagined it could. Please marry me.”

She sucks in her lips and shakes her head.

Fuck. Is she seriously going to say no?

A tear trickles from one eye and rolls over her pink cheek. “Of course I’ll marry you, you idiot. But please get up.”

She hauls me to my feet, and I wrap my arms around the woman who’s going to be my wife, the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with, build a family with. The woman who’s made me into a man who can be a husband and a father who sets an example to his kids.

I’m so lost in the smell of Wilcox’s hair, the pressure of her lips on mine, that it takes me a second to realize the crowd is chanting “Ring! Ring! Ring!”

“Oh, shit. Yes.” I was so overcome with relief that I forgot about it.

I put my hand into my pocket and pull out the small item that I’d kept checking on throughout the game.

While I place the microphone on the ground and take hold of Wilcox’s hand, one of the cameramen trots over for a close-up.

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