Page 30 of Playing the Neutral Zone

I watched as her eyes started to glaze over and she quickly wiped at them, then looked away from me.If she truly thought that she was going to be in for a surprise, because I’d always looked at her as more than that.

“Well, this guy here begs to differ.Do you remember the weekend you stayed with me right after graduation, the same weekend Mia arrived?”

She nodded her head and met my eyes.

“That weekend, you were going to see your mom and dad.Scottie was coming out for guys’ weekend.Remember?”

“Yes, my parents were so mad that he would not be around to celebrate my graduation that they actually gave him shit.”

“Well, he wasn’t coming out for guys’ weekend.He was coming to go with me to pick out an engagement ring.I’d planned on proposing the night you officially moved in.”

“What?”she asked, the words barely audible as she looked at me.“We’d never even slept together; we’d never even really dated, aside from that one month.”

“So what?I already knew in my heart you were the one I wanted to be with, and to be honest, I wanted to wait for our wedding night, before we slept together.”

“You’re fucking with me,” she said, a smile on her face, ready to burst into laughter.

“I’m not.Scottie came, my mom stayed with Mia, and we went out and I ordered the ring, figuring you’d be over everything by the time you returned from seeing your parents the following weekend.Either that or you’d at least be calm enough to sit down with me and have a conversation.I gave you the space you needed, excited to see you the following weekend, but you called me on the Friday night and announced you weren’t coming back, then said your goodbyes.”

She studied me.I could tell she wanted to say something, but to be honest, I didn’t want her to say anything at all.She just had to know.

“Levi, I didn’t know…”

“Of course you didn’t know.How could you of?I’d have killed Scottie had he of said anything.”

“Why didn’t you stop me?Why didn’t you fight for me?”

“Well, for starters, I knew you well enough to know that once you’d decided, nothing I’d have said would have changed anything.I could also tell because we’d barely spoken the entire week, and there hadn’t been a single time since I’d known you that we’d even go twelve hours before messaging, emailing or speaking to one another.”

“Yeah, but why didn’t you tell me about the ring?”

“What was I going to say, Scarlett?Just come home.I want to marry you?”

“Something like that?”

“How romantic would that of been?”

“I wouldn’t have cared.”

I chuckled.“Yes, you would have.Believe me, you would have.I wanted to give you a proposal you’d remember forever.Instead, I moved on, life took over, I picked up, put my focus where it needed to be, just like you did.”

I saw her flinch at the last part.

“What happened between you two?”I questioned, wanting to know the truth.

She sat there, took a deep breath, and then shook her head.

“That is a story for another time.It’s been enough heavy talk for tonight.”

I nodded, somewhere deep inside of me agreeing with her.I’d never planned to tell her about the ring; however, somehow it had slipped out before I could stop myself.

“Fair enough,” I said, catching her shiver, then bring her hands up and rub her forearms.

“You cold?”

She nodded.

I shifted and rolled onto my side, moving over, resting my elbow on the mound of blankets I’d been leaning on.

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