Page 31 of Choosing Forever
There’s no making me wait any longer after hearing that. I release my grandma’s arm and rush down the hall. I’m still as wobbly as earlier when I clack a heel to the first stair and draw my favourite pair of brown eyes.
Darren’s lips part as he stares at me, the hand that was fiddling with his tie dropping to smack his thigh. Time stills as if it’s giving us a moment to just . . . stare at one another while slowly closing the distance. We linger in place once we’re only one stair apart, our eyes roaming and exposing the words still held inside.
The corner of my mouth tips up when I lower my gaze to see him pinching his thigh. His throat bobs, colour crawling up his neck and ears. In a flash, he’s taking my hand in his.
I step off the final stair and lean up on my toes when he cups my cheek in his hand. He glides his fingers down past my throbbing pulse and settles them on the back of my neck, holding me there.
“Let me marry you, Delaney Marie Brooks.”
I clutch the waist of his suit jacket and flutter my heavy lashes. “You know that we have to wait four years.”
“Four years is too fucking long, Elle.”
“It’s the only way I’ll know you mean it.”
He blows out a breath that fans over my nose and leans down to kiss me.
It’s hungry, desperate, yet nothing that I worry will scar my grandmother for life. I respond in kind, hoping he can feel the confidence I have in us. The promise I’ve been giving him since the day he asked me to be his girlfriend three years ago, when nobody, not even us, thought it would be much more than an infatuation meant to burn off quickly. That’s all love is expected to be with fifteen-year-olds, but it was the opposite.
I knew from the moment he found a nine-year-old Delaney nursing a grass-stained, skinned knee on the football field with a book in her hand that he was meant to be something far morethan an infatuation. Unlike all of the other boys our age, he saw me and rushed into the school before coming back out with a giant wad of wet paper towels in his hands. He plopped himself on the ground in front of me and began cleaning the smeared blood and grass from my skin while telling me about how many times he’d done the same thing while learning to play football. My books caught his eye, and suddenly, I was gifted the rest of the series from him the following Christmas.
I didn’t say much of anything to him then, but from that day on, we were attached at the hip.
“Four years,” he relents, the words lingering on my lips.
I press my thumb over the smear of nude lipstick left on his mouth and laugh when he tries to lick it. “Let’s focus on tonight. Not tomorrow or four years from now. Just tonight.”
“Anything you want, baby.”
“Anything?”
Fire flares in his eyes. His massages the back of my head, teasing the delicate mess of curls and bobby pins that Poppy created earlier. I lean into his teasing touch and run my fingers over the gelled swoop of his hair.
“I’m still here, in case you forgot. And so is Grandma B. Do you really want to scar such a sweet old lady with your love talk?” Poppy interjects.
Grandma’s laugh is croaky but kind, the way it always is. “I’m not a prude, Poppy. Let them love on each other. One day, you’ll find yourself doing the same thing with someone of your choice.”
Darren stares at me, content despite the teasing. Like he’d be okay with doing just this for the rest of forever.
“You look incredible, Elle. I don’t know what I did to deserve you or to find you so early on in my life, but I feel really fucking grateful that I did.”
I trace the strong length of his nose with a freshly manicured nail. “You can show me just how grateful you are when I force you to dance with me tonight.”
“And if I already want to dance with you?”
“Then I’d say I love you,” I muse, giving him a peck while he takes hold of my waist and tugs me in close.
“Did you remember the corsage?” Poppy asks.
I look away from Darren and to his sister, noticing the phone she has lifted in front of her face. Darren releases me and spins to the entrance table. When he faces me again, it’s with a giant white flower in his hands.
“You reminded me ten thousand times today to pick it up, Pops,” he says.
I extend my hand for him, and he slips the flower and its black band onto my wrist. His eyes fix themselves to the ring on my finger before flashing back up at me. With a smirk, I wiggle my fingers at Poppy.
“Did you help him pick this out?”
“She didnot,” Darren answers for her. “In case she tries to take credit.”
