Page 11 of Dear Brother's Best Friend
I run my hands through my hair, wishing this was a better time to say this without an audience of one watching us.
"I didn't know how I really felt until I got your letter. It was like I was sleepwalking through life, and your letter woke me up. I think that I didn't allow myself to feel what I did because I care so much about Hayden and your family. I didn’t want to mess that up. But when I got your letter and saw how you felt about me, I knew I couldn’t hold it in.”
“That explains your weird Jekyll and Hyde personality,” Cassidy says.
“I love you, Cassidy.”
She stares at me without saying a word, and I think for a moment that I'm moving too quickly for her.
“I know you implied in your letter that you were trying to move on from your feelings, but I’m hoping that these past few days weren’t just some last hurrah,” I say.
She shakes her head. "I didn't know what they were, but I can tell you that I don't want this to end. I've loved you most of my life, and now that I know you love me, I'm not going to give you up."
I cup her face in my hands and lean down to kiss her. My heart feels like it's going to burst in my chest. Nothing can take this feeling away from me right now. Hayden can kick the crap out of me for falling for his sister, and every scratch and bruise will be worth it if it means I get to keep her.
Hayden clears his throat, and we both pull apart. He's not smiling, but at least the murderous look he had in his eyes before is gone.
“Okay, I can’t stop this from happening, but you two have to stay quiet about it until after the wedding. I don’t want anything to draw from Jodie’s spotlight.”
“She’s lucky to have you,” Cassidy says to him.
Hayden looks over at me and then back at her. “And he’s lucky to have you.”
She turns around and wraps her arm around my waist, and pulls me close.
“We are lucky to have each other.”
Epilogue
CASSIDY
Dylan and I waited for a few months after the wedding before telling my parents about our relationship. Dylan was really concerned that they wouldn't react well about the news, kind of like Hayden, but they surprised us both. Dad threw his arms around Dylan and pulled him into a hug, and Mom said she already knew that the two of us would end up together.
When I asked her how she knew, she said that when I was fifteen and had my wisdom teeth taken out, I was so high on the medicine that I told her all about how I would grow up and marry Dylan. Thankfully this was before the trend of parents videotaping their kids high after having dental work done.
Despite the beginning of our romance moving at warp speed, we slowed things down after Hayden and Jodie's wedding when we got back home. I think we were both worried the other was under some love spell people get when they fall for someone on vacation. We started dating and taking our time to really get to know one another. It took us a year together before we even moved in with one another.
"This is the last box." Dylan sits it down in front of me on the coffee table.
I’m sitting on the couch, feeling like I’m about to die from all the moving.
"We can get to it tomorrow," I tell him.
Dylan leans back on the couch next to me. “I think you will feel better once you unpack this last box.”
I glare at him. “I’ve unpacked nearly all the boxes we had in here. It’s your turn.”
"I can't. It's not my box." He turns the box to show my name written on the side, but it's not my handwriting.
"I'm pretty sure you've just crossed out your name, babe, and wrote mine on it so that I will unpack it."
“Please stop fighting me on this. I’m trying to propose, and you are making it very difficult.”
I sit up straight with a strength I didn’t know I had. “What did you just say?”
“Open it and find out,” he says, the smile on his face growing wide.
I pull at the tucked folds of the box lid. There is nothing inside the box but a small velvet box. Dylan takes out the little box and opens it to show me the diamond ring. He gets down on one knee next to me.
