Page 114 of Hometown Touchdown
I blink hard.
And just like that, I know.
This woman. This life. This moment.
She’s it.
I want to marry her. I want the messy, beautiful, everyday kind of forever with her. I want to build something that doesn’t live or die on a scoreboard.
I want to be the man she always believed I could be—the one she’s seeing right now, kneeling in the mud, surrounded by a team that didn’t quit.
I press my forehead to hers.
“I’m gonna ask you to marry me,” I whisper.
She sucks in a breath, eyes wide. “What?”
“Not here.” I smile. “Not tonight. But soon. I’m done waiting for perfect moments. You make everything perfect.”
Her lips part, but she doesn’t speak. Just kisses me, soft and sure and full of everything we’ve survived.
The stadium lights buzz above us. The crowd filters out. The field quiets. But I stay there with her in my arms, heart pounding, soul steady. Because I lost a game tonight. But I think I just won everything else.
Chapter fifty-five
Knox
Thethingnoonetells you about planning a moment like this?
It feels exactly like preparing for a team meeting where the fate of the entire season rests on whether or not your girlfriend’s dad thinks you’re good enough.
Which, to be clear, isexactlythe energy I’m bringing into the dining room at Little Finch, Cedar Falls’ most ambitious lunch spot. The kind with local-sourced quiche, tiny flower vases on every table, and servers who talk about aioli like it’s a religion.
I made a reservation for five—me, my parents, and Brynn’s parents—at the round table by the window where it’s quiet enough to hear yourself sweat.
Mom offered to host it at her place, but this felt more neutral. Less “please love me so I can marry your daughter” and more “respectfully requesting your blessing with a side of balsamic drizzle.”
I wore a button-down.Ironed it. Even put gel in my hair for the first time in…I don’t know, five years?
I’ve played in front of sixty-thousand screaming fans. Coached playoff games. Torn my ACL on national TV. None of that made me as nervous as this.
Across the table, Mr. Marlow is studying the menu like it personally owes him money.
Next to him, Mrs. Marlow is already chatting with my mom about some church committee meeting they’re both sneakily trying to quit. My dad keeps trying to flag down a server for more water, like dehydration is the main threat to this lunch.
I clear my throat.
No one notices.
“Food here’s great,” I offer, trying to sound casual. “The roast chicken sandwich is legit. So’s the soup. They do this thing with fennel that shouldn’t work, but it does.”
Silence.
Then Mr. Marlow peers over his menu and says, “Is fennel that licorice stuff?”
“Uh…yeah.”
He nods slowly. “Don’t trust it.”
