Then she breathed out, “I love you.”
I nodded and had gone to say it back, but in her normal Khiley way, she cut me off. “Wait. I don’t just love you because you buy me things, or let me win at Fortnite, or give me your last cookie.”
“I don’t let you win—”
She cut me off again with a finger on my lips. “I love you because you know me inside and out and aren’t running for the hills. I love you because you know that I can’t sit still and find ways to make sure I don’t have to. I love you because you’ve been mine since before I knew what that meant. I love you because you’re my future and everything good in my life.”
She took a huge breath and then stared at me. Her fingers still on my lips. After a minute or so, she frowned. “Say something.”
I smiled, kissing her fingers before pushing them away. “I wasn’t sure I was allowed to talk yet.”
She rolled her eyes at me.
“I love you, too. I don’t know what my life would be like without you in it, so please don’t plan on going anywhere without me. I can’t imagine anything in my life happening without you there at my side.”
She nodded, turning serious. “Is it ridiculous to feel like this when we’re only fifteen?”
I looked at her, thoughtful, my heart hammering, my teenage body responding to her in a way I wasn’t sure I could control. “Probably. But ridiculous or not, it’s how I feel.”
Then she kissed me, and I kissed her back before leading her to the telescope that she spent hours looking through. The only time Khiley was ever really still was when she was searching the stars.
We had plans to search those stars together, and now we’d just have a baby to take with us. We’d be a unit of three instead of two. The rest of the family was going to have to figure out a way around the old traditions. This was the last Christmas Eve and Christmas morning I’d spend without her.
♫ ♫ ♫
As Christmas morning slowly moved into Christmas afternoon, my nervousness started to get the better of me. Not because of the engagement ring I had in the pocket of my jacket, but because of what Khiley and I were going to tell everyone after I gave her the ring.
Edie kept smiling at me encouragingly. Thankfully, Dad just thought my nerves were because I was proposing to Khiley. Mom didn’t know anything because I didn’t trust her to not tell Cam. And Cam…well, who knew what Cam would have done with the news. She was a loose cannon.
When we finally made it out to the Abbott ranch that afternoon, the road and the driveway were lined with cars. Christmas dinner had been at Cam and Blake’s house for as long as I could remember with all the grandparents, grandkids, and cousins showing up. A mix of Abbotts, Waters, Swaynes, and Brennans that weren’t really tied together by blood at all, but instead, we were tied together by something stronger: love.
For years, all of us kids had hidden ourselves in the game room until dinner, followed by presents. But now, we all mingled together like the supposed adults we were, a shift that was going to be a precipice for another change once I said I do to Khiley.
The first place my eyes went when we entered was to her, which wasn’t anything new. It had been that way my whole life. She looked beautiful in a teal dress that lit up her eyes. I kissed her and whispered, “How are you feeling?”
She said, “Okay. Mama keeps looking at me funny when I keep refusing the things I normally love. But it was either refuse or puke it up.”
“Are you ready to tell them?” I asked.
She nodded. “I think so. I’ve never been good with secrets.”
I agreed. It wasn’t really in either of our makeups.
“Present time,” Blake said, rubbing his hands together with a smile on his face that was partly hidden behind a scruff full of gray. Blake was the oldest of any of our parents, but the twinkle in his blue eyes was the most like Santa Claus of any of the adults. He loved handing out presents just as much as he loved teasing us as he did it.
We gathered around the living room the best we could, squishing in multiples onto the furniture. Normally, Khiley and I would sit on the floor together below the window seat Ginny and Eliza usually monopolized. Eliza was missing this year, spending Christmas with her boyfriend’s family, so today, I left Khiley on the window seat with Ginny. A puzzled, worried smile took over her face as I joined Blake in front of the tree.
“Is it okay if I start?” I asked. My voice wasn’t shaking. Not yet. This was the easy part. Blake smiled and nodded at me, his face splitting into a grin which was hard to imagine he could fit onto his face. Cam’s eyes narrowed at the two of us as if she knew something was coming she hadn’t been privy to, and I was glad I wouldn’t be Blake when they were alone tonight and she gave him hell for not telling her.
Cam was still dark-haired and lean. Like she’d been for as long as I could remember. When I looked at her, if I changed the hair color in my mind, I knew what Khiley would look like at fifty. Beautiful. Graceful. Strong. My heart surged.
As normal, the room was full of chatter and multiple conversations. “Yo, everyone, shut up,” Ty said, his booming voice making everyone look his way with a frown. “Stephen needs the floor.”
That turned everyone’s now quiet faces to mine.
Khiley was looking at me with a frown still. Like she didn’t understand how her Daddy and Ty might have known what we were supposed to be telling everyone about the baby. I grinned because I had our little unknown baby to thank for putting her off the scent. I’d thought I’d get to this point, and she’d already know what I was going to do before I did it.
“I’m not Uncle Derek. I’m not brilliant with words, but I’m going to do my best at the moment. So, maybe you can all bear with me. Khiley Marie Abbott, I’ve loved you since the first time you stole my pacifier at two years old. Maybe before that. I’ve loved you as we grew up side by side, fishing and studying and watching the stars. I’ve loved you while you showed me how to be a man instead of a boy. I’ve loved you, and I’ll go on loving you as long as you’ll let me. I’ll continue to try every day to become a better man than I was the day before so you’ll always have the best of me.”
I moved over to her, and I thought she was catching on, because a smile quirked at the corner of her lips. I held out my hand and lifted her from the window seat. I pulled out the little box with the huge bow dwarfing it.
“Will you do me the honor of making our love, not permanent, because it already is that, but official, by becoming my wife as well as my best friend and soul mate.”
“Stephen…” she breathed out. She took a look around the room at all our family and both our dads who were grinning, and her mom who was smiling, and my mom who looked like she was going to cry. “I didn’t know you needed to ask.”
“Some wise young woman told me once that sometimes a girl needed to hear the words.”
She flushed. “I love you.”
“So, that’s a yes, right?”
“Of course!” And everyone burst into claps and hollers while I kissed her, and Ty shouted, “Get a room,” and the parents all growled.