through the garage and his eyes twinkle when they meet mine. “I’d like to say I don’t do that, but I’d be lying.”
“Mhm,” I hum, and push the button for the garage door. It whirls and creaks as it goes up.
He rolls the bike out of the garage and I follow him out onto the driveway. It’s a little after five and the sun shines down brightly on us.
I look over my shoulder at the house and laugh when I see Prue peering out the window beside the front door.
“Look,” I say to Xander. “She’s watching us.”
He straddles the bike and looks up, letting out a laugh. “Poor girl, she just wants to go with us.”
“You’ll have to make it up to her later with extra belly rubs,” I tell him.
“Enough chit-chat,” he says. “Get on.”
I don’t have to be told twice. I’m insanely curious about what he has planned. The fact that he’s obviously put so much thought into something makes me really excited.
He starts out heading for the city, but after about thirty minutes, he changes course and then I have absolutely no idea where he’s going so I can’t even begin to guess.
He drives for another twenty minutes before we come upon a quaint little town. It’s cute with antique and coffee shops on every corner. He comes to a stop outside a movie theater, complete with one of those lit up things that jut out from the roof of the building.
The movie playing today?
Jaws.
The boy is good.
We hop off the bike and remove our helmets.
“Jaws, huh?” I ask.
He nods, grinning from ear to ear. “Yeah. This place shows a different classic movie every week. This week happened to be Jaws.”
“Our favorite,” I say, and a sudden rush of emotion clenches my chest.
He nods and takes my hand, leading me to the ticket counter. He purchases two tickets and then we get drinks, popcorn, and candy. When we take a seat in the theater there’s only one other person—an elderly man that’s enjoying his popcorn so much I doubt he’d know if the place burned down around him.
We take our seats in the back—the back is the best, and anyone that says otherwise is a gremlin—and wait for the movie to start.
I munch on a piece of popcorn and Xander fumbles in his pocket. His pack of M&Ms falls to the floor and I reach down to the grab them. “What are you doing?” I ask, sitting back up and dropping the candy pouch in his lap. “Oh,” I gasp. “That’s what you’re doing.”
He smiles sheepishly, holding my wedding ring out to me. “You said you’d wear it if I gave it back, but it seemed weird to just hand it to you at home.”
“So,” I draw out the word, “you brought me to a movie theater?”
He winces. “Okay, it sounds really dumb when you say it that way, but it made total sense in my head.” He swallows thickly. “There’s more, though.”
My brows furrow together. Now I’m really confused. “Okay?”
He wets his lips. “I brought you here, because the first time we watched Jaws was the moment when I really knew you were someone special to me. I remember you getting scared when the shark came out of the water and you whimpered and curled into me and I knew then that I wanted nothing more than to make you feel loved and safe for the rest of your life. So, that’s why we’re here. For me, this is the start of it all.”
Swoon rating? Off the charts, ladies and gentlemen.
I take his face between my hands and kiss him, because I don’t have any words that can measure up to that. I hope through the kiss he can feel just a fragment of what I’m feeling.
I pull away, both of us breathless now, and he holds my hand as he guides the simple silver band onto my finger. It rests there, a perfect fit, like it was always meant to be there.
He goes to put his ring on, but I grab it. His dark eyes flick up to meet mine and I think he’s afraid I’m about to throw the ring into the depths of the theater, but then I take his hand like he did mine and put the ring on. I struggle to get it passed his knuckle but I manage, and I’m surprised by the happiness it brings me to see it there. The morning we woke up in Vegas I felt