Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 55667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55667 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
“I love you.”
“I love you, too, Sid, so much. I can’t believe this is happening. I mean, it’s the perfect setting, but I really didn’t expect this. Okay. I’m shutting up because I’m ruining this.” I bite my lips together.
“I know we haven’t been together all that long, but I can’t imagine my life without you, Skye. I’ve been looking for you for a long time, and now that I have you, I want to spend the rest of our lives falling in love over and over again. I want to fall asleep beside you and wake up next to you. I want lazy Sundays where I watch hockey and you try to distract me by wearing low cut tops. I want to remind you to take lactose pills when we go out for dinner, so you don’t have to deal with gastro demons. I want the ups and down and everything in between. I just want you, Skye, and everything that comes with you. I want you to be my wife, but more than that, I want us to be a family. Will you marry me?”
“Oh my God, yes, Sid. Yes, I’ll marry you. I’m a terrible cook, but I give great blow jobs, so I hope that balances things out.”
We both laugh and I choke back a sob as he flips the lid open. Nestled in the velvet is a gorgeous ring with a huge rock of a diamond. It twinkles magnificently in the waning sun.
“Wow. This is just. Wow! It’s gorgeous, Sidney. Just stunning.” I hold out a trembling hand.
“I hope it’s not too much.” He lifts it from the cushion, his own hands shaking as he takes mine.
“It’s ridiculous and perfect.”
He slides the ring on my finger when a spider the size of a freaking softball descends from the roof above, heading straight for our outstretched hands.
“Oh my God! Holy shit!”
“Oh fuck, that thing is huge!” Sidney shouts when it reaches eye level.
I don’t think about what I’m doing. I instinctively react, yanking my hand free of his. My chair topples over and I do a very uncoordinated backwards somersault while screaming my damn head off. I hop to my feet and almost roll my ankle while I continue to shriek like a banshee.
Sidney, being the much more reasonable of the two of us, yanks off his flip-flop and slams it on the table repeatedly until the giant spider is nothing but an obscenely large splatter mark.
“Is it dead?” I peer at the green and black smear on the brown tile and glance up. “Are there more?” I succumb to a whole-body shudder and hop back again.
“It’s very dead and I don’t think there are more.” Sidney glances up and does the same shuddery thing. “At least I hope not. Way to fuck up my proposal, asshole,” he mutters at the smear.
He pats his pockets and then looks at me expectantly. “Do you have the ring? Can we try that again? But maybe inside this time?”
I look down at my naked hand and back up at him. “Um.” I glance around the deck. The sun is heading for the horizon in a hurry. We only have a handful of minutes of daylight left. I hold up my ringless finger. “I don’t have it.”
“Fuck.” He runs his hand through his luxurious hair.
We scour the deck, but the spaces between the boards are the perfect width for a ring to fit through.
“Please tell me it didn’t fall through one of those cracks.”
“I’ll go down and check.” Sidney puts his flip-flop back on.
“I’ll grab flashlights.” I rush inside and search the cottage for flashlights. I find two, but they die two seconds after I turn them on, so I have to search for batteries. Five minutes later, I join Sidney under the deck. It’s not tall enough for either of us to stand up fully, so we hunch uncomfortably.
“Any luck?” Asking is pointless. If he’d found it, I’d already know.
“Not yet. The flashlights should help.” He shines his on the ground and something small scuttles away.
I scream and slam my head on a joist. “Ah! Shit. That’s going to leave a bruise.”
“Why don’t you just wait inside, babe? I can handle this,” Sidney offers.
“I should help. I’m the one who freaked out.”
We spend the next ten minutes scouring the space under the deck for my brand-new engagement ring that I haven’t even had a chance to wear yet. I hope this isn’t a sign.
The sun has almost completely set by this point and I’m thirty seconds away from hysterical tears, when Sidney shouts, “I found it! It’s here!”
“Yay! Thank God!” The tears of joy stream down my face. I just want to get out from under this deck where I’m sure a million eight-legged creatures and four-legged ones reside.
“Oh shit,” he mutters.