"We agreed. If I won, you'd marry me someday."
"Why'd you wanna marry me, anyhow?" I ask.
"So, I can do this for the rest of our lives," he stops walking with me in his arms, his radiant blue-green eyes flickering between my eyes and lips as the ons...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I stare wide-eyed at Justin for a few seconds before I erupt in a snorting laughter.
A breath-taking triumph smile curls his lips, crinkling his eyes in the corners as he pops the champagne. The cork shoots against the ceiling, intensifying my laughter as we both duck, having no inkling of where it landed.
My sides ache from laughing, tears forming in my eyes. The good kind. I honestly don't even know why I'm laughing this hard. It was funny but not that funny.
Funny enough for a good laugh but not funny enough for a boisterous laugh.
Am I making any sense? It feels like I'm making no sense at all.
Anyhow, I might not know why I'm laughing this hard, but I do know it's refreshing. It's made the thoughts which plagued my mind mere minutes ago, vanish. The heaviness which settled within my heart is lifted, replaced with an airy lightness.
It's perplexing but I'm not going to question it.
I guess laughter truly is the best medicine.
Justin fills our flutes, bubbles land on my hands before he takes his own glass from me. "To us and the love we share. May our love last lifetimes," he clinks his flute against mine, taking a sip of the bubbly champagne and I gulp.
"To us," I repeat like a parrot, downing the carbonated liquid like a shot, realization hitting me like a fucking tsunami. "Sorry," I force a giggle. "I was really thirsty." I can't tell Justin the truth. It will crush him.
Whoever said you have to tell your partner everything clearly had nothing to hide. Ah, shit. I'm a horrible person for even thinking this.
"Are you okay, love?" He asks, cupping my cheek, rubbing his thumb soothingly up and down my skin. "You seem a million miles away."
"I'm sorry," I apologize not only for getting lost in my head but for all the secrets I've kept from him. For all the secrets I'm still concealing from him and for all the secrets I'm going to keep locked away and buried deep.
He deserves the truth but at what cost? Perhaps it's best I keep him in the dark to protect him from the inevitable pain my actions will cause him.
Sometimes not knowing is better.
"I'm still dazed from our banging hello," I wink.
"That was definitely the best hello I've ever received," he smiles as he bends in all his naked glory, dipping his fingers into the water layered with rose scented bubbles.
"Me too," I sigh, the lie rolling off my tongue with unabashed ease. I force myself to focus on something else and by something else I mean the naked man in front of me.
My eyes lower to his perfectly toned ass slowly raking up the muscles moving and tensing on his smooth, tanned back. I follow his every move, my gaze locked on every hard ridge of his immaculate body.
