There You Are

I stared at the diamond ring sitting in the black velvet box. I stared at it for an entire minute. Half of which I thought of nothing at all. And for the last thirty seconds, so many thoughts whirled by me, I actually felt dizzy.

I let my arm drop to my side, box still in my hand and I looked at Corey with such shock. “Are you asking me to marry you?” I asked even though I knew what the answer was. I just had to be sure.

He looked absolutely horrified. And I knew this was not in the agenda for tonight. He stared at me and then the box and then Riley. “Yeah,” he finally said.

I looked at the ring again. It was simple yet so beautiful. If I had to pick out a ring, I would have probably picked out something exactly like this, if not this exact ring.

“We’ve technically only been dating like. . . I actually don’t know,” I admitted. “It gets a little hazy around the time we got together.”

“Why?” Patrick Kane asked.

I stared at the ring. “Because it felt like we were always a couple. I’ve never felt more comfortable around a person before Corey. So it kind of feels like we’ve always been together.”

“So like five months then,” Johnny cut in.

“Do you really want to do this Corey?” I met his eyes. “We’re kind of going into this a little differently than most people,” I reminded him.

He strode up to me and his fingers danced across my arms and up to my cheeks all the while holding my gaze. “Delia Staal, will you marry me?”

I smiled and Riley tugged on my sleeve. I bent down and he put his hand to my ear to whisper a secret. “I think you should marry him. He’s really nice and that means we can all go out for ice cream,” he whispered.

I laughed and stood back up. “Corey Crawford,” I said. “I think I will marry you. But only because I love you.”

He looked so relieved and he picked me up in one motion and twirled me around, kissing me. Once he set me down, he picked up Riley and I was swarmed by hockey players, all hugging me.

Once free, Corey came over and slipped the ring on my finger and kissed me in front of everyone.

There was whistling and everything, but I didn’t care. I was getting married to the guy of my dreams. Things normally didn’t go this well for me, but maybe things were changing. Changing the better. One could hope.