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*****
*Jayden*
**Five weeks later**
“Ouch, Papa!” I chuckled glancing at Corey who gave me a frown for laughing as Eli glared at him. He had just stuck a little flower onto the lapel of Eli’s suit. “Why do I have to wear this stupid thing? It hurts.” Our son whined to Corey.
“Hurts what?” Corey asked looking at the flower pin again to make sure that was not poking at Eli.
“You mean other than his pride and self-esteem?” Corey shot Trent a glare and I chuckled, “He looks weird.” Trent said honestly. Trent had decided to dress less formally than everyone else and Eli seemed envious of that at the moment.
“See?! Uncle Trent gets it!” Eli yelled.
“Trent,” Corey growled a warning.
“What? It’s true – Oh, there comes his twin,” I saw Ashton walk into our room wearing the same thing Eli was, he also had a massive frown on his face just like his friend did. They were both wearing black suits with blue bowties and had blue flowers pinned to their jackets.
“Guys, Uncle Marc’s getting married –” I tried explaining.
“So? Why are we being tortured for his mistake?”
“Oh –” Sean coughed as we all burst out laughing.
“It’s not always a mistake, Eli.” Corey said glancing over at me. I gave him a smile despite us having made no plans to get married yet. We had just been focusing on returning to normal life for the past few weeks and neither of us had really addressed the conversation that was still at the back of both of our minds. Things were different and I wanted to mention that but I was okay with putting off talking about it for a few more weeks until we’d settled into our new territory.
“If it’s not, the clothes definitely are…” Ashton huffed as he flopped down onto the coach across the room beside his best friend.
“I don’t mind.” Tamia smiled at me as she twirled.
“Well, obviously, because you look really pretty.” Ashton pouted.
“Thank you.” Tamia blushed. I raised my eyebrows at Corey as he ran his tongue along his teeth while his eyes narrowed at Ashton who didn’t notice because the kid was still staring at Tamia. I frowned.
The pain of having our little girl already know who her mate was… She did look very nice, she was beautiful in the flower girl’s dress Bianca had gotten made for her. The boys looked handsome as well despite hating their attire.
I smiled pulling my daughter into a hug.
“How do I look? And I heard what you said –” Marcus shot Eli a look and earned a shrug and smile in return. Yeah, Eli made no apologies. I figured it was an Alpha thing.
“You look fine.” Izabella’s father, Ian, chuckled.
It turned out that Bianca had only disappeared because Carrie threatened her using Marcus, she came back when she heard what had happened to me because of Carrie, Mike and my dad. They had gotten re-engaged and today they were getting married before Galaxy moved to our new home. We were still at the inferno house; the pair were getting married in the clearing beside the river.
“Are you sure because I think the suit needs to be re-made, can we postpone –” Marcus was cut off by Ian who shook his shoulders.
“Man up!” he said. Marcus let out a huge sigh as he let his head drop before looking back up determined.
“I’m ready.” He said.
I chuckled. “Let’s get going.” Everyone began to leave as soon as that was said but Corey spoke up suddenly.
“Yeah, you know what? Jay, I forgot something. Where is it…?” He drifted looking around.
“Where is what?” I asked.
“We’ll just meet you there,” Corey’s dad carefully took Tamia from my arms, “Come, boys.”
The two kids groaned before they began laughing as they shoved each other for no reason, it escalated rather quickly to the point where they were rolling on the carpet messing up their suits so Trent grabbed Eli picking him up and Sean did the same with Ashton, tucking the young Beta under his arm like a sack of potatoes while Ashton tried to wiggle out of his father’s grip.
I laughed as everyone left before turning to Corey once we were alone.
“What are you looking for?” I chuckled.
“What are you talking about?” he asked walking by me.
“You were looking for something,” I said.
“I was?” he gave me a confused face as he shut the door. That made me raise my eyebrows.
“What is this about?” I asked realising he wasn’t looking for anything.
“Well… I realised I forgot to give you something,” he said handing me a box.
“Really, Corey?” I chuckled, “Right now? We have to get to the wedding, we can do this later.” I said.
“No… Right now. Open it.” He said.
I rolled my eyes giving him a smile as I turned around and opened the box. I found two smaller boxes inside and opened one of them only to find another box which made me shoot an annoyed frown at him and he laughed.
“Keep going.” He said.
“The effort put into the boxes is nice…” I mumbled. They each had a different design and colour. He laughed.
I finally opened a small box and found a piece of crumpled paper inside that made me look at him questioningly but he just smiled. I gave a chuckle unscrambling the paper.
‘I should have done this a long time ago.’ I lifted my gaze from the note as Corey knelt down in front of me and felt my eyes widen.
“First time didn’t count.” I chuckled at that, still too surprised to actually say something and he smiled, “I know this is odd to do after you said we needed a break.” I opened my mouth to stop him because that was definitely not what I wanted anymore but he continued, “And I know that you don’t want that after everything that happened, but I don’t want you to ever doubt why I’m with you and I always want to be with you, even while we try to figure ourselves out. I love you Jayden, more than I could ever describe. I will never not regret what I did to you…” I bit my lip as he drifted glancing away from me before taking in a breath as our eyes met again, “I’m not afraid of losing you because I haven’t forgiven myself for what I was like back then – I do not like younger Corey though. Kind of an asshole, makes you wonder why no one ever told me –” I raised one of my eyebrows at him and he immediately rolled his eyes, “– Right, I know, I know: they told me, I just wasn’t listening – Wait. Point is, I’m afraid of losing you because when I did, everything seemed out of place, nothing felt right. I couldn’t be me without you. All I care about is that you’re safe, that you’re happy, that our kids are safe and happy as well. That we’re together. You’re the reason I’m a better person than I was, you’re the reason I want to keep being better. I never want to go a day without seeing you again… Even when we fight. You say you like my smile but whenever you see it, it’s because of you, so if you want to keep seeing it… you know what you have to say.” He nodded towards the boxes and I shook my head chuckling because he kept drifting off into joking around, “Okay, I’m being serious.” He looked back into my eyes and I felt the atmosphere calm down as he watched me intensely, “Jayden, there is one thing I don’t hate about young Corey: it’s the fact that I know that if we ever go back to the moment Bianca asked us to think about our wishes, I will always wish to stay with you… Oh, and-and of course, bring Adan and Rita back to life, this isn’t about them though.”
“Are you kidding me?” I cut him off laughing.
“Sorry, I’m nervous.” That was obvious, and I loved it because it was not a usual occurrence for him.
“It’s cute.”
“Don’t say that, you’re making it worse, I’m really serious now.” His face straightened before it broke into a smile but he quickly fixed it again, the nervousness actually showing on his face for a second. It was all adorable to watch, “Along with having our kids, choosing to keep you was the best decision I ever made. I never want to be the one that hurts you again, and I know never want to be with anyone else. I love everything about you, who you were, who you are, who you’re going to be… and of course every part of you.” I scrunched my nose at him feeling my face heat while he just smirked back at me, “I know things aren’t always perfect between us, I know I’m not always perfect and we’re both going to keep growing and changing and hopefully getting so closer and I can’t wait for that. So, I hope you can risk trusting me and say yes… So will you marry me?” He reached into the box he had gifted me and took out the little black box that I had not yet opened before popping it open to reveal a little ring.
I was surprised as it immediately jogged my memory. It was looked like a black gold ring that I had only ever told Laila about when we were fifteen and just walking through a mall. I thought it looked pretty cool at the time. The difference was that the one currently held up to me was decorated with a line of sapphires going all the way around, the black making the blue stand out strikingly. I loved it. I didn’t immediately say that though, I nodded like I wasn’t very impressed that he somehow found a ring I had wanted back then. It made me glad that he went through the effort of digging through Laila’s memories to find out what I would like but would also definitely not be expecting.
“Not bad, I’m considering saying yes.”
“Considering?” Corey’s eyes widened.
“Yeah, this proposal is pretty dramatic, also you always leave the bathroom messy. I’m still trying to weigh whether I love you enough for another few hundred years of that while we ‘grow’… I don’t think so.” I laughed when he stood up looking annoyed before grabbing the lapel of my jacket to gently tug me towards him.
“You’re dramatic and I’m about to retract.” He muttered.
“No, you’re not.” I grinned. He tried to keep glaring at me but broke into a smile.
“No, I’m not.” He repeated taking my hand to slip the ring onto my finger, he stopped halfway to raise his brows at me and I laughed having completely forgotten that I had a question to answer seriously.
“Yes, of course. I love you.”
I chuckled as he just tugged me closer and we attempted to kiss but the box between us prevented that as we both bumped into it. Corey gave an annoyed growl and tried to put it aside but I stepped back.
“What’s this?” I reached into the box seeing an envelope peeking from under some tissue paper. I pulled it out before narrowing my eyes at Corey without even attempting to see what was inside because I knew him well enough to know what it was. “No. Really, Corey?” I frowned at him.
“It’s to celebrate our engagement!” he said happily. “It’s a tradition, it marks important moments for us!” He pouted. I pursed my lips but figured that he was right, and he seemed incredibly excited to go bungee jumping to ‘celebrate’. I was not particularly excited, but the last memory I had associated with it was a great one – well, mostly; excluding the part where Corey decided it was a good idea to dive off a bridge with literally nothing attached to him.
“You’re wearing a harness this time.” I muttered before running my eyes back to the ring on my finger and smiling, “You know what’s funny?” I asked looking up at him.
“What?”
“I’ve had a ring for you for months…” I had gotten it after he first proposed without one.
“Yeah, well,” Corey took the box from my hand to toss it onto the couch with the rest of them and I stepped closer to him figuring that that was why he got rid of the box, it was and we both smiled as we moved to kiss but Corey pulled back just as our lips touched and smirked at me, “We’ll always know I asked first.”
“Shut up, you’re ruining the moment,” I replied lifting my hand to his neck to pull his face back to mine.
He laughed as our lips met.
THE END!
*****
Thank you so much for reading 😀 If anyone wants to read about Eli, there’s a book about him called Alpha Mates.
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