After Paige had been safely returned and given a stern talking to by her parents, Sam and I sat on the sofa in the tiny living room that was attached to my bedroom at the house. It seemed like only yesterday that we’d had that ‘night of passion’ after our fight. I had thought Sam was cheating on me but the whole time he’d been with his dying grandma. Our entire relationship had been filled with moments like that. Misconceptions that lead to assumptions that led to arguments. We were both quick to jump to conclusions and I’d thought we were getting better at seeing the positives rather than the negatives. Until last Saturday. Now, I had to find a way to apologise, to make Sam understand that I did love and want to marry him.
“I want to tell you something, will you listen for a minute before you speak?”
“Is it another tirade about what a liar I am? Or have I done something else?” He looked at the wall like a sulky child. It was patently clear he wasn’t going to forgive me easily.
“No. It’s nothing to do with that. Going off and playing last Saturday was the last thing in a long line of things. I was right to be cross with you for doing that because you have wrecked any hope we ever had of having nice sensible wedding photos but I was wrong to say what I did.”
Sam seemed to relax.
“I love you Sam. And I’ve thought about this a lot over the past few days, so much that it made my head hurt, in fact. I know I’ve been very confused. My brain’s been like mush. I want to marry you but I don’t want a big fancy wedding. I don’t want to be the centre of attention and be on Sixty Minutes. I want to be us.”
I went on to explain to him all the things I hadn’t before. I hoped he believed me when I said I’d never meant to hurt him.
“So you’re blaming this on stress?”
“No. I blame myself for getting caught up in it when I didn’t want to and then treating you like shit over, well, nothing. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”
“You still want to marry me?”
“Only if we can have a small wedding with our TEN closest friends and family on the beach at the house in Lombok.”
“And a massive get together at the club when we get back?”
“Definitely. For a week.”
“My mother won’t like it.”
I had to stand up for myself now. “I don’t care. It’s our wedding. Anyone who doesn’t like getting sand in their toes can stay home.”
Sam smiled. “Now that’s the girl I know and love. Welcome home, Babe.”
Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out the box containing my ring. Looking deeply into my eyes, he kept a very straight face.
“Millie McIntyre, will you do the honour of marrying me? Again?”
“I think we’ve just broken some sort of record for the amount of times you can get proposed to by the same man for the same marriage,” I giggled, as he took the ring and put it back in its rightful place on my finger. “But the answer is ‘yes’, Sam Brockton. Yes, I will marry you and your silly rugby team.”
“Can we do it next Saturday?”
“We’ll never get it organised by then.”
Sam sat up. “Leave it to me. I’ll organise it. All you have to do is get on the plane.”
Then he kissed me. A big knee-trembling, melt your bones kiss that made me realize all over again why I loved him. It was lucky I was sitting down.