by Holly Renee
But his love was also uninhibited, passionate, and fearless.
He didn’t love me because I was perfect. He loved me despite everything. He knew all my flaws and he loved me despite them. It was such a rare love. It was pure even though it had once been tainted. Even though I had tested it with my own insecurities and fears. He taught me to love. A love that was so strong I never dreamed it was possible. I was deeply in love with him and irrevocably in love with myself. He flipped my world upside down, but the greatest adventures happened when I finally let my controlled world slip through my fingers and went bottoms up.
The End
One Year Later
God. She was so beautiful.
She didn’t know it either.
She constantly hid behind her glasses and her photography, her deep-seated insecurities that her parents engraved in her making her forget how incredible she is.
But when she let go and forgot her fears, dear God. I never stood a chance.
Not a chance in hell.
She was standing in front of me dressed in a pair of ripped up blue jeans, her white Chuck Taylors, and a simple white T-shirt, and fuck, she was gorgeous. Her jet-black hair was straight down her back and her dark rimmed glasses framed her bright green eyes. She was laughing at something that Chloe was saying, something that was probably insane knowing her, and she looked happy. I wanted nothing more than to make her happy.
Firecrackers was packed to the brim, the grand opening a huge success, and I was sitting at the bar with my three best friends watching my girl fit into my life flawlessly.
“When are you going to do it?” Jase asked from beside me.
“Do what?”
“Wife that girl up.” He pointed his beer toward Kennedy. “If I was you, I would have done it months ago.”
“You need to back off my girl before I kick your ass, Jase.” I took a sip of my whiskey, enjoying the burn of the liquor.
“I’d definitely put a ring on it if I was getting that jealous over her. I mean you named your new bar after the girl.” He laughed, and I smiled to myself.
“You know what. You’re right.” I stood up from the stool I was sitting on.
“What do you mean I’m right?” He coughed around his beer.
“I mean that you are right. I’m a damn fool if I don’t go wife that girl up.”
I walked away from my friends with Jase’s jaw practically sitting on the bar and Liam smiling.
Of course he knew all about my plan. We didn’t keep a thing from each other.
I stepped up to my girl who was surrounded by her best friends. It made me ecstatic that my sister and she had become so close. It made my life so much easier. Unless they talked about our sex life. I wasn’t comfortable with that.
I wrapped Kennedy in my arms and pressed a kiss to her neck. She didn’t turn around to see me. She knew it was me from my touch alone. I could tell by the way her body instantly relaxed against me.
“You better watch out,” she whispered for only me to hear. “My boyfriend is around here somewhere, and he gets really jealous.” There was laughter in her voice, and I smiled as I ran my nose against her skin.
“He’s an idiot if he lets you run around this place by yourself looking like this.”
She scuffed. “I’m in a T-shirt and jeans.”
“Yet your still the most beautiful woman in here.”
“Keep talking.” She pushed back further into my body. “Maybe we’ll have to hide out. My boyfriend never talks to me like this.”
I dug my fingers into her side causing her to laugh because she knew damn well that I told her how beautiful she was every day.
“He really is an idiot then. If you were mine, I would have put a ring on it by now.”
“Is that so?” She giggled.
“Yeah. It is,” I whispered into her ear. Completely serious now.
I slowly peeled her body away from mine before I dropped to one knee. The room around me fell silent and I could see her body trembling in front of me.
“Firecracker.”
“Yeah?” She still hadn’t turned around and her hands were now covering her face.
“Look at me, Firecracker.”
She slowly turned toward me and I could see her glasses were fogging up with her tears.
She looked down at me, and fuck, it was the most beautiful I had ever seen her. She was completely vulnerable, a look that she reserved for only the few people she completely trusted, and I felt so damn lucky that I was one of those people.
I gripped her small shaking hands in mine.
“Firecracker, I love you so much.”
She sniffled, hard.
“I never imagined that the sassy, bossy girl next door would be the one to knock me on my ass, but here I am.”
The crowd around us laughed softly.
“All of my doubts about life, all the fears I’ve ever had, they all disappear when I look at you. I think I may have loved you from that first time you ran over me in the stairwell. You literally crashed into my life and didn’t give me a chance. Everything I’ve done from that moment on, every decision I’ve made, has been for you. When I open my eyes in the morning, I search for you. When I fall asleep at night, I miss you. My dreams don’t do you justice. You surpass anything I could ever have imagined. I want to be the one who makes you smile every day and the one who holds you when this world becomes too much. But most of all, I want to love you for the rest of my life. So do me a favor, Firecracker, and say yes to marrying me because, babe, my heart is useless without you. It’s seen the rarest kind of beauty in you, and it won’t settle for anything else.”
Her hiccup rang loud through the completely silent space, and I could hear my heartbeat racing in my chest.
She wiped her hands underneath her glasses as she began shaking her head up and down.
“Is that a yes?” I let out a nervous chuckle.
“Yes. Yes. Of course it’s a yes.” Her words were jumbled and anxious and perfect.
She launched herself at me and I didn’t react in time to stop us from landing on the floor. My back hit the hardwood floor with a thud, but when her lips connected with mine, nothing else registered. She was all I could feel. She was all that I could see.
And, fuck, she was enough.
She would always be more than enough.
She was everything.
About Holly Renee
Author, reader, and self-proclaimed makeup addict.
When I’m not reading or writing, I can be found eating chips and salsa, taking long strolls down the aisles of Ulta, or watching Harry Potter for the bazillionth time.
I currently live in a small town in East Tennessee (where the accents are strong and the tea is sweet) with my husband and three fur babies- Luna, Dobby, and Bellatrix (Bella for short).
Random facts:
1.The F word is my favorite word. (Sorry, mom.)
2.I’m an Assistant Director of Nursing by day.
3.I’m super sassy and my husband absolutely adores that quality about me.
4.My hair is in a messy bun 99% of the time.
Also by Holly Renee
The Good Girls Series
Where Good Girls Go to Die
Where Bad Girls Go to Fall (Releasing November 29th)
The Garage Series
Letting Go
Breaking Down
Connect with Holly Renee
www.authorhollyrenee.com
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to all the readers that have been such an amazing support! You all rock my world.
Thank you to Holly Renee’s Instababes! You girls are amazing!
To the bloggers, thank you for taking the time to share, read, and review my book. This book world would be absolutely nothing without you! You are the unicorns! Never forget that. I am forever indebted to you.
As always, a
huge thank you to my husband for supporting all my dreams. I think it’s impossible for me to be any more in love with you than I am today. I love you.
Thank you to my mom, sisters, and best friends for always supporting me and pushing me to do more. I love you girls more than you can imagine!
Linda Rusell of Foreword PR, I don’t even have words for you. I knew from the moment we first talked that working with you was going to be amazing, and you have made that true every single day. Thank you for everything!
Ellie McLove, Regina Wamba, Shari Ryan, and Becca Hensley Mysoor, thank you for being a part of this project! You are all so insanely talented, and I can’t thank you enough for helping making my dream a reality.
