“Three.”
Georgie stared into the camera as the producer stopped voicing the countdown, held up two fingers, then one, then pointed at the female host.
“And we’re back. For all those just tuning in to Wake-Up Denver, today, we’ve got the CityBeat Battle of the Blog winners, Georgie Jensen and Jordan Marks here in the studio with us. Let’s take a peek at this montage of how they fell in love.”
Georgie’s jaw dropped.
What the heck? Nobody had said anything about a montage!
But she knew there was plenty of tape.
During the Battle of the Blogs, Barry, their assigned CityBeat producer, had recorded footage at several of the blog challenge events.
But nobody had told them they’d be doing a walk down memory lane this morning. She was all ready to introduce the book of the month and had emailed images to the morning show producer to use for her segment. Instead, the musical stylings of Michael Bolton singing “How Am I Supposed To Live Without You” blared as the screen behind them, seemingly the size of the side of a semi-truck trailer, flashed images.
First, a pic of Jordan feeding a baby goat after he’d conquered his fear of interacting with the tiny farm animal during a goat yoga session. Next, came a video clip of the two of them, sitting side by side in the grass, laughing while surrounded by a hoard of bleating animals.
So far, nothing terrible until, dark and grainy, another image flashed, and Georgie sucked in a tight breath. She could almost taste the six Jell-O shots that had preceded the night she’d lost her damn mind. There she was, super-sized on the enormous screen, strutting down a makeshift runway inside a seedy Denver bar as a wet T-shirt contest contestant in heels and Daisy Duke shorts.
“Here it comes,” she whispered, watching herself trip and then fall into Jordan’s arms.
“We really need to write a post about how, once something is on the internet, it never goes away,” she murmured to Jordan, who barely nodded and was still acting like he was in some sort of half-comatose state.
More pictures of the two of them carouseled through before a clip of her running in the Denver 10K Trot splashed across the screen. Jordan took her hand as they watched him catch up with her with a tube of vegan cookie dough and then profess his love for her.
Nothing is worth winning if it means losing you.
She blinked back tears, remembering when Jordan had spoken those words.
The clip ended, and she exhaled a shaky breath. They were still on live TV, and she wasn’t about to go full-on waterworks.
“What a story!” the male host offered.
“Yes, I love that moment when you’re power-walking, Georgie, and Jordan catches up to you,” the anchorwoman added, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
“I was actually running,” she corrected.
The male host shared a look with his co-host. “It sure looked like a power walk to me.”
Georgie sighed. This was simply not a battle she’d ever win. She glanced at Jordan, sure he’d have something to say about her glacial running pace and found him nodding toward Hector and Bobby.
Once this segment was over, she was bound and determined to figure out what the hell was going on.
“What does the next chapter hold for Georgie Jensen and Jordan Marks?” the female host asked.
Georgie looked from her tongue-tied boyfriend to her friends before realizing it was up to her to keep this crazy train from going off the rails.
She resurrected her beauty queen expression. “We’re exploring all avenues and ways to expand the More Than Just a Number blog and brand. We wanted to start locally because the community is very important to us…” she answered but trailed off as Jordan released her hand and got down on one knee in front of her, and the penny dropped.
One knee.
A freaking falling in love montage.
She scanned the studio, filled with smiling faces and a cameraman now standing only a few feet behind her.
She lowered her voice. “Jordan, what are you doing?”
He looked up and met her gaze. “Hopefully, starting our next chapter.”
2
Jordan
He was doing it. He was really doing it.
Right here. Right now.
Down on one knee, he stared into Georgie’s eyes. Not quite blue and not quite green, they weren’t only beautiful. They were the color of his future. The last thing he wanted to see before he went to sleep, and the first thing he wanted to lay his eyes on each morning.
Georgiana Jensen, former Miss Cherry Pie, and the eternal love of his life.
This remarkable woman had made him question everything. She’d peeled past the layers he’d erected around his heart. With her messy bun and her librarian cardigans, she’d blasted through his guise of physical perfection.
It wasn’t like there was anything wrong with working hard or, for that matter, caring for your appearance. But it wasn’t everything. Not even close.
Before Georgie, he’d put so much energy into proving to himself that he was no longer the string bean high school weakling everyone had teased. They’d called him Straws back then, thanks to his long skinny legs. The jocks and the school jerks would stuff his locker full of the cafeteria staple just to laugh and gawk when he opened his locker, and they all tumbled out in a humiliating wave of white paper wrappers.
He’d tried to bury his past and forget that sad, skinny kid. And for nearly a decade, he’d almost done it, thanks to a chance encounter delivering food to a CrossFit gym when he was eighteen. His life changed after the gym owner, Deacon Perry, had taken a shine to him. Through dedication and damn hard work, the string bean boy morphed into a powerful man.
Fifty pounds of pure muscle can do that. And as his body changed, so did his mind. Many of the changes were positive, others were not.
With each pull-up and every deadlift, he endeavored to erase all the signs of his former self and took on a hypermasculine edge to mask the bullied boy within. Instead of honoring the creative and introspective kid he used to be, he began equating bravery with brawn and toughness with physical tenacity. When he’d come up with the idea for the Marks Perfect Ten Mindset blog, he did want to help people reach their personal best. But he also used it to create another layer between himself and that skinny kid from the Colorado plains.
Thanks to Georgie, he could be both the ripped fitness trainer as well as the comic-loving, literature-reading man who wasn’t defined by a number.
He glanced over his shoulder and nodded to Becca. She gave him a thumbs-up then unhooked Mr. Tuesday’s collar.
This was really happening.
Black and white with one ear cocked up while the other drooped down, the dog he’d come to love bounded toward them with a ribbon tied around his neck.
“Jordan is this what I think it is?” Georgie asked as she scratched between the dog’s ears.
“Well, it’s not a segment on selecting the perfect pet for your lifestyle,” he answered, untying the ribbon and sliding an engagement ring off the strip of satin.
“How did you arrange all this?” she asked wide-eyed.
“We can answer that!” Hector exclaimed, taking Bobby’s hand and joining them on set.
Something he was absolutely not expecting as the couple took a seat, one on each side of Georgie.
“Jordan came to us and asked about how we got engaged, and then it snowballed from there,” Hector, the more outspoken of the power couple, explained.
“We shared with Jordan how I had brought Hector to our favorite bench, hidden away in the Denver Botanic Gardens, and asked him to be my husband and partner for life, surrounded by tulips and the buzz of bees,” Bobby answered softly.
“It was so romantic. So intimate,” Hector gushed.
Jordan caught Georgie’s gaze. “This is kind of the opposite of intimate.”
Georgie leaned to the side as a cameraman pushed in and entered their personal space. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“That’s Wake-Up Denver,” the host injected with a grin so wide she looked as if she belonged in a scary clown movie.
Shit! This whole idea sounded perfect when he’d spoken with Bobby and Hector. Now, with the cameras and the lights, he couldn’t help wondering if he’d made the wrong call.
He glanced between the men. “Do you guys mind if I,” he began, then held up the ring.
Hector nodded. “The engagement ring! We can’t forget that!”
“Yes, it’s a vintage piece, dating back to the forties,” Bobby added.
Inches from his hand, the cameraman angled in to get a better shot.
“We were there with Jordan when he picked it out, Georgie,” Hector said, fanning his face, as the man grew emotional.
“We knew with your love of all things vintage, like those old, dusty Jane Austen volumes you adore, that a ring with history would be right up your alley,” Bobby added softly as the TV host handed Hector a tissue.
The man blew his nose. “Georgie and Jordan, you two are like the children we never had,” Hector blubbered.
Georgie patted the emotional man’s back. “Hector, you’re only like ten years older than me.”
“You know what I mean. Our little wet T-shirt contest winner and our big strong man who overcame his goat phobia are getting engaged,” the man replied, blotting tears.
Bobby, the more reserved of the two, pushed up his glasses. “You both are very important to the CityBeat family and to us.”
“Without the Battle of the Blogs contest, you two may have never met. Bobby, we’re like Georgie and Jordan’s virtual fairy godfathers,” Hector added while accepting another tissue from the Wake-Up Denver host.
Mr. Tuesday curled up on the floor, uninterested in the melee, then released a dog fart.
Everyone stilled as the pup, unbothered, yawned, then proceeded to fall asleep.
Georgie bit her lip, clearly holding back laughter as her cheeks grew pink.
This marriage proposal had not only gotten sidetracked. It had become an all-out circus.
He held up the ring. “Um, guys, would you mind if I proposed?”
“Let’s ask the world!” Hector answered, waving Barry over.
“Our producer has been live streaming right to the CityBeat main page and monitoring the comments,” Bobby added.
The male host perked up. “Let’s get that up on the big screen for our Wake-Up Denver viewers at home.”
A second later, there they were.
“Wow! We’re on live TV while watching ourselves on live TV,” Georgie murmured, craning her head toward the giant screen.
“Very trippy, right?” Hector replied with a nod.
Trippy.
That was an excellent description of their current situation. And bam, bam, bam! The screen flooded with comment bubbles, likes, and heart emojis as pandemonium exploded on CityBeat’s main page.
“We’re getting messages from all over. All across the US, India, Denmark, Tunisia, France, Canada, and more by the second. Jordan’s proposal has ignited an outpouring of excitement from CityBeat subscribers across the globe,” Barry offered.
Jordan’s gaze bounced between the men. “Guys, I haven’t proposed yet.”
“And Georgie, look at that!” Barry exclaimed. “A Belgian princess posted that she wished you and Jordan a happy life together.”
“A Belgian princess?” Georgie repeated.
Barry shook his head. “Oops, my bad! That’s the Belgian Waffle Princess. She’s got an amazing blog on all things waffles.”
“I don’t know about you, but I love a good Belgian waffle,” the female host said, grinning into the camera.
“With some cut up strawberries, powdered sugar, and a drizzling of real maple syrup. That’s the definition of delicious,” the male host chimed as Bobby, Hector, and Barry began sharing their favorite ways to dress up a waffle.
Georgie pressed her hand to her lips.
They were way past shitshow at this point. The proposal he’d pictured in his head had turned into one hell of a waffle-house sized cluster.
“Hold on, everyone! The CityBeat subscriber Passion for Ponies commented that Jordan and Georgie aren’t officially engaged yet.”
Hector cocked his head to the side and frowned. “Well, what are you waiting for, Jordan? Are you going to make Passion for Ponies wait for a second longer?”
What was he waiting for?
A moment of sanity with his girl?
A waffle-free zone to propose?
A little less pressure from pony enthusiasts?
He turned to Georgie, and all the craziness melted away when he looked into her eyes. She smiled down at him, and all thoughts of ponies or waffles or baby goats—that he no longer feared—vanished. He glanced at the ring. It was perfect. Delicate and beautiful while also strong and enduring, he’d known this was the ring for Georgie even before Hector and Bobby had uttered a word about the sparkling gem.
He traced his thumb down her ring finger. “Georgiana Jensen, messy bun girl and the woman who owns my heart, will you marry me?”
“Everyone! Stop the waffle talk! Jordan’s proposing!” Barry called, waving for the group to quiet down.
“If I say yes, will it make me the Empress of Asshattery?” Georgie asked with a sly twist to her lips.
He met her teasing grin with one of his own. “We’d probably need to consult the Belgian Waffle Princess on matters of royal protocol to be sure, but I’d say there’s an excellent chance of that happening. And by the way, you’ve said asshat or some form of it at least three times on morning TV.”
“That’s Wake—” the host began, but Jordan held up his hand, silencing the Wake-Up Denver plug.
“You’ve dropped it a few times yourself, mister,” his hopefully soon-to-be fiancée parried back.
He brushed his thumb across her knuckles. “What do you say, Georgiana? Will you be mine forever?”
“Bobby, look at them,” Hector clucked through a veil of tears.
Georgie’s gaze traveled around the set.
“Yes or no, Georgiana? Denver and the entire world are watching,” the male host coaxed in a made-for-TV purr. A sugary sound that made Jordan want to pick up the guy and toss him over the giant Wake-Up Denver jumbotron screen. But before he had time to go full CrossFit cretin on the man, Georgie cupped his face in her hand.
She stroked his cheek—something she’d done every day—but today, on the day of his proposal, it brought tears to his eyes. He was over six feet of pure muscle, but with the brush of her thumb, this wisp of a woman could bring him to his knees.
Her gaze grew glassy. “Yes, a thousand times, yes.”
He chuckled, savoring the warmth of her touch. “You had to throw a little Jane Austen in there, didn’t you?”
“What did you expect? You did just propose to a bookshop owner.”
She gave him a sweet shrug as he tried to slide the ring onto her finger.
And it was too…
Hector gasped. “It’s too big! It doesn’t fit?”
Bobby scratched his head. “I would have sworn Georgie was a size six.”
“It’s fine, guys. We can get it resized. I’ll wear it on my middle finger until we can get that done,” Georgie answered, offering up the larger digit.
“What does it mean if the ring doesn’t fit?” Hector questioned in a low whisper.
Jordan tried to hold it together as a wave of frustration washed over him.
Christ! First, the proposal from hell and now, the damn ring didn’t fit.
“Georgie, I—” he began, wanting to apologize, scoop her up, throw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and get them the hell off that set. But he froze when the Wake-Up Denver producer signaled to wrap it up, and the host turned to the camera with her plastic smile blazing.
“Don’t go away
! We’ll be back after this commercial break with seven ways to spice up Taco Tuesday.”
“And, we’re clear,” the producer chimed.
Georgie sat back. “Wow, that was intense.”
He took her hands into his. “Georgie, I’m sorry. When I planned this in my head, it looked a lot different.”
“So, you weren’t already in cahoots with the Belgian Waffle Princess?” she replied, gazing down at their hands and the ring sparkling on the wrong finger.
Jesus, this woman! He was one lucky man. The fact that she could see the humor in this mess said more than words ever could.
He shook his head and cringed. “No way. You know how I feel about empty calories in breakfast foods. The only way to eat a Belgian waffle is if it’s made with buckwheat flour, and you’ve added ground chia seeds for an Omega punch.”
“And speaking of buckwheat waffles!” Bobby said as he checked his phone. “We need to get you two into a car.”
“A car?” he and Georgie repeated in unison.
“Yes, a car, so you can get to the champagne engagement party,” Barry added, hammering out a text on his phone.
Jordan shared a look with Georgie. “A champagne, what?”
This was news to him.
Hector handed the Kleenex box to a passing production assistant. “You silly things, of course, we’re going to celebrate. And what better way than to celebrate with champagne!”
“And CityBeat will be there to share in this happy day!” Bobby added.
“CityBeat will be there?” Jordan asked, coming to his feet.
Bobby held out his phone. “Yes, look at these stats. The world loves you guys. And with your More Than Just a Number blog growing, this is exactly the type of content you need to share with your subscribers.”
Content?
His proposal was a hell of a lot more than merely content for their newsfeed. Sure, he loved their More Than Just a Number blog. He valued every person who chose to subscribe. It was their platform, their vision, and they wanted to help and inspire people. But their blog wasn’t a voyeuristic site intent on broadcasting every facet of their lives.
Own the Eights Gets Married Page 2
