Perfect Sunset 2.0

I haven't posted an unplanned bonus in awhile, so here's one for your Thursday :)  Enjoy!  I will still post on Friday, but it will probably be Friday evening.
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The next week was a blur.  Work was busy.  I hung out with Lauren on Monday evening, picked up Brody from the airport on Tuesday, spent a quiet night at home with him on Wednesday, and went to happy hour (without him) on Thursday.  He stopped in for 15 minutes at the end of happy hour to say hi and pick me up, but had stayed at work to try to get stuff done in anticipation for being off most of the next day.  I tried to insist that we reschedule our hiking date but he refused.  Luckily, he at least felt confident that the lawsuit against his dad's company would get settled without going to court, so he was less stressed about that.

When I woke up Friday morning, Brody was already gone.  He'd left me a note next to my phone on my nightstand that said, "Sorry I didn't say goodbye, I didn't want to wake you. I'll be home around noon.  I love you."  I smiled and stretched, thinking about laying in bed for a little bit longer.

I was ready to go when Brody got home a little after 12.  He kissed me hello and went upstairs to change.  "Have you eaten yet?" I called up to him.  He yelled back that he hadn't.  I dug through the fridge for sandwich stuff and made sandwiches for each of us.  Brody was quiet while we ate.  "Everything okay?" I asked him.

His eyes, which had been directed over my shoulder, slid to meet mine.  "Yeah," he replied, smiling.  "Sorry, just thinking about work.  I'll stop."

"Is something going on at work?" I pried gently.

He shook his head.  "No, just the usual.  I'm just a little distracted."  He stood up with his empty plate and kissed me on the cheek as he took it over to the dishwasher.  He pulled open the fridge and grabbed an apple and sat back down while I finished my sandwich. 

He seemed less distracted and chatted with me easily while we drove.  "Where are we going?" I asked.

"I wanted to go back to where I took you last year on our second date, is that okay?" he replied.

I grinned.  "That sounds great."  The drive went fast and we quickly set out on the same trail we had hiked that day, almost a year ago.  We hadn't been back here since then, oddly enough, and was a little overwhelmed by the memories of that day.  I contemplated how even though everything wasn't brand new anymore like it was that day, I still felt amazingly lucky to be here with Brody.

He stopped me at the same spot we had stopped the first time we were here and pulled me close to him for a smoldering kiss that left me a little breathless.

"What was that for?" I asked, after we had separated.

"Because you're beautiful and I love you," he said simply, grabbing my hand and pulling me on down the trail.  When we made it back to the car, Brody grinned.  "Just in time again," he said.  He pulled open my car door and ushered me in, then drove up to the nearly hidden turnoff a few miles off the road.  He jumped out and grabbed a blanket and a cooler from the back.  We walked down the barely visible to the clearing where we had eaten and watched the sun set just under a year ago.

He pulled stuff out of the cooler and I quickly recognized the same spread from that night as well.  Sparkling wine, water, fruit, cheese, crackers, hummus, olives, and smoked salmon.  "Running out of creativity in your old age?" I teased him.

He laughed.  "Do you remember what you said to me when I dropped you off that night?"

I thought for a second.  "Hmmm, I think I invited you in because I wanted to finish what we started while we should have been watching the sun set."

He shook his head, trying not to laugh again.  "You did, but after that?"  I made a face and shrugged.  "You said it was the best date you'd ever been on.  I just wanted you have another best date."

"But why?" I blurted out.  My face immediately got warm as I realized that was not a good response.

Brody rolled his eyes.  "You don't have a romantic bone in your body, do you?" he asked.  I shook my head sheepishly.  He leaned over and kissed me lightly.  "That's okay, I still like you."  We both laughed and started eating.

When we finished, I helped Brody pack everything back into the cooler and then leaned against him, enjoying the cool air.  We sat silently for a couple minutes before Brody said, "Do you know what today is?"  I panicked slightly, thinking hard about what day it could possibly be.  Finally, I had to admit that I had no idea.  "A year ago today is the day we met," he replied softly.  I pulled back and looked at him.  He was staring at me intensely, and I felt weird.  I couldn't believe it had been a year since we met.

"Do you know what I realized that day?" he asked.  I shook my head silently, suddenly feeling inexplicably nervous.  "I realized that if I wanted a chance with you, I was going to have to change some things about the way I was living my life.  It was one of the best decisions I've ever made."  I swallowed hard, not really sure how to respond.

Turns out, a response wasn't required, and my eyes widened as Brody shifted away from me and moved until he was on one knee in front of me.  My head spun as he pulled something out of his pocket.  "Holy shit," I muttered under my breath.

"The reason I wanted to give you another perfect date today," he said, his voice shaking slightly, "is because I want you to remember this as the best date of your life...until it's replaced by the day we get married."  I stared at him.  "Will you marry me, Liv?"  I continued to stare at him, simultaneously feeling like I was going to throw up and cry and shriek with joy and surprise.  I realized he was waiting for an answer.  I couldn't make words happen, so I just nodded. 

He moved back over to the spot I was frozen to and kissed me.  I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him back, but was disappointed when he pulled away.  "Not quite finished here," he said, smiling.  He held up the object in his hand and I realized it was a ring box.  It was open, and the ring inside nearly made my eyes bug out of my head.  It was a split shank ring, with diamonds lining the band and a large, round diamond in a four prong setting, giving it a vaguely squared appearance.  "I hope you like it," he said softly.  "Lynn helped, from afar."  It was exactly what I would have picked out myself, and I told him so.  He smiled and slid it onto my finger.  I was surprised to find it fit perfectly.

"How did you...?" I asked, turning my hand to admire the ring.

He grinned at me.  "I 'borrowed' the ring you sometimes wear on your right hand.  The jeweler sized it and made this one half a size smaller.  Apparently most people's left hand fingers are a little smaller then the right.  If it's not right we can get it re-sized tomorrow."

I shook my head.  "It's perfect."  I was suddenly completely overwhelmed at the amount of thought and planning he had put into this without me ever knowing, and I couldn't stop a tear from sliding down my cheek.

Brody tipped my chin up, forcing my eyes up to his from where they were locked onto the ring.  "Happy tears?" he asked.  I nodded.  "Good."  I flung my arms around him and kissed him.  He sat and pulled me onto his lap.  A couple minutes later, we sent my almost full glass of sparkling wine flying as we shifted around to get our pants off.  It briefly occurred to me that we were in the middle of a rapidly darkening mountain clearing but that thought quickly left my mind as I slid down onto him, his crossed legs cradling my hips, my legs wrapped around his back.

"Ohh, fuck," I groaned, rocking my hips against his.  Our position put us perfectly face-to-face and our eyes locked together for a brief, intense second before we were kissing again.  He moved his mouth off mine to kiss my neck, my collarbone and my shoulder, but I pulled his face back to mine to stifle my moans against his lips as I came, my legs trembling around him.  He continued to rock his hips against mine, then pressed his face into my neck when his body started to tense beneath mine as he finished.  I found his earlobe with my teeth and tugged gently on it.  He let out a low growl and sunk his teeth into my shoulder, pulling my hips hard against his and shuddering.  I gasped and rocked my hips desperately against his.  He slid a hand between us and the other up to my hair, tilting my head gently to the side.  His thumb worked against me while his teeth moved gently--and sometimes not so gently--across my shoulder and neck, quickly bringing me to another orgasm. 

I was still gasping for breath, my forehead against Brody's shoulder, when he lifted me off of him.  "We should go," he said.  "It's dark."  I looked around, realizing through my daze that it was indeed dark.  He stood and reached down to me, pulling me to my feet.  My legs were shaking slightly as I grabbed my stuff. 

We made our way carefully back to the car.  Brody yawned as he drove.  "Do you want me to drive?" I asked.

He considered for a minute.  "Do you just want to get a room and stay?  I don't want to sit in the car all the way back to Denver."  It was nearly an hour, and there was a small town just a few miles away from where we were, if I remembered correctly.  We decided that was a good plan, and 20 minutes later we were putting our stuff down in a small but clean room in one of the tiny motels in town.

We took a long, hot shower together and fell into bed to have sex one more time.   After, Brody produced a t-shirt and shorts for me to wear from the gym bag he keeps in his car.  I sniffed them suspiciously.  "They're clean!" he protested with a laugh.  "I promise."  They looked clean enough, but I'm a firm believer in not trusting anything that comes out of a man's gym bag without doing my own research.  Luckily, they smelled clean too.  I pulled them on and tightened the drawstring of the shorts in a feeble attempt to get them to not slide off my hips.  Brody pulled out another pair of shorts for himself.

I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at my left ring finger.  Brody sat next to me and took my hand, tilting it gently so the diamond caught the light and glinted perfectly.  "It's beautiful," I said softly.  "It's...big.  I--"

Brody cut me off with two fingers against my lips.  "Stop right there.  I know what you're going to say and I don't even want to hear it.  I actually wanted to get something bigger, but Lynn pointed out that you would likely kill me and probably hate it.  So I already spent less than I was planning and I want you to let me spoil you without protesting for once."

"Okay," I relented with a small smile.  "Thank you.  It really is perfect, and I love it.  And I loved everything about today, even if I don't have a romantic bone in my body.  And I love you."

"I love you," he replied, kissing me.  He stood up and pulled something else out of his bag.  "I hope your agreement to let me spoil you will extend to enjoying this bottle of champagne with me."

I reached for the bottle, looking at it carefully.  I am huge fan of champagne (and definitely have a weakness for really good champagne) but I didn't recognize the expensive looking bottle.  And everything on the label was in French.  "How is it cold?  I didn't see this in the cooler."

"You didn't see the other cooler I had in the storage compartment in back," he said with a smirk, taking the bottle back from me and working on the top.  "Champagne connoisseurs would probably be horrified that I chilled it in a cooler full of ice, but you've got to work with what you've got."

I shook my head.  "You really did think of everything."  I accepted the champagne flute he handed me and took a sip.  "Wow, this is really good," I said appreciatively.   I set it down on the nightstand and climbed under the blankets, pulling the pillows up behind me to cushion my back as I leaned against the headboard.  "Did you even go to work this morning?" I asked, as he climbed into bed and settled next to me, champagne in hand.

"Nope," he replied, reaching for my hand and entwining his fingers with mine.

"You're pretty sneaky," I responded with a laugh.  "I didn't suspect anything.  You seriously surprised me."  I took another sip of the amazing champagne and settled my head against his shoulder.

We finished our champagne in comfortable quiet and settled into bed.  We'd have a few phone calls to family and friends to make this weekend, but for now I was content to simply enjoy sleeping next to my brand new fiancé.