Love Unmatched (5 page)

I hurried my steps towards the store. Zander’s hands started to get sweaty in mine.

Upon entering the store, a tall Hawaiian woman wearing a red maxi dress greeted us with a smile. “Welcome to our store.”

I grinned at her.

Zander let go of my hand as I walked inside the store.

The store had three glass display cases that showcased the shot glasses. They had wonderful designs. I took a few of them out of the cases and admired the intricate works of art.

I was browsing through the last display case when I noticed something odd – there were no designs on the shot glasses. How weird. Were they selling plain, clear glasses?

I turned around and softly called out, “Zander, babe…”

Suddenly the lights darkened inside the store. What was going on? I scanned the store to look for him.

There wasn’t much space to look around. Had he left the store without telling me?

I was about to leave my spot when something caught my eye. The plain shot glasses were now lit up. They were flashing green, red, and yellow, and they had words on them.

S-E-D-O-N-A-W-I-L-L -Y-O-U

I took a deep breath. My heart was beating rapidly against my chest. I felt a hand on my right side and I turned towards him, tears already gathering in the corners of my eyes.

Zander was kneeling on his right knee in front of me when I turned around. Under the store’s dim lighting, his eyes gleamed brightly, and his voice was calm as he asked, “Marry me?”

“Oh babe.” Tears were now falling from my face in full force. His eyes radiated with so much love. He still hadn’t moved from his spot.

He continued, “I love you, Sedona Mackenzie. You light up my life. We may not have been together for a long time, but I am certain that you’re the only one for me. I live to make you happy. I am honored to have you as the mother of my child. I would be more than honored to be your husband,” he paused. “So what do you say, babe? Will you?”

There were no words for this. I nodded my head vigorously. My heart was so full, and I knew that he would be the only one for me. I loved him with everything that I had.

He kissed my hand and slowly slid a ring on it. I hadn’t even seen the ring. My attention was on the expression on his face and the words that came out of his mouth. He could have given me a plastic toy ring and it wouldn’t have mattered. He was committing himself to me. For life.

He stood up and kissed me full on my lips, slowly wiping the tears from my face.

He held out my left hand and ran his fingers along the new symbol of our love.

“It fits you perfectly,” he said proudly.

I finally looked at the ring, now that the lights in the store had returned. When I focused on it the sight made me gasp. It was dazzling. It had an open-curved diamond band with a solitaire center. The diamond stone in the center of the ring was pink. It was not an overpowering pink, it was just right. Elegant and captivating.

“Zander, is this pink?” Was this for real? He had given me a pink diamond? Pink diamonds were one of the rarest stones.

With his eyes glittering with joy he said, “Yes. Are you happy with it?”

Happy? Was he kidding?

“It’s beautiful.” I stretched my hand out, seeing the beams of light reflected on the brilliant pink diamond. “But this is too much.”

He silenced me with another kiss. “It’s not enough to show you how much I love you,” he replied against my mouth.

“I love you so much Zander. I cannot wait to be your wife,” I said against his lips.

He cradled my face with both of his hands. “Good, because you don’t have much time to plan. I’d like us to be married before the baby comes.”

“What?” I asked, surprised.

He was still searching my face as he said, “Babe, I want our baby to carry my last name legally, before he or she is born. Is that okay with you?”

I understood him. Zander, in this aspect, was a traditional man. He had talked about this before. This was one thing that he really wanted, and I found myself agreeing to his idea. I wanted our baby to have his last name too. Our baby could carry his last name even without a wedding, but this was him telling me that he wanted our child to be born inside a marriage.

“Okay,” I replied with a sigh. “Even if I’d look like a whale on our wedding day, I’d like that.”

He gazed at me with his electric blue-green gaze and smiled widely. “My wife, huh? I can’t wait.” He led me outside the store.

Once outside, our friends let out cheers and hoots. I guessed everyone knew about this beforehand, except for me.

The guys were already arguing on who the best man was going to be so that they could plan the bachelor party. The girls fawned over my ring.

Tanya was calculating the cost of my ring. She was checking some sort of diamond exchange website on her phone.

Nalee exclaimed, “Wow! This would totally go with the hot pink Hello Kitty pajamas that I was going to give you.” Her obsession for Hello Kitty would be written in history books.

My phone was ringing. When I answered it my dad was at the other end. He was already bustling with excitement, and he said, “Congratulations!” before I could get a word in. Obviously he was clued in on Zander’s plans as well. I described to him how Zander proposed. His voice could not hide his excitement when he told me that Zander had asked for his permission to marry me. He ended the phone call with, “Your mom would be so happy for you. She would have wanted you to find a good man, and I think Zander is one of the good ones out there.” His words brought a wave of tears to my eyes and I said earnestly, “She would have loved Zander, dad.”

Kieran also called. He was breathless and ecstatic. He joked that he would be my ‘man of honor’. I took him up on his offer and that silenced him. He was probably thinking that he had to wear something frou-frou to be a ‘man of honor’. It was only when I said, “I’m not going to force you into wearing something that you don’t like,” that he let out a sigh of relief and screamed, “Congratulations!” again into my ears.

I also spoke with Zander’s parents, and his mom was overly excited about planning the wedding. She let out a frantic yell when I told her that we wanted to have the wedding before the baby arrived. She asked me if I had any issues with her helping plan it. I gave her the go ahead. I wanted to be married to Zander. It didn’t matter where, how, and when.

That night he made love to me passionately. For the first time it was as his fiancée.

“I can name my best memories, they all start with you.”

Zander

Something smelled so good.

The smell of home cooking was welcoming. I was going to stop by Paddie's to grab some chicken wings, but instead I drove directly to our Minnesota townhouse after receiving a text from Sedona that she was making something special for me.

As soon as I got home I went straight into the kitchen. I took in her profile. She was literally pregnant and barefoot. And cooking something. It was a miracle of all miracles. Sedona never cooked anything. She couldn't even slice an onion the right way. Now she was standing in our kitchen in a yellow dress and an apron. She looked like she was concentrating hard over something in the pot.

"It smells heavenly in here,” I said as I approached her.

She turned towards me, her eyes lighting up. "I called your mom for the recipe of your favorite meatloaf." She was stirring something in a pot on top of the stove.

"What's in the pot?" I asked while wrapping my arms around her stomach. I saw something green in the pot.

"It's some sort of stew," she explained, continuing with the stirring.

"Need some help?"

"No, I'm okay." She reached up to kiss my cheek. When she was about to turn her face away I gently grabbed her face and kissed her on her lips, slowly trying to coax her tongue to come out.

"Babe, you're going to break my concentration," she argued without any effort. "Go and change into something more comfortable. Everything should be ready in ten minutes.”

I stole another kiss and followed her direct order.

I went inside our bedroom and saw that she had rearranged my clothes again. She had them assorted by color this time. The other week they had been folded according to the length of the sleeves. She was getting bored. Sedona was not the type of woman to just sit and wait for me the whole day. There were multiple times when I found the computer left running and filled with websites and web pages of Physics and Chemistry links and games. She needed the stimulation for her brain.

I had a feeling that she was getting antsy. This only solidified my decision of bringing up the internship to her before she had gotten rid of those acceptance letters. Thank God New York State University Hospital accepted her. The other two hospitals that she had applied to and had gotten accepted to had filled up their spots. She had worked so hard towards her goals that it was only fair for her to turn her dreams into reality, even when she was pregnant.

I was going to miss having her here with me. We made good use of our days by spending a lot of time with each other. We explored a lot of new places in the city every day, after I came back from training camp. We both loved shopping for our baby. Those baby clothes were
tiny as shit
, but they were freaking cute. We didn’t know if we were having a boy or a girl, so we picked everything green, brown, gray, and tan. I didn’t know how many types of baby diapers, baby strollers, baby blankets, and baby everything there were. I was so undecided that I wanted to get two or three of everything. Sedona had to stop me from buying out the whole store. She showed me consumer reports on the things that we bought. I didn’t bother looking at any type of report before. I just bought stuff because I either needed or wanted them. But I found out that I was interested in the safety reviews of these products because our little one was going to be using them.

Our time together was coming to a close, because in a week Sedona was going to New York. She passed her nursing boards two days ago. I knew that she could do it. There was no doubt about it. She was on edge while she was reviewing for the boards, and when she finally got the results that she passed she had called everyone, and I swear, even our neighbors knew that she passed with her delighted screams.

When I returned into the kitchen, she had the dining table all set up with a candlelight centerpiece and some flower arrangement. Wow, she was going all out.

"Let's eat," she said.

I pulled out my chair and sat down. She must have been cooking for a while. On the table was my favorite meatloaf, a green-looking stew, potatoes and salad. She had a draft beer in a tall glass for me and had pink lemonade in hers.

"Wow." I was really surprised. "You made all of this?"

"Yes," she said as she smiled. "I wanted to see if I could cook for you."

I scooped a chunk of the meatloaf and potatoes on my plate. She was still looking at me.

"I didn't taste it yet," she said. "I figured that if I followed everything that your mom said it would taste great. So, tell me about your day."

"Well, we ran a couple of drills today. Same old, same old. Coach talked about changing our strategy for the season opener, so we had to learn a couple of new plays." I took a bite of the meatloaf.

What the hell? How much salt did she put in this? Did she pour a pint of salt instead of a few pinches? I knew that recipe like the back of my hand. I've made it a hundred times with my mother, since I was ten.

"What's wrong?" Now she was looking straight at me, obviously waiting for my final verdict on her cooking.