I just stood in the middle of the room and stared at him, mouth gaped open.

“You’re way too easy to mess with.” He laughed.

“You called me your girlfriend,” I said, still immobile.

He shrugged, grabbing a pair of boxer briefs from a drawer. “Should I have asked first? I don’t know how these things go. Am I supposed to ask your father? Or do I take you to the drive-in and ask you to go steady over cheese fries?”

“You want me to be your girlfriend?” My eyes softened as I took a step toward him.

My arrogant, crazy, beautiful man.

“I thought the whole speech about anniversaries and meeting my mom made that clear enough. That is what you want, right? Otherwise, this whole trip today is going to be fucking awkward. Pretty sure my mom is already naming our kids.”

A couple of more steps, and my arms were around him. “Yes.”

“Yes to the going steady or the naming kids? Because she picked out Jude and Roman. You don’t know what she’ll come up with next.”

“I love you,” I said softly against his chest.

He suddenly stopped breathing, like my words had swooped the air right out of his chest, making my declaration ten times scarier.

Now, I was scared to look up. Scared to pull myself away from his chest and discover that everything had changed. One minute, we had been joking about cheese fries and kids, and the next, he’d be telling me it was all moving too fast.

“Cara,” he whispered.

I shook my head, unwilling to move.

His hand grasped my chin, tilting it upward.

“Look at me,” he begged.

My eyes were still shut.

“Please.”

I finally willed my eyes to open, and when I did, I found him smiling down at me.

No fear, no horror, no anger in his eyes.

Just pure joy.

“I love you, too.”

“But it’s only been two weeks,” I replied quickly.

His smile widened. “You’re trying to argue me out of this? This might be my first go at this, but I’m fairly certain that’s not how you do it.”

“Are you sure?”

He bent down, still grasping my chin, and he placed his lips close to mine. “I’ve never been surer about anything,” he said, taking my hand and leading me to the bed. Sitting me down next to him, both of us still in towels, he wrapped his arms around me. “I didn’t have the Norman Rockwell upbringing you did. My parents… they… it’s hard to explain. Let’s just say, looks can be deceiving, and their relationship left me with a bitter taste in my mouth when it came to love. For a long time. Until you. You are my exception.”

“I don’t know what to say.”