She glared. “I know, but ask her. She’ll say yes, I know she will.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do! She’s my best friend.”

“She is. She would know,” Jace laughed and Markus rolled his eyes.

“We haven’t been back together that long, and what if I’m rushing it? I don’t know,” he said, his face burning as Jace laughed and a big blob of ice cream fell into Markus’s eyes.

“Obviously, you do since you asked us,” he said, and Markus rolled his eyes as he wiped the frozen dessert off.

“No, I mean, I don’t know, as in, I have no clue if I’m gonna get signed, if I’ll live in Nashville full time, or if I’ll be back in Jacksonville. Everything is up in the air, and she deserves to have it all done right. Like, we should be settled, I think. I don’t know.”

Jace shrugged. “Will it matter?”

“Huh?”

“Will it matter? If you’re there and she’s in Nashville, will that make you not want to marry her?”

Markus’s face scrunched up. “Hell no, why would it?”

“Then what don’t you know?” Jace asked simply. “If you want to ask her, ask her because you want to, and you love her. You’ve never thought things through before, why are you doing that now?”

“Because I want it to be right. I want her to be happy.”

“She will be if you are. If you ask her for the right reasons, then she will be because she loves you and wants the same thing. Have y’all discussed it at all?” Avery asked and he scoffed.

“I mean, in passing, but nothing too serious. Like, my mom and dad asked if we were, and we both kind of ignored them. God, I feel like an idiot,” he laughed, shaking his head. “I’m all nervous and shit, and I haven’t even decided if I want to ask her. But the thing is, why wait? We could die tomorrow, and I don’t want to wait. I waited two years for her, and I’m tired of waiting. I want her.”

He forgot that he was with Avery again because his emotional vomit was usually reserved for Jace or Baylor. When he looked up, she was grinning, her eyes wide and happy as she nodded like a bobblehead. “Ask her.”

“Shh, you,” he joked and she smiled.

“You want to—do it.”

“Are we even ready for that?”

“Is anyone ever really ready? We weren’t,” Jace said, his arm coming around Avery’s neck. “But we did it because we loved each other and we wanted to be together.”

“And because you were pregnant,” Markus added dryly and Jace laughed.

“I would have done it anyway.”

Avery grinned. “You would have?”

“Yeah, I loved you. I knew you were it, and I wasn’t letting anyone else have you but me. Ashlyn just rushed things along,” he said and Avery beamed, taking Markus’s breath away. She pressed her lips to Jace’s, and he kissed her hard. Markus couldn’t help but grin.

Giving them a moment, he kept walking with Ashlyn as she ate happily, making them both a sticky mess, but he didn’t care. He was too engrossed with his thoughts and love for Mekena. He hadn’t realized how much he wanted to marry her until that moment. It didn’t have to be now or tomorrow, but he wanted her to know that the commitment he had for her was strong and irreversible. And her commitment was the same for him. Jace’s statement of how he didn’t want Avery with anyone else rang true for Markus. He didn’t want anyone else having Mekena but him. She was his. All his, and damn it, she’d waited for him, waited to give him her gift. He loved that he was her first, and he wanted to be her last. He wanted to be her one and only.

Because she was his.

But would she say yes?

Was it too soon?

Was she too young?

He didn’t know, and in a way, he didn’t care. Was that naïve of him?

“So what are you thinking?” Avery asked once they caught up with him and Ashlyn. “Jeez, you’re a mess, Ashlyn Joy Sinclair! And you got Uncle Markus all nasty. Goodness me!”

Markus laughed as he waved her off. “We’ll jump in the ocean.”

“You will not! It’s freezing!”

Markus rolled his eyes. “Gosh, Ash, your mom is overprotective, huh?”

He was answered with a happy laugh as Avery glared. “You aren’t answering my question, mister.”

He laughed. “Because it’s none of your business, and I don’t want you to tell her anything.”

Feigning hurt, she gasped, “I wouldn’t!”

Jace scoffed. “You would.”

“Shut up!” she said, smacking him, and Markus chuckled.

“Hit me again,” Jace warned playfully, and Avery glared back.

With her chin tipped up, she smacked him again and said, “I ain’t scared of you.”

“You’re about to be,” he said then, reaching for her and throwing her over his shoulder.

“Jace, no!”

He ignored her, carrying her out toward the ocean as Avery screamed loudly, but Jace just laughed. Watching with a grin on his lips, Markus yelled, “Can I throw Ashlyn and me in there? We’re nasty.”

Jace whipped around, the waves up to his knees before pushing Avery off his shoulders and into the water with no cares that she landed like a sack of rocks. “Hell no, bro, it’s cold as hell.”

Markus pressed his lips together as Avery came up sputtering before she jumped up and pushed Jace face first into the water. “Well, that’s not fair.”

Ashlyn babbled something, and Markus nodded. “Exactly. But then, I guess they’re good parents, huh, kiddo?”

She babbled again and he smiled, wishing like hell Mekena were there. She would have enjoyed watching Jace and Avery try to drown each other.

And he would have enjoyed watching her smile.

“Now you know I’m gonna score on you both.”

Markus laughed before he looked to Jayden, who was watching his little brother at center ice in front of Johansson as the ref waited for the signal to start the game.

“Don’t we do this every time we play? And don’t I always stop you?”

Jace shrugged, a smug grin on his face. “Maybe, but I always end up scoring.”

“On other people, not me.”