Sofia looks around confused, and then she gasps when Matty gets down on one knee. My hand goes to my heart. I don’t know about everyone else, but I stop breathing as we listen to him.
“Sofia.” You can hear the smile and love in the way he says her name. She doesn’t say a word.
Instead, she steps back and shakes her head.
I don’t hear what she says, but I see Matty smile at her. It’s a look I see often. It’s a look I secretly wish for myself one day.
“From the moment I laid eyes on you, I knew two seconds later I had to know who you were.” She laughs at his joke. He calmly says the two words that will change them from dating to engaged.
“Marry me?” he asks her, and I can’t stop the lone tear from running down my face. “After all the ways I practiced asking you this, the only two words I can remember are those two. When I was getting ready to propose to you, I went to my father and told him. He came with me to ask your father for your hand in marriage.” Sofia mumbles something, and then her laughter fills the forest. I look at the other side of the clearing to see her family there waiting for her to answer. “Yeah, well, he said no. Luckily for him, I was going to do it no matter what he said.” He takes the black box out of his pocket, and all I can do is hold my hands up and cross my fingers. My eyes are closed as I wait for
the words. “So, what do you say, Sofia? Will you marry me and make me the happiest man in the world?”
I wait for her to say yes, but instead, all I hear is gasps from all around me. I open my eyes in time to see the ring box flying out of his hand. My eyes follow the ring box to make sure I know where it lands. “Oh my God!” Sofia shrieks. “The ring!” she yells, and I hear voices.
“He had one job,” her father, Reed, says from the other side of the forest. I look at the sisters, who all shake their heads.
“She charged him,” Viktor, Matthew’s father, says coming out of their hiding place. “Was he supposed to let her fall?” Matty quickly reaches out and grabs the box. “He found it, you see,” Viktor proclaims loudly.
“This was supposed to be just the two of us,” Matty tells Sofia, and she just grabs his face and kisses his lips, saying something else to him.
“I really wish she would speak up,” Clarabella says from beside me.
“We should have snuck mics into their clothes,” Shelby hisses.
“Can you imagine if we did that, and they had sex before?” Presley looks over at us.
“Can you imagine if we did that and gave everyone headsets to listen to it? Or better yet, broadcasted it to everyone waiting at the barn?” Shelby shakes her head.
“Why would your mind even go there?” Clarabella chides. “It’s always the worst-case scenario.”
“No, it’s not true. Remember when Travis was going to get married, and our event space almost burned down, and then the ‘bride’”—Shelby uses her hands to do quotations—“ended up in the emergency room? I never once said we shouldn’t do this.”
“Yes, you did.” Presley laughs. “You said if Mom wasn’t going to kill me, I’d tell him to perhaps rethink things.”
I can’t help but roll my lips when I see Shelby tilt her head to the side as she remembers it. “I mean, if that wasn’t worst case, I don’t know what is.”
“I’m not saying no!” Sofia yells over her shoulder, making all of us look at her again. “I will never, ever say no.”
“Is that a fact?” Matty asks her, and I just smirk. “So, if I said, let’s get married today?”
“He did not,” Reed groans. “Did he just—”
“Here we go,” Shelby states, “do or die.”
“Why is it die?” I hiss. “Never die. Always live.”
“Matthew,” she says, and I hold up my hand.
“What if I said I took care of everything, and all you have to do is choose the dress?” She isn’t the only one who hisses at that. All the men do as well. You see, to pull this off, we had to sneak around and pretend it was going to be just an engagement celebration. But what they didn’t see was all the details we snuck in. They were so busy worrying about the proposal space, no one picked up on the fact we had wedding dresses delivered. We had to bring in Zara, who owns Zara’s Closet and is the
most sought-after personal stylist in the world, to ensure all dresses were available. We swore her to secrecy, and it was hard since Matty’s mom is her twin. Do I think she kept her word? No. Do I think Zoe hid it well? Yes.