𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐀𝐆𝐍𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐒, k.jacobs

TWENTY EIGHT.

Marley blinked at him before muttering, "and did it ever occur to you that I would have said yes?"

"Marley—,"

She shook her head as she interrupted him, "No, Karl. You say you know me better than anyone else, so why didn't you even consider for even a second, that I would have said yes? You didn't think that we could've laughed together about how scuffed it was? I love you, Karl. More than anything. You should know by now that I wouldn't of cared about a botched proposal of all things..." she paused and wiped at the tears forming in her eyes, "I would've said yes, dumbass. But then you had to pull that shit and not elaborate on what you meant? What was I supposed to think?"

Karl had to fight the urge to smile at her words. He knew it was bad timing, but a large part of him just felt so relieved about know what her answer would have been, had he not been such an idiot.

"I told you, Mars. I'm an idiot. I panicked when I said what I did and I thought it was already too late to fix it. The last thing I wanted was to ever make you think I don't want to spend the rest of my life with you."

She frowned, "Clearly, we need to work on communication, huh?"

That got a laugh out of him, although it was closer to a fond scoff, "The second the words came out of my mouth, I thought it was over. I thought you hated me and I thought I had fucked everything up...and then the break happened and that idea was starting to become my reality. My mom telling you what happened wasn't how I planned on you finding out...a small, ugly part of me never even wanted you to know. But that wouldn't be fair to either of us, especially you. Even now I feel like my mom being the reason you found out why I had messed up so badly feels like the cowards way out. I had been planning on telling you when I got back, Mars. I swear that I was...but then Jimmy told me that my mom had called him and when she told me that you knew and I wasn't the one to tell you," he paused and roughly rubbed at his eyes, making her frown. "I thought that would make things even worse, to be honest."

Marley nervously reached over and grabbed his hand that had been turning white around his mug. He relaxed it instantly after she pried his fingers away and rested her palm in his. "I'm not saying what you did was okay, but I do understand why you were so nervous and why your word vomit was that bad. Just the thought of doing it makes me feel like i'm going to have a heart attack, so I at least understand why you panicked so badly. After I figured out what your mom was talking about I...that's when I was trying to talk to you while you were in California. Now that I think about it, it would've been pretty awful to talk about it over the phone, but I was getting desperate. There was no way I could've known what happened when you didn't tell me, but when your mom talked to me? I just kind of wanted to give you a hug because I could already feel how badly you were beating yourself up over what happened. And then you weren't answering me and you never do that so of course I started panicking—,"

"Marley," he started, softly squeezing her hand, "Fuck, i'm sorry for making you worry. I'm sorry for a lot of things, but I completely forgot how much you stress out when you don't hear back from people."

"But you're okay?"

"Getting there," he admitted with a half smile. "better now that I don't feel like i'm going to drop dead from guilt just from looking at you."

Marley sighed and used her other hand to wipe at her eyes that were quickly starting to blur with tears. Overwhelmed was almost an understatement of how she was feeling right now. Things seemed alright between them now, despite the nagging question that lingered in the back of her head mixed with the fear of his potential answer.

"What's wrong?" he muttered, as he lightly ran a finger over her bare ring finger. "You look like you want to say something."

Before she lost any of the confidence she currently had, Marley quickly asked the question that had been eating her alive all night.

"Does this mean you're coming home now?"

Karl's eyes widened slightly, not at all expecting that to be what she was silently trying to talk herself into asking.

"What?"

"Are you coming home?" She repeated, watching as his frown quickly morphed into a fond smile. "Because Goose misses his dad."

He laughed softly before leaning across the table, "Now that i've got you back, do you really think there's anything in the world that could keep me away from you?"

Marley shrugged and offered him a teasing smile, "I mean...I never expected you to butcher a proposal that badly, so I guess you're full of surprises."

"Too soon," he muttered as he shook his head at her. "I guess it's safe to say you're never going to let that go?"

"Of course not."

He sighed and moved to rest his forehead against hers, "I would've been concerned if you said otherwise."

Marley leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss against his lips, before moving away to grin at him. "I love you and im so glad we finally had this conversation but I genuinely think im going to pass out right here at the table if we don't go home soon."

"You don't have to tell me twice," he replied with a smile that was so full of love Marley thought she would start crying on the spot. "Give me a minute to go and get all my stuff and we can leave."

Marley nodded, watching as he quickly ran out of the kitchen, only for him to appear seconds later again with a goofy smile on his face. "Hey Mars?"

"Hmm?"

"Love you more," he said quickly, before darting out of the room again.

A/N
karl is back. for now 😁

HAHA pranked all of u guys #in your face