Tethered (Book Two of The Invisible String Series)

The Proposal: Part Two

Without another word, the teenager ducks out of Lizzie's hold and makes her way back towards the living room, leaving both me and my fiancee completely baffled and staring after her with equally shocked expressions. However, she stops just before she reaches the door and looks over her shoulder, her smile still in place as she meets my gaze. "Thanks for the talk, Mama."

And with that, she pushes on the door and disappears back into the crowd.

Well. That just fucking happened.

I turn my wide eyes towards my wife-to-be, blinking a few times. "Are you internally freaking out as much as I am right now?"

Lizzie just nods, but does reach out to grasp at my hand. "Yep."

After a few seconds, once the initial shock wears off, I meet Lizzie's gaze once more and the second our eyes meet we both burst into laughter. What a fucking day this has been, and it's not even ten o'clock. That's how Scarlett finds the both of us, laughing so hard that we both have tears in our eyes and the older woman looks at us as if we've lost our minds. "Did I miss something?"

I try to compose myself, wiping at the underside of my eyes as I try not to smear my mascara and feel Lizzie squeeze my hand. "Uh, no. We were just laughing at something. Sorry."

Scarlett just nods, looking back and forth between me and my fiancée. "Okay, well, it's time to open presents if you two are done being a couple of weirdos."

Still slightly amused by the day's turn of events, I lead Lizzie back out into the living room and settle her on the couch so that she can begin opening her gifts. I try not to make it too obvious when Liv joins me at my side as I stay standing behind the couch, but I can't resist pulling the girl closer and placing a kiss against the side of her head, which only causes her to smile.

Lizzie opens what seems like more than just a few gifts, and I'm silently glad that everyone seemed to listen when I asked them to make sure they were birthday gifts and not engagement-related gifts. Because while we were engaged, today was still her birthday and I didn't want the engagement to overshadow that. Although there were a few certain gifts that might have been pushing the limits and had me scrambling to cover Liv's eyes until Lizzie could hide them with a laugh at my obvious embarrassment. Even if I did square off that red lingerie set she received to a corner of my mind for later. The last gift she gets is from Liv, who shyly hands over the wrapped gift box to the blonde over her shoulder, and I watch as Lizzie tears into it like it's the most important thing she's ever received. And it basically is, because the gift has me silently 'awww-ing' to myself when I realize it's a decorated picture frame of a picture of the three of us. And I know Lizzie appreciates it as well, because she pulls the teenager down to place a kiss against her cheek and quietly thanks her.

It's only when their little moment is over that I bend down next to the blonde's ear and whisper, just loud enough for only her to hear, that her gift from me is something she'll receive later on and smile as I watch her hands clench at her side and clear her throat. "Thank you, everyone."

Once we're finished with presents, Jarnie and my mother present the blonde with her birthday cake and I make sure that Scarlett gets the whole thing on video as we sing 'happy birthday' to a very red-faced Lizzie. She's honestly the most adorable person I've ever seen.

Eventually the party does die down, and after everyone bids us goodbye, I let out a groan before throwing myself onto the sofa. My mother is staying at a hotel for the night and Olivia's staying over at Scarlett's place, to give me and Lizzie some time alone, which I'm immensely thankful for. There's no way my future wife was going to let me out of fulfilling my earlier promise, and I'm glad no one is going to overhear her. Because she's not quiet.