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"Shit, he loves you soht into the pool table
"You think so?" I ask, trying to contain my excitement
"Jace always needs to be able to control and knohat the outco in front a crowd?" he chuckles, "Yeah, he’s totally burning up on the inside This is good for hi better, Jaxon It wasn’t a fun ti up so here, even after Jace was an ass"
"It feels bizarre talking to you about me and Jace," I nervously admit
"I couldn’t be happier for the two of you Lord knows y’all make more sense than we ever did Don’t feel weird," he says and pulls irl," Jace’s deep voice booe and move closer
Cassie leans into theentertain us with Whatever It Is by Zac Brown Band Get at it, hot stuff" The et nervous butterflies inJace up there all alone He winks at oing to kill us later," Cole laughs while clapping for hirees
Jace belts out the first feords and the room falls silent I am absolutely floored by his voice How did I not know Jace could sing?
"Ho-ly shit!" Lane yells, while hooting with enthusiasm "Well, that totally backfired on me!"
"I did not expect this" Cole adly about his ladies’ legs and heaven Jace exaggerates the line and winks directly atwith the beat
Once he figures out how happy the song e and pointingprovocatively in front of his little stage though Seeing hiing his heart out directly toI’ve ever seen Not even the sight of those girls could wipe this smile off my face His eyes are only focused on me
Anytime the line ‘I love you’ cos tocruel I kneas truly sorry earlier during his apology when I saw the real pain in his eyes The song finishes with a few lasting chords and Jace steps away froe Everyone claps and calls out for an encore Jace laughs and shakes his head
"Thank you," he says into the microphone
"Marry me!" an excited blonde yells at him
"Sorry, I’m taken Wellat least, I think I’m taken" He looks out to where I’m at in the back of the bar
"Very taken!" I yell back and his sroans are expressed fros his shoulders at them with a cute, bashful smile He clears his throat and I freeze at the look in his eyes I don’t knohy he isn’t stepping down yet, but when he brings the rip the edge of the pool table, reen felt
"That beautiful, tall, brunette back there stole o We screwed it up and wasted a lot of years But you knohat?" he asks the crowd and then speaks directly toto be there at the end I’d walk through the sadness and the loneliness all over again for you I truly was lonely, because you were always the one I wished I ith I can’t regret it though The journey was hard, yes, but falling in love with you was easy I could never regret falling in love with you"
With everything we’ve been through, everything we’ve put ourselves through, all the pain we’ve endured, this act alone erases it all with one single swipe The secrecy and sneaking around is instantaneously forgotten with Jace’s very public display He finally hops down, sets the h his audience, his eyes never leaving ain drops to one knee and I cover the sob that rips through my chest He reaches back into his pocket and pulls out the red leather box again Then he looks up at me with a question in his eyes before he opens it I nodhim know it’s okay
"Audrey, you’ve been in my head since the moment I met you and you never left Baby, I sure as hell don’t deserve you but I can’t i the hand I hold at the end of every day You’reht His eyes lookit
He hops off of his knee and I frown up at him He must have read my mind because he leans in quickly to kiss , babe I just re else first" He hands the red leather box back for Jax to hold andFirst" he digs around in his pockets, "Ifor you while you were out of town" On top of the pool table, he duhs
"Yeah, I bought a ton of these for you I never want you to run out I also got all that coconut stuff you like I cleared out s," he ra and the aht he’s put into all of this
He starts searching the other pocket and duainst each other on the table I notice that they are all flattened pennies, each one a little different froht so I ended upabout sixteen of them, but this one turned out the best" He fumbles with the coins and I realize that I love this side of Jace He’s usually the confident intellect, but every once in a while when he’s around me, he turns into this clumsy fool It makes me smile to think that I can make him as flustered as he seems to make me
He reaches behind"This one has the year we met, the year I picked up h the penny is smashed, I can clearly make out the year on it "This one" He slides a second flattened penny onto my chain and it clinks next to the first "Says exactly how I feel" I pull the penny up close and read the words out loud that he’s stamped into the metal
Lucky to have found you
Blessed to have you
"Okay, that’s seriously sweet," Em whispers from behind me