I was running, running. Pumping my legs with all my might as though something terrible was chasing me. Except there was nothing behind me but darkness and I was the one chasing. Up ahead my parents remained static, but no matter how much energy I put into it, how much harder I tried to reach them, the further they seemed to be.

I woke up with a start, understanding at once that it had just been a dream. A nightmare. Yet my heart was beating as if it had all been real. A gentle hand removed my pink hair from my face and then there was Miguel's face, wrinkled with worry and dusted with the beginnings of a stubble.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

When I couldn't answer right away he cradled me against him, letting me use his shoulder as a pillow. It was the hardest pillow I'd ever rested on, but with his warmth, the softness of his skin, the way I felt so safe with his arms around me, I found it the very best pillow I'd ever had. After a few minutes my body was able to shed the aftereffects of crisis and I softened against him. His free hand was running circles over my back and it was doing certain things to me, considering we were in his bed in our birthday suits. I sighed against the crook of his neck and I felt his body tighten.

I lifted myself up on my elbows to look down at him. Miguel opened his green eyes and let them wander down to my goodies. I flattened myself against his chest, smiling as I felt the very clear repercussions down below.

I cleared my throat and said, "Sorry for scaring you. It was just a nightmare."

"Hmm, I'm glad you're okay."

I yelped as he grabbed a hold of my hips and placed me squarely on top of his lap.

"Aren't you tired?" I asked, breathless even though I wasn't actually doing any cardio. Yet.

He cocked an eyebrow. "Of you? Never."

The contrast between the nightmare and this wake up call almost made me dizzy. I crumbled on top of him, aroused as hell but also confused about why I'd even dream about my parents. I hadn't heard from them in so long, I wasn't even sure I'd recognize their voices upon hearing them again for the first time. But I remembered their faces, stern and closed off and always looking at me like I was their worse mistake.

I brought my arms around Miguel's neck and nuzzled him, wishing he would never look at me in the same way my parents did the last time I saw them. But what could guarantee it? What could possibly make him want to keep me around if my own parents hadn't?

Miguel must have sensed the turmoil in my head because he brought up his hands to rub the soothing circles on my skin again.

"Tell me what's wrong," he murmured into my ear. "Or let me kiss it all away. Your choice."

That made me smile. I turned my face and kissed his jaw.

The years hadn't changed the need in him to always help, to be there for someone who needed a shoulder to cry on. That was what had made me fall for him so hard when we were at college, beyond the silly teenage crush I'd had on him since high school. Depending on Miguel for emotional support had been my biggest fear, because that was easily something I could see myself needing like I needed air. And here we were, fulfilling my self prophecy in the most delicious way. It was just as terrifying.

"What did I do to deserve you?" I regretted asking that question the second it came out. I wasn't exactly ready to reveal what that could say about me. Pulling back slightly, I grabbed the blankets and wrapped them around me. Evading his eyes I said, "Um, sorry. I don't know what-"

But I never got to finish the sentence. Next thing I knew, I was flipped on my back and Miguel was snug between my legs, as if the bed sheets weren't between us. His forearms framed my head as he looked down at me, his head tilted and eyes narrowed like he was trying to figure out a puzzle.

"I like you, that's what," he said. My open mouth didn't go unnoticed to him. "Why is this so shocking?"

"I, uh..."

My brains were scrambled eggs. I didn't know how to word the fact that I didn't find myself worthy of his Mjölnir. Which sounded so bad I knew I couldn't say it aloud. But it wasn't just his very impressive, wonderful hammer that I wasn't worthy of. If I were to look at Miguel and me from someone else's perspective, I wouldn't ship us together. He had his shit together, no abandonment issues and a heart so big and full that all the beauty in it spilled out to everybody around him. Mine was so small and scared that if someone did X-rays on my chest, it would look like a peanut. What did I have in it to give Miguel? What did I have to compliment him?

He sighed.

"Do you want to know why I call you sunshine?" he asked. I swallowed but nodded, because I didn't trust myself saying anything. "That's what I see when I look at you."

I couldn't help it. My eyes welled.

Miguel ran the pads of his thumbs down the sides of my face, clearing away the first couple of tears that fell. He leaned forward and placed a soft kiss on my forehead and even the bedsheets weren't enough to catch all the tears trickling down after that.

"Addy," he continued, my name like a caress on his lips. "You're strong. I've seen you take terrible blows from life and keep going. You don't give up, if there's a way you'll find it. You're smart, hardworking, talented and determined. Not to mention you're so fucking sexy it physically hurts me sometimes."

I gasped.

He smiled an innocent looking curve to his lips that I knew had anything but innocence as he pressed himself harder against me. "That's just in case you're doubting the veracity of my words."

A laugh tore from my throat.

"Do you remember my graduation?" he asked.

"Of course. How could I forget?" The image of him standing in my rearview mirror, growing smaller and smaller, was forever etched into my memories.

"I was so mad when you gave me that kiss on my cheek-"

I cringed in body and spirit. "I'm sorry."

"Not because of you," he clarified. "Because I stood there like a dumbass and let the girl I was pining for drive away without doing squat. I just kept thinking it was too late, that I was going away and that I'd screwed all up with my weird behavior those last months. My reasoning back then was why tell you what I felt for you, only to leave you after graduation?"

"Oh, stop," I said with a trembling voice. There were so many tears that I couldn't make out his features anymore. I felt his lips on one cheek, then the other.

"I was bathed in sunshine that morning, watching you drive away in your little Beetle." His lips were at the column of my throat now. "But I was so cold. I've been so cold until I saw you again at that beach in Key West. I thought I could go on without you, but you're my sunshine, Adele. How can I prove it to you?"

I clung to him as ugly sobs racked my body, saying, "I'm sorry. I just—It's hard for me to... believe."

Miguel's lips were on mine, so soft I almost didn't feel them. Then he said, "Well, you best believe because there's nothing casual about what I'm saying. I very deliberately want you as my indefinite plus one."

Something about the way I was looking at him made him laugh.

"I had almost forgot that little casual dating comment you made before," I said, smacking where I could make contact. "You lied to me and didn't actually want something casual?"

"Just that once," Miguel said, twirling a strand of my hair around his finger. "I didn't want to scare you off."

But I was scared, alright. Scared that he already had my whole little peanut heart and if he woke up tomorrow morning and said hah! April's fools, even though we were a whole month later, there would be nothing left in my chest.

He definitely read me right because he said, "You're scared now, are you?"

I nodded.

"I'm a patient man, Addy. I'll wait for you as long as you need me to." Miguel leaned his forehead against mine. "Now c'mon, either we go for another round or we get ready for the drive."

In the end we chose the later, because my little emotional crisis had set us behind schedule. I was still thinking about that conversation through the smooth, non emotional chat we had later that morning as we drove over to Tampa for a special brunch that Saturday.

My vision swam and the only reason I didn't fall flat on my face as we finally walked into the restaurant was because Miguel expertly maneuvered me around the tables and customers, his arm around me like it belonged there all along. Like he and I were as natural as a rainbow after the rain.

"What?" he asked as we were settled in the table and the other two seats were still vacant.

"I just want you to know that I'm doing my best not to freak out." And in case it wasn't obvious I added, "Because I really feel close to it."

The dazzling smile that he gave me nearly blinded me.

"I tend to have that effect on people. Ask my porcupine of a sister."

"Are you guys talking about me?"

I jumped, startled at the new voice that joined us from behind me. As I turned, Charlie and her boyfriend approached.

"Not at all," Miguel told her, even as he gave her a hug so tight that Charlie squeaked. "Just so you know, the world doesn't revolve around you."

"Cállate, pendejo," she told him, punching Miguel's shoulder in a way that I knew had to hurt. He pretended to not even feel it and that irritated her even more. With a huff she turned to me and said, "I'm so sorry you have to put up with him."

"I don't think she's sorry at all," Dean said, chuckling as he and Miguel exchanged one of those complicated handshakes that ended in back pumps. "How you doing, man?"

"Living the dream," Miguel said, motioning for them to sit.

I didn't know what to do with myself, because it wasn't like I was on a hug and kiss basis with Charlie and her boyfriend. But as she sat next to me, wearing the cute halter dress that didn't hide the bullet wound scar in her shoulder, and put her phone on the table, I noticed the rock on her finger.

"Wait," I said. They all stopped and looked at me as I gasped. I looked at Dean and exclaimed, "You did it!"

The way his entire face lit up told me that yep, this was what a man in love looked like. And holy shit, if that also hadn't been Miguel's face earlier as he teased me.

"Yes, I did. Best award I've ever won—after the Stanley cup, that is," he said and his fiancee smacked his arm.

Charlie gave out a sigh so long and pained, I'd have thought she was about to return the ring to him. A fire lit in her eyes every time she looked at him and I wondered if the same heat was in mine when I glanced Miguel's way.

Who was I kidding? I was just as whipped.

The three of them told me the story of the proposal. It happened the weekend before Miguel and I had our first date. A whole stadium full of people had witnessed it and they even showed me a video that a fan had recorded of Dean getting on one knee, dressed in his full winter warrior uniform, as caught in the stadium's jumbotron. I zoomed into Charlie's face, red and wet from tears as she watched him pull out a ring case from the folds of his jersey.

"You didn't have this on you during the whole game, did you?" I asked Dean.

He laughed. "No, my coach kept it for me in the bench."

"Ugh," I said. "You guys just instantly made me grow two cavities."

"Wait until we start fighting," Charlie said.

The waitress arrived then and her speech died as she took in Dean. "Oh my gosh! You're Dean Hyde."

I exchanged an amused glance with Charlie. Shared amusement between us was a pleasant first.

"Hi, yes," Dean said. He took a look around and noticed the budding commotion and there was no mistaking the deepening pinkness in his face for anything but discomfort.

I caught the waitress's attention and said, "My friend Dean and his fiancee here are celebrating their engagement. Can we please have a round of mimosas to start with?"

That sobered her up.

"Absolutely," the girl said, but there was no mistaking the pout as she wrote down or order.

"Sorry about that," Dean said as the girl left.

I shrugged. "Don't worry, I'm used to dealing with celebrity friends. They can't possibly be impolite about the attention they get, but I'm a nobody so I sure as fuck can."

Charlie looked at her brother dead in the eyes and said, "I like this one. Can we keep her?"

That sent Miguel into peals of laughter.

His sister grabbed my hand. "His laugh is the most obnoxious thing in the planet and he'll use it against you more often than not. He also eats a lot, which is a side effect of being a Crossfit junkie. And he'll talk your ears off about stocks if you don't tell him to shut up. But he's a pretty decent guy."

"Gee, thanks," Miguel said in a droll.

"And he will drop everything to help you, but he occasionally needs help too, you know?" Charlie continued as though she and I were alone. "Even though he would probably never admit it, because he's as stubborn as me."

"Hey," her brother protested.

Dean added, "Hmm, debatable."

I was about to start crying again, but I nodded. "I know, it seems like when he gets an idea in his head nothing or no one can remove it."

"How well you know me," this he said in my direction, but I could barely meet Miguel's eyes at that point.

Charlie gave my hand one last squeeze before saying, "So don't break him, because I'm trusting him with you."

I flapped my mouth open and closed, not knowing what to say, but the waitress saved me from putting a response together by bringing our mimosas and asking for our orders. I felt like I was in the crosshairs of the Bernal siblings, two different approaches to making the same kill. I'd been wondering what the heck I was doing, invited to a brunch to celebrate Charlie and Dean's engagement like this was some sort of double date. But it was so much more. It was a test to see if I could join this family. That, and also the perfect setting for me to agree to design and make Charlie's wedding dress at a reduced rate.

My whole body was trembling like a leaf. I yearned to pass this test, although I hadn't studied for it. And even though I was full to the brim of fear, that didn't compare to what I was going to experience a few days after.

are we freaking out yet?

or are we nervous? 🧐