Out of My League

Chapter 26 (Noah)

I'd spent the majority of my time not spent with Bella looking for a ring and had yet to fine the perfect one.

She doesn't seem like a material-type of girl, someone who would care more about the ring than what it means, but that doesn't mean I don't want it to be perfect. 

At the least, she deserves the perfect ring. 

I'd gone in and out of jewelry stores, had searched online, had done everything shy of taking her with me to pick out her own ring and ruin the entire surprise. 

I'm running out of time, considering my grand plan involves proposing to her on Christmas morning. 

I'd bought a tiny, cute box that resembles a gift, one I'm going to hand her after we'd exchanged our other gifts. 

After she's opened it, and hopefully looks both surprised and excited, my plan is to take it from her hands and get on one knee in front of her. 

I have fears, of course, anxieties that I can't even begin to describe. 

Things like: what if she thinks I'm moving too fast? What if she's planning on moving back to Ohio soon and doesn't want me to come? What if she doesn't love me as much as I love her? 

What if she agrees, but then begins to have doubts and calls things off? 

That one scares me the most. 

I don't want to be engaged and then separated twice; at that point, I think I'd just give up on the thought of ever getting married. 

Plus, I'm fairly certain I've reached the point in my life where if I'm not going to marry Bella, I don't want to marry at all. 

She's the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with. 

I can only pray she feels the same. 

It's December seventh now, so I'm rapidly approaching the point of no return on picking out this ring. 

Walking into the exact same jewelry store I'd walked into half a dozen times in the past week, the store owner looks up at me through his thin glasses, a piece of long gray hair slipping in front of his right eye. 

"Can I - oh," he sits up a little straighter, "I didn't realize you'd be back." 

"Yeah," I laugh, awkwardly, my voice echoing around the completely empty - save for me and this man - store, "I'm back again. Did you get any new shipments?" 

"Since the last time you were here?" The man quirks a silver eyebrow and all hope leaves my chest. 

I don't know what I'm going to do. 

Until, that is, he says with a grin, "We got one new shipment yesterday evening. I haven't even had the chance to open it yet, so you'd be the first to see it." 

"I'll take it-" 

"Son, you haven't even seen it yet," he says with a soft chuckle, "If you're shopping for a dream ring for your dream girl, don't you think you should at least look at it first?" 

Call me crazy, but I can't help but think that if this ring arrived on the eve of the day I needed it by, it was meant to be. 

God knew I needed this ring in the same way that He knew I needed Izzy. 

To please the worker, though, I say, "Right, yeah, I guess I should look at it." 

With another soft laugh and the closing of the book he'd been reading, he gestures, with a single finger, for me to wait a moment and then disappears into the back, reappearing ten minutes later with a box no bigger than the palm of my hand.