Chicago (a Friday Night Lights fanfiction)

Yes

Matt's heart pounded as he waited on the familiar threshold of the Taylors' house. How many times had he stood here? And yet here he was, still feeling as nervous as the first time.

He could hear Coach and Mrs. Taylor through the door, her raised voice and his sarcasm, and he nearly turned around and left. This was clearly not a good time for them. But maybe it would be easier to get away with Julie if her parents were having a fuss ... and, after all, if he wanted to marry into this family, he might as well get used to being part of a family squabble.

Both of them looked surprised to see him, but a bit relieved, as well. He forced a smile through his nervousness and exchanged polite greetings with Julie's parents—well, polite and cordial with Mrs. Taylor, polite and confused with Coach, who didn't seem aware that Matt and Julie were still friends, or whatever they were.

Julie was standing by the Christmas tree smiling at him when he came in. Matt spared a smile for Gracie, who was looking at him in confusion, and then looked at Julie. "Hey."

"Hey. I didn't know you were coming home."

"It was kind of a ... spur of the moment thing."

"You see your grandmother?" Coach asked.

"Yeah." As if he'd come here first. "She's good. She said to say hey."

"Well, tell her we said hey back."

For a moment, Matt thought Julie's mom was going to start in asking questions, so he leaped into the space after her comment to look back at Julie. "Are you—you doing anything for lunch?"

"No, no, I don't think so." She looked at her parents for confirmation, unmistakable relief in her face.

"You go ahead, honey, I think we're about done here." There was clear venom in the look Mrs. Taylor gave her husband, and he didn't like it at all.

Matt and Julie made their escape quickly. As she settled into the passenger seat of his car, she leaned her head back and sighed. "Thank God you came."

"They seemed—tense."

"You have no idea. My mom got a job offer in Philadelphia, and they want my dad to coach this Dillon Panthers superteam they're putting together, and ... it's a nightmare."

"Philadelphia, huh?" Matt frowned, thinking about it. "I can't imagine Coach in Philadelphia."

"No, I can't, either, but I think my mom has pretty much had it with Dillon. Can't blame her for that."

Matt nodded his agreement. "No. No, you can't."

As they pulled up in front of the Alamo Freeze, Julie looked at him, frowning. "When did you decide to come back?"

"Not that long ago."

"And you didn't tell me? I think you could at least have told me you were coming home for Christmas. I mean, the surprise was nice, but at least we could have planned something, or gone somewhere ..."

Matt had intended to wait until they'd eaten, maybe talked to her over the ice cream, but somehow he just couldn't wait any longer. "Hey, Julie. Um ..." Reaching for her hands, he pulled her to a stop right there on the sidewalk in front of the store, trying to remember the most successful of all the different ways he had practiced this. "Look, ever since you came to Chicago, um ... I've been ... I've been thinking about you all the time. And us. And it's just that ... was perfect. And ..." She was looking at him, really listening, but he couldn't see in her face anything that would tell him what she was going to say when he asked. "I know how much I love you and I know that I want to be with you for ... forever. So ..." He reached into his pocket for the ring box his grandma had put into his hands with such love and reverence. "This is ... this is Grandma's," he told Julie, opening the box so she could see the little ring inside. He couldn't look at her, though, not yet, too afraid she wasn't going to say yes. Instead, he got down on the traditional knee. "Julie Taylor ..."

Julie's hands flew up to cover her face as she realized exactly what was happening.

Matt had a hard time getting the words out, but eventually he managed. "Will you marry me?"

She was trying not to cry, fighting the tears, and for a minute he thought she shook her head no. But then she swiped at the tears, sniffed them back, and said the word he had hoped to hear. "Yes."

"Yeah?"

For answer, Julie took the ring from the box and slid it on to her finger. It fit her perfectly, just the way she fit into his life.

"Really?" Matt said again, wanting to hear it again, just to be sure.

"Yes," she whispered, as he got to his feet and kissed her.

They stood there together outside the Alamo Freeze, holding each other.

"I love you," Matt told her, in case that was at all in question.

"I love you so much." After kissing him again, Julie held out her hand, looking at the ring. "It's beautiful."

They looked at each other, laughing in wonder and joy.

"Oh, my God," Julie said. "Oh, my God. My dad must have flipped."

Her dad? "What do you mean?" Matt asked.

"When you asked him to marry me."

Wait, what? Matt had to laugh a little. That was such an old-fashioned thing to do—what did Julie's dad have to do with the way they loved each other, how perfect they were together? "You're kidding, right?" But as he looked at her face, it was clear she wasn't kidding.

"No, you asked him, right?"

"No. I thought that was just, like, an old wives' tale or something."

Julie was clearly distressed by this. "Oh, okay, okay, um ... why don't— Why don't we just pretend that you never asked me, and I never said yes, and you can ask him?"

"Why don't we just go there together and tell him, 'hey, we're getting married?'" It was rare that he felt the difference between the way they had been raised, but it was right here—he was on his own, the way he always had been, but Julie was part of a family that had to be part of what she did with her life, and he had not taken that as carefully into account as he should have.

"You need to do it man-to-man," she told him. There was no room for humor or compromise or nontraditional ways of doing things in her serious eyes.

"O—okay. Man-to-man," Matt agreed.

They went in and ate, and smiled at each other, but it wasn't quite the way he had hoped, because the specter of her father's inevitable disapproval hung over them.