In The Crowd - B.E.

Chapter Fourty-Five - Billie

This is the scariest moment of my life. I'm sitting here on one knee holding open a small ring box and looking up at Y/n who has tears in her eyes. My heart is beating so fast, and there are tears streaming down my face. This is not how I imagined this to go at all.

"Now, this may be really fast, but I don't care. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I hope that you feel the same. So, that leaves the question... will you marry me?" She puts her hand over her mouth, still not saying anything. She grabs my face and kisses me. It was a sweet and passionate kiss.

"Yes!" She says through tears. I stand up and hug her tightly. "I will marry you," I grab the ring and put it on her ring finger. I hug her again, and we just stand there for what feels like forever. We're both crying, but soon we start to calm down.

"Shall we head back now?" I ask her. She's just looking at the ring. She nods. I grab her hand and lead her down the trail. "We better hurry. It's getting dark," I watch as she wipes tears off her face.

Once we get back to the suite, we both get in the shower to clean up after the hike.

Now we're both lying in bed, cuddling and watching a movie. I watch as she keeps playing with the ring on her finger.

"I still can't believe you said yes," I told her.

"Did you think I would say no?"

"Kind of. When you weren't saying anything, I thought I had made the wrong decision. I thought you would think we were moving too fast,"

"Maybe this is too fast for other people but for me, this is just right," she says. I smile. "The ring is beautiful," 

"I hoped you would like it. I spent forever trying to pick one out," 

"I still can't believe I didn't know that this is what you were planning,"

"I'm surprised, too. Claudia made it her life's mission to not tell you but to get you to think about it more," I tell her. "It pissed me off so much,"

"Yeah, I noticed something weird going on with her recently. How many people have helped you plan this?" 

"Only Finneas. And my parents. Claudia figured it out herself. So did Gia and Michael,"

"My friends figured it out? They knew?"

"Yeah, they texted me after they left when they brought your stuff to the house. They promised not to tell, and it seems that they did a better job of doing that than Claudia did," she laughs.

"Well, either Claudia sucks at trying to get a hint across, or I'm dumb because I did not expect this. How long have you been planning this?"

"So many questions," I say, and we both laugh. "Quite a while. I've been thinking about it for about six months,"

"Six months! We've only been together for two years, and you've been planning to propose for six months?"

"That's why I worried it would be too fast. But to me, it felt right. I knew that if I didn't do it now, I would never do it. I had to force myself. I almost backed out at the last second, but I had already said too much, and there was no going back," 

"Well, I'm glad you didn't back out,"

-

"Hi guys," I say, greeting my family at the airport. My mom hugs Y/n.

"Let me see," my mom says, and Y/n shows the ring on her finger. "It's beautiful!" I smile watching Y/n talking to my parents.

"You think you made the right choice?" Finneas asks Y/n. I roll my eyes.

"By saying yes? Of course, that was the right choice. Unless there is something that I don't know, then it's best to get it out now before this goes any further," she jokes. I roll my eyes.

"You're an asshole," I tell Finneas. He just laughs.

When we get home, I immediately throw myself onto the bed. Shark jumps on the bed next to me and starts licking my face. I laugh and start petting him.

"Hi, baby. I missed you, too," I say.

"You missed the bed too apparently," Y/n laughs. 

"I haven't slept in my own bed in almost a month," I defend myself.

"There is no reason to get defensive," she gets cut off by her phone buzzing. She answers it. 

"Holy shit! I need to see the ring now!" Gia yells. Y/n puts her hand in front of the camera, and Gia screams. "That is amazing. It's beautiful!"

"It really is. I still need to call my mom to tell her,"

"Oh, I'm sure she already knows," I tell her.

"Did you tell my mom, too?"

"No, but I did tell Oliver. He was very excited to hear about what I was planning. He asked if he could tell your mom, and I said he could," Y/n rolls her eyes.

"Wow, literally everybody knew, and I had no suspicions at all,"

"Not surprising. You haven't really ever been one to realize anything. Remember the situation with Liam," Gia says.

"Or the Eva situation," I mumble.

"Don't start an argument now," Y/n tells me. I look down. Maybe I shouldn't have said that.

"Anyway, moving on," Gia chimes in. "Any idea when the wedding will be?"

"No clue," Y/n tells her. "We just got engaged. Do you think we immediately started planning? Although, we should start doing that soon," she says, looking at me.

"Just tell me what you want, and we will do that," I tell her. 

"Anyway, I'm gonna let you go. There are things I need to talk to Billie about," she ends the call and looks at me. "Did you really have to say that?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't really think about it. But I'm not wrong. Just one quick look through your texts and you would've seen why I was upset," I tell her.

"I had better things to worry about than to look through my texts. Also, I had no idea that you even had a conversation with Eva, let alone that it would be on my phone. I only knew what I saw, which was that you were upset and not talking to me. I thought it was something I did. Technically, I did, but I also didn't do anything. I should have never had Eva's number on my phone. But you also should've told me what happened rather than just avoid me,"

"I know, but I've never been great at communication, and you make it look so easy. But that's in the past. I shouldn't have said that,"

"But you were right," she kisses me and gets up. "I'm gonna get into the shower. Do you wanna join me?" I smile.

"Is that even a question?" I say and follow her.