Chase pulled back and reached once again for my hand. "Listen, I want you know something."
I stared deep into his amazing eyes. "What?"
"With the 'I love you' thing, you wanna know why I did such a sorry job of it?"
I shook my head. "You mean…just now? Because, actually—"
He laughed. "No. I mean earlier."
"Oh." Now I was laughing, too. "Yeah, I think I know what you mean."
"The thing is, you're the first girl I've said it to – the only girl I've said it to."
I blinked in surprise. "Seriously?"
He nodded. "And you want to hear something really messed up?"
"What?"
"I've loved you for weeks, maybe months. And my family – some of them, anyway – they saw it as clear as day. And I kept denying it because, well…" He gave me a sheepish grin. "I guess I was an idiot."
By now, my heart felt almost ready to burst. "If that's true, you're not the only one, because I should have talked to you too. When I overheard you saying that thing about dumping me, I should have asked you about it. But instead…" I gave him a sheepish smile of my own. "Well, I guess I was an idiot, too."
"You must be," he teased, "if you love someone like me."
I did love him, which meant there was no way I'd let that sentiment stand. "You mean someone wonderful?"
But already, Chase was shaking his head. "That's not the word I'd use." His voice grew quiet. "And I want to be honest with you. I've done plenty of stuff in my life, stuff I'm not proud of, but you need to know something else."
With a hard swallow, I said, "What?"
"First, lemme back up. Maybe a month or two before we met, I guess I went through a bit of crisis."
If so, this was the first I'd heard of it. "Really? What kind of crisis?"
"Call it growing pains," he said. "But I guess I started realize how empty my life was, so I pulled back, hard."
"On what?"
"Everything," he said. "Especially women." He gave a low scoff. "We both know what happened with that barista, right?"
I did know. And I was still wishing I didn't. But I nodded, anyway, dying to hear what he'd say next.
"That kind of stuff – it happened to me all the time. And for a long while, I couldn’t get enough. But then, almost overnight, it was like I'd had too much already." His gaze locked on mine. "I was done."
"You mean, just like that?"
"Just like that. And tonight, I finally realized why."
"Why?"
With his free hand, he reached up to caress the side of my face. "Because I was making room for you."
Oh, wow.
I leaned into his touch. "Seriously?"
"Seriously." He gave me a rueful smile. "Except on the day we met, I didn't realize that you were the one I'd been waiting for, which is why I was such an ass." He leaned his forehead against mine. "And for that, I really am sorry."
My eyes filled with tears – not the sad kind, but the happy kind. This whole thing felt like a dream – a crazy wonderful dream, even more so when I heard the sound of my name being called from the base of the Ferris Wheel.
I looked down over the edge of our car and saw two couples, waving up at me. I recognized them instantly as Chase's two brothers with their fiancées, Arden and Cami.
As I watched, Cami cupped her hands around her mouth and called out, "It's nice to meet you!"
When I looked to Chase, he was grinning. "My family."
With a laugh, I leaned over and hollered back. "Nice to meet you, too!"
As my words echoed across the distance, Chase pulled me tight against his side and whispered in my ear, "They've been dying to get to know you."
And I was dying to get to know them.
When our ride ended, I finally met them in person, and they couldn't have been any nicer, even Mason, who had always seemed like such a hard-ass on the TV show.
Afterward, the six of us spent the rest of the evening going on every ride that was still open and wandering through the midway, playing games, winning prizes, and laughing like old friends.
It was the best night of my whole life.
And it wasn't over yet.
Chapter 77
Mina
We were still laughing when we stumbled through the door of Chase's condo. We weren't drunk, but we were giddy.
Or at least, I was giddy. And Chase? Well, he seemed just as happy as I was.
He was holding a giant pink teddy bear, which he'd won fair and square in a classic ring-toss game. He'd given me the bear over my laughing objection that he should keep it, since he'd won the game, not me.
His reply was something I'd never forget. "No way. I won it for the girl I love."
The girl he loved.
That was me.
And even though I'd personally bombed out on all of the festival games myself, I considered myself the luckiest girl in the world, because Chase was the biggest, best, most wonderful prize of all.
Even now, I could hardly believe my luck. He was mine.
And I was his.
Way back in the beginning, I'd set out to save the Tomato Festival. But in the process, I'd gained more than I ever would've imagined. How crazy was that?
As Chase shut the condo door behind us, I kicked off my shoes and gave him a happy smile. "Do you know what today was?"
"What?"
"The best day of my life."
He pulled me close and whispered in my ear, "Hey, that's my line."
I was still holding onto the bear, which made it utterly impossible for me to do what I wanted, which was to grab Chase's ass with both hands and yank him tighter against me.
I mean, sure, I could attempt it with only one hand, but why go half-way, right? And besides, I wanted to do a lot more than that.
I pulled back to say, "We should probably take the
