I’m dreaming this whole thing right? I mean my daughter couldn’t have possibly just said she asked Lauren to marry me.

“I said I asked her to mar…”

“Mackenzie.” Lauren says, shaking her head.

Holy fuck.

“But I really want you guys…” Mackenzie starts, but Lauren quickly interrupts her again.

“Mackenzie, didn’t we talk about this today?”

“You talked about it?” I squeal out, wide eyed at the both of them.

“Daddy, please marry her I really want her to…”

“Mackenzie!” Lauren yells.

I stumble back against the counter looking back and forth between the two of them. They’ve talked about this? My mind is sprinting in circles in my head, I have no idea if this is all really happening right now or not.

“You don’t want to anymore?” Mackenzie asks, rather sadly.

“Mac…” Lauren starts, stopping to shake her head.

Wait did she just say you don’t anymore? What the hell does that mean? Did… Did Lauren… want to marry me? Fuck, I haven’t really even thought about it. I mean shit, we’ve been together for months… I didn’t think you thought about this shit for years.

I love Lauren with all my heart, well half of it I guess. Mackenzie has the other half, but this whole marriage thing has never really been my thing. I’ve never really pictured myself married. Although for a while I never pictured myself with kids, but here I am standing in my kitchen with my daughter and she’s the one with enough balls to ask my girlfriend to marry me. Shit, she’s got more balls than I do.

“Mackenzie, didn’t I tell you this wasn’t one of those things that you can’t push or control. Honey this is something that your dad has to want before he can even think of asking me. It’s not something you can ask and just have happen. I know your young and you don’t really get this, but you can’t make your dad want something he doesn’t want.” She sighs, running her fingers through Kenzie’s hair.

“I’m sorry Mac, but like I said whether your dad and I marry or not, I’ll always be a part of your life and you’ll always be a part of mine. Nothing with ever change that. I love you more than you will ever know, but you can’t make this happen and I’m sorry that you’re upset over this, but life doesn’t work that way.”

I stand there still just staring blankly at the both of them. Lauren keeps wiping Kenzie’s face with the backs of her fingers and Kenzie is just staring up at her like her world just fell apart. They both have this sad look on their faces and I honestly still have no idea what’s going on right now.

“But I want you to be my mom so bad.” she says, sobbing now.

“Me marrying your dad doesn’t make me your mom Mac.” Lauren says quietly.

“Yes it does.” She cries out.

“No, you wanting me to be there for you and me loving you and caring for you makes me that. I would do anything for you.”

“Then marry my dad. Please.” She begs, getting down on her knees, crying.

I watch the tears fall down Lauren’s face and I can tell this is killing her, hell it’s killing me.

“I can’t Mackenzie… I can’t make that decision and neither can you.”

“I can.” I say, and I’m shocked at myself for saying it out loud.

They both turn to look at me, Mackenzie with a smile and Lauren with a mixture of terror and shock. Looks like she forgot I was here.

“It’s my decision to make right? Isn’t that what you two keep saying?”

“You’ll marry her?” Mackenzie says, jumping back up from the floor.

“Justin… This isn’t something you get forced into. Think about what your doing. If you don’t want this, then you don’t want it. And if I don’t then I don’t. You can’t do this because she wants you to.”

Is she trying to talk me out of it now? Hell I thought she wanted to.

“And if you want it?”

“Then I wait until you want it.” She says with a sigh.

I have to ask… “Do you?”

“She told me yes.” Mackenzie interjects.

Lauren flinches, closing her eyes. I close the gap between us, hooking my finger under her chin to make her look at me, “Do you?” I ask again.

She shrugs, letting a tear fall from her eye.

I smile, “Then I made my decision.”

“Don’t.” She warns, “Don’t do this.”

“I thought you wanted me to.”

“It doesn’t matter if I do or not. This isn’t what you want.”

“What if it is?”

“Then you wouldn’t have looked like someone just killed your dog and handed you it’s head when she mentioned it earlier… You would have done it on your own… you would have a ring… You wouldn’t be doing it in a kitchen...” she rambles on and on and on…

“Are you done?” She sighs, nodding.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t ask you in a kitchen, I would do it on my own and I will, I would have a ring, we would live together, I would get down on one knee, shit all of that was true, but I’m afraid that if I don’t do it now you’ll turn me down when I do.” She laughs through her tears.

“C’mere.” I say, grabbing her hand, motioning for Mackenzie to follow us out to the back yard. I stop by the side of the pool, pulling Lauren in front of me. I smile over at Mackenzie and she giggles, grinning from ear to ear.

Looking back towards Lauren, I’m speechless. I can’t believe I’m really about to do this. Honestly I can’t imagine my life without her in it. I’ve lost her once, I’m not doing it again. I love her with everything I have. She’s the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing on my mind when I go to sleep, hell I even dream about this woman.

I think it’s time I grew some balls.

“I love you, you know that right?”

“You don’t have to do this, please don’t do this.”

I smile, “You didn’t answer my question.”

She sighs, “Yes, I know you love me.”

“Do you have any idea how much?”

“I have a pretty good idea, if it’s anywhere near as much as I love you.”

“It’s more, a lot more.”

“I think we’ll agree to disagree on that.” She says, finally smiling back at me.

I smile, running my hand slowly down her face, tucking a fly piece of hair that had fallen from the pins holding it back. “You are the most beautiful person, inside and out, that I have ever met.”

“Your not so bad yourself.” she says, placing her hand over mine, resting on her cheek.

“You were right. I was scared shitless when Mackenzie said she had asked you to marry me. I’m not going to lie, at first the thought scared me, but then I listened to Mackenzie say how bad she wants you a part of our family and it got me thinking.”

“And what’d you come up with?” She asks, tears threatening to drop from her beautiful green eyes.

“Well, she got me thinking about life and how I’ve always looked at it. A year ago I would have told you I was never having kids and I was never getting married. This morning I still had the no marriage thought rolling through my head, but then I thought about my life without you and I couldn’t breathe. There isn’t a part of me that wants to lose you.”

“You don’t have to marry me to keep me around, Justin.”

“I know that.”

“So, it doesn‘t matter if this is what Mackenzie wants or if this is what I want. What do you want?”

“You.“ I say smiling, “Once I started thinking about it, it made sense to me. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, I want to have a family with you, I want to watch you walk down the aisle towards me with Ryan on your arm, I want to give Kenzie some brothers and sisters and I want you to be the mother of my kids. I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life loving you and caring for you…”

“I never thought I’d want any of this, but when I met you everything changed. I want kids, I want marriage, I want an entire room full of your shoes, I want your clothes mixed in with my clothes in the closet, I want to wake up next to you every morning, I want to go to sleep with you in my arms every night, I want to cry with you when you watch sad/romantic movies, I want to wipe the drool off you face the first time you meet Mark Wahlberg, I want to put out a petition to get the Golden Girls back on TV just to see you laugh the way you do when you watch that show…” I stop when I finally hear her laugh.

I take both her hands in mine and stare into her eyes, “Most importantly I want you to marry me and spend the rest of your life with me and Kenzie.”

She lets the tears fall down her face as she smiles at me. She’s got me a little nervous though, she isn’t answering and I have to say I’ve never been a very patient person. I may act like I am, but I’m not.

“She already told me yes, she can’t say no now.” Mackenzie says, making us both laugh.

“I want to hear her say it.” I say, grinning down at her.

“So what do you say darlin’? Think you can handle us for the rest of your life?”

“Yeah, I think I can handle that.”