A tear trickles down my cheek. “Stop being sappy. You’re killing me.”

He smirks, pulling me close and kissing me hard.

“I can’t ask you to marry me, because I already have that. I can’t give you life, because we’ve already created that. I can’t take your virginity, because I own it, but I can give you a moment back again. A moment that started a long, beautiful, hard and crazy journey for us. Will you let me do that?”

“Are you asking me if I’ll let you lay me down to make love to me in the back of your truck, under the stars?”

He grins. “Heck yeah, I am.”

I wrap my arms around his neck. “Well, gee, Max, you didn’t have to feed me all that nonsense to get me into bed. All you had to do was ask.”

He throws his head back and laughs, then pulls me down onto the soft rug he laid out in the back of his truck. I roll to my side and I press my forehead to his, cupping his jaw. This has always been our way of expressing our love, and nothing has changed. I close my eyes and breathe him in, thanking God for bringing him back to me.

Eventually, we roll to our sides and look up at the stars that created our worlds once, a long time ago, and now they’re doing it all over again. Only this time, they’re creating it stronger and with an unbreakable foundation that nothing will penetrate.

Not this time.

This time, I’m keeping him.

THE END