Date Night With a Big Shiny Ending

My boyfriend of over three years and I hadn't been out on a date, ALONE, together since before Christmas.  The sun, moon, and stars finally aligned and we happened to have a kid-free weekend.  This occurred to me last week as we sat in the baseball stands watching not one but two Little league baseball games.  I declared "Hey, we have no kids this weekend.  You are taking me on a date this Saturday."  A day or two later, he had made the plans and said it was all taken care of.  I am always telling him just to show up and take me somewhere, but now I decide I don't like surprises.   He wouldn't tell me where we were going.  Hello????  A girl needs to know where she is going, so she can figure out what she is wearing.  Still, he wouldn't tell me.

He took me to a nice hotel downtown, one with a casino, which I couldn't get into because I didn't have photo I.D., and security was not convinced I was 21.  I am 34.  Neither of us likes to gamble much, so we weren't too disappointed.  We walked down the street and had a really nice, delicious dinner.  Then we hung out in a bar in the hotel, people watched, talked a lot, and enjoyed the drinks, music, and later a basket of french fries when the craving hit me.  After he had a few beers, I told him to have another because the fourth one always makes him "mushy."  I will leave the rest of the details out, but it was a fabulous night ;0)

We had just finished getting ready for the day and check-out time was 10 minutes away.  My boyfriend was hesitant to leave, but I wanted to get this show on the road.  "Come on!  Let's go!  I'm hungry.  I need coffee.   We need to go visit our dads for Father's Day."

He was standing around, pacing, stretching, hugging me, sweating bullets!  He started to say that he had wanted to tell me yesterday how much he loved me and how much I mean to him, but that he held back because I had told him that he gets mushy when he drinks, and he didn't want me to think it was the beer talking.  "Awwww, I love you too, Baby.  Let's go."  Not yet.  He went and got a towel to wipe the sweat away.  I sat on the bed.  He kneeled.  Ohh, ohh, oooooooohhhh.  Oh. My. God.  He was a nervous wreck, and now I was too.  I got up from the bed.  I sat back down on the bed.  I put my sunglasses on.  I laid on the bed.  He took my sunglasses off.  He told me to get up.  He started to talk again, but kept tearing up.  Oh, maybe he isn't proposing.  Maybe something is wrong.  I asked him what was wrong.  He said that nothing was wrong, that everything was right.  He would start talking, fumbling in his pocket, then start crying, then kiss me to cover it up, then repeat.  It was the sweetest mess of a proposal, and I was now 99% sure of what he was doing, but I was still acting clueless, and fidgety, and was not making it any easier on him.  Finally, he said the words "I want to marry you."  Then he pulled out the most gorgeous ring and asked me if I would marry him.  And still I was a mess.  I said you don't want to get married.  (He is 42, has had a couple long-term live-in girlfriends, but never married.)  He told me he wants to be married, to come home to a wife and a houseful of kids every night.  That he can't stand being apart from me each night.  That he doesn't want to live his life anymore without me in it each and every day.  I told him my boys and I are a lot to handle.  He said he loves me, and that he loves all three of them too.  That's what got me, hook, line, and sinker.  I got choked up and finally shook my head yes, and he held me and cried, and I could feel his relief, and I said the word "Yes" out loud.  We told his dad, and my parents, and my sister, and everyone was so excited.  I cannot wait to tell my sons and his son.  It is killing me to wait a whole week until they are home.