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Troy has a sudden realization—he wants this forever. For as long as he’s known Gabriella, he’s known that he didn’t want it to end, but somehow not wanting this to end feels much more ephemeral than wanting this forever.
“I love you,” he says softly to her.
Now sleepy and fully sated, Gabriella smiles back at him. “I love you, too, Wildcat.”
He knows Gabriella. He’s learned how her mind works, and while it used to scare him—how prone she is to run—he’s gained an understanding of why that’s her go to response. She’s not scared of commitment—she’s scared of someone breaking their commitments. And the easiest way to prevent that is for her to run from commitment altogether
They’ve grown a lot the past year, though—both of them. Gabriella has stopped letting herself be scared of the future—or if she is, she’s gotten better at handling her fear—and Troy maybe realized he could stand to be a little less headstrong about everything.
So he’s content to just lay here, letting himself be caught up in her sleepiness. She loves him just as much as he loves her—this, he’s sure of—so he’ll save his contemplations of the future for another time.
“You’re thinking something,” she says.
His eyes meet hers and he chuckles softly. “Just that I love you.”
She props herself up to better face him, and the hotel sheets slip slightly. “What else?”
He mimics her posture and says nothing at first. She knows him too well. “You’re very pragmatic, you know that?” he asks rhetorically.
She quirks an eyebrow. “That doesn’t answer my question,” she says, amusement written on her face.
“Just…” Troy sighs. He’s not afraid to tell her his realization. If anything, it’s the opposite. He’s never felt more at home than when he’s with Gabriella. And if the fact that she spends more time at his new apartment than at her mom’s house means anything, at least a small part of her must feel the same way.
They’re eighteen, though, and there’s Gabriella’s thing about living in the moment with no worry about future commitments. And honestly, Troy knows she has a point. They’re eighteen. He shifts the conversation back to her, trying to gauge her thoughts. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” he asks.
She seems thrown off only momentarily by the non sequitur before deciding to just roll with it and answer his question. “Well, I’ll probably be wrapping up my master’s degree around then. And you’ll have already graduated, maybe with a teaching job already lined up?” she says. If she’s wondering where he’s going with this, she doesn’t ask. “All your family is back in Albuquerque, and I don’t really have any ties here, so I kind of figure we might end up moving back there,” she says unsurely, and Troy’s heart beats a little faster. “But, maybe we’ll feel more settled here by then and want to stay.”
Her eyes wander as though she’s trying to see if she missed anything, but Troy interrupts her thoughts. “But like—” he stops himself and asks another question, just to be extra sure. “What about, say, ten years?”
“Is there a right answer I’m supposed to give?” Gabriella asks.
A laugh leaves Troy’s lips, more at himself than her question. “You would move back to Albuquerque with me?”
She nods slowly. She probably thinks this was where he was going with it. “Unless there’s somewhere else you’d rather go?” she says questioningly.
Before she can finish the sentence, though, Troy kisses her hard, pressing her back to the bed. He pulls away with a wide grin on his face. Gabriella’s smile is as wide as his own. “Was that the right answer?” she asks, laughing.
“I love you,” he says, kissing her again. “I want to marry you.” Another kiss, before he realizes he just blurted it out like that.
She definitely heard it, though, judging by the look on her face. Her mouth is fallen open, just ever-so-slightly, and she’s looking at him with wide eyes. “You… want to marry me,” she says, unreadably.
He nods. There’s no point denying it, really. It’s not even that he doesn’t want her to know; it’s that he wanted to have the conversation planned out in his head first. “I love you,” he repeats quietly. “I’m not saying let’s go out and get married tomorrow or something—”
“No?” Gabriella asks seriously. “What’s stopping you?”
Troy runs a finger through her hair. “You. Your pragmatism.”
“Mmm. And what if I said don’t let that stop you?”
Troy’s hand freezes, still tangled in her hair. Her eyes meet his, wide and questioning. Innocent, as if that question didn’t make his whole world shift. “What do you mean?” he asks softly.
She inhales then smiles at him. It’s a carefree smile, maybe even a bit conspiring. Troy’s heart skips a beat. How did he get so lucky to have this girl lying beside him?
“We’re on vacation,” she says easily. “I’m sure there’s a courthouse around here somewhere.” Troy’s ears ring in his head. He would have sworn he was misunderstanding her up until she said those words. “Did you know there’s no waiting period to get married in California?”
“How do you know that?” he marvels.
“I know a lot of things.”
Troy stares at her, processing what she’s suggesting. He gets so far as to understand she wants to marry him right now, and he stops thinking beyond that. All he knows, at his very core, is that marrying Gabriella is an inevitability for him, so if she’s willing, he’s more than ready. They’ll figure everything else out together.
“Who are you,” he asks, voice still soft, “and what did you do with my girlfriend?”
“Mmm,” Gabriella says, feigning wonder. “I think I just made her your fiancée.”
Troy stops thinking at that point and kisses her. Hard. She falls back against the mattress and beams at him, and he kisses her again. “I love you,” he says, feeling high off emotions. “I love you,” he repeats emphatically before kissing her again and shifting overtop of her.
She giggles and kisses him back, pulling him in.