Now I was giggling again. 'You can't wait 17 hours for me?'

Wes: 'Buxbaum, I've waited my whole life for you. For the love of God, put me out of my misery and let me woo you with coffee and chocolate sprinkles.'

Liz threw her head back and started laughing - hard - and it was impossible not to join her. I wondered what she'd think if she knew the quote from Jerry McGuire - You complete me - flashed through my very soul as I watched her laugh.

"Can I please ask out your daughter first?" I yelled in the general direction of the porch, desperate to set it up before the night ended.

Liz Buxbaum was in my arms and happy to be there; obviously the night was magic, which made me terrified of broken spells, forgotten glass slippers, and discarded pumpkins.

"Please?"

Her face slid into a wider smile, her best smile, and she said, "It did?"

The little shit looked satisfied, absolutely thrilled that she'd tortured me, and I yanked on the drawstring. "That's not supposed to make you happy."

As I watched her talking intently to him, their faces close, he smiled down at her and I thought they were going to kiss. Nonononononono - my breath got stuck in my lungs as I watched them, unable to look away.

But then he leaned down and hugged her, which was worse.

Okay, maybe not worse, but still terrible.

Her dress was just as incredible as it'd been in the picture she'd texted me, but I felt, like, pissed when I looked at it. Not pissed at her, but pissed that it had become a different dress entirely.

His.

Now it was the dress that she'd put on for Michael, the dress that would be in all the pictures that her dad and Helena had surely taken.

It would be forever be archived as what she wore to prom with Michael Young, and I was homesick for the before, when it was the dress she'd tried on because I told her white was her color.

The dress she'd texted me a picture of, not Michael.

It wasn't fair.

I saw her first.

Liz Buxbaum had always been my secret. She was this incredible thing I'd know about but everyone else seemed to miss. The treasure hidden in plain sight, the fortune of a lifetime that was somehow only visible to me.

But now Micheal had seen her.

“Anything you want, Buxbaum. As long as I’m with you, it will be the perfect day.”

And that was the moment I knew.

Buxbaum, I’ve waited my whole life for you. For the love of God, put me out of my misery and let me woo you with coffee and chocolate sprinkles.

Liz threw her head back and started laughing—hard—and it was impossible not to join her. I wondered what she’d think if she knew the quote from Jerry McGuire—You complete me—flashed through my very soul as I watched her laugh.

“I fell in love with teasing you in the second grade, when I first discovered that I could turn your cheeks pink with just a word. Then I fell in love with you.”

Her eyebrows went down in a patented Liz scowl that made me so happy I wanted to spin her around and mess up her hair. She said. "Bennett, no one is totally flawless-come on. She's pretty dang close, though."

I shrugged like I didn't care, bracing myself for her glorious overreaction when I said. "I suppose.”

"You suppose?" My Liz was fired-up, and it was perfection. She said, "What on earth could she possibly be lacking? Do you want bigger boobs or something? Is she not-“

"She's not you.

That made her gasp.

"What?"

I swallowed down emotion-the girl made me so damn weak-and said, "She. Isn't. You."

She closed her mouth and looked at me, her wild green eyes everywhere on my face like she wanted to believe me.

"She's pretty, but her face doesn‘t transform into sunlight when she talks about music. She's funny, but not spit-out-your drink-in-astonishment funny.“