"Mina... Why do you always do stuff like this... This...?"

"This is amazing!" Ryan said, shocked,

A large smile plastered on his thin handsome jaw.

I flushed happily. This was the first time I had ever done something like this, in all the four years we had been together.

The room was lit in over a hundred little fake candles that glowed dimly all the same. Their fake little bulbs flickering just as an actual wick would. The aroma of the one thousand and ninety five white chrysanthemums assaulted your nose in a pleasant way when you walked in and the only light on was from the candles which gave the room a gentle yellow glow casting their longer shadows across the walls. The flowers lay across the living room floor, on the tiny table and two chairs we called a dining set, but was little more than a shelf and two barstools with the one single cactus I had managed to keep alive. Peppy. The flowers were on the couch and trailed off into the bedroom, when you didn't think there were more flowers, you would look around and see they didn't end. I might have gone overboard with getting a flower for every day we had officially been together. But I didn't care.

It was how I felt. On this momentous occasion.

The only thing I felt bad about was the rush on the clock, now.

Ryan had been home for all of five minutes and I felt bad for ushering him out the door, when he hadn't even had a chance to enjoy my surprise. but I understood how work was. When you are an emergency doctor sometimes your time is not your own. And so even though I had been sitting there for two hours and dying to see his face when he got home. Dying for him to scoop me up in his arms and carry me to the bed where he could throw me atop the flowers and make love to me.

I knew we needed to go. Still, it warmed my heart to see his eyes light up with appreciation. 'It's time I show you how much I love and appreciate you. How much I want you.'

'The way you adore my effort, the way you are so touched and grateful for me. I feel it for you too. I know this is the first time I have ever taken steps to bare my heart. And even though some would say I never cared, or never bothered to show I cared.'

I really, truly did.

The table near the door had a couple flowers on it displayed neatly in front of our row of pictures together. The ones starting from childhood and all the way up until my birthday photo from this year.

"I brought you clothes to change into, I had a feeling you wouldn't want to wear what you wore to the office this morning after such a busy and hectic day." I said.

"You want me to change here in the living room next to the door?" He asked.

I smirked. "Here, the bedroom, the kitchen, what's the difference? You will still be naked in front of me and it's not your first time." I said.

He chuckled. "So you won't show this tired old man any mercy, and are just going to watch me undress?

I laughed, and his eyes sparkled with delight, but he started unbuttoning his shirt.

"You are twenty six, that's hardly old, and no. I am going to enjoy the show on my birthday." I commented. 

He pulled his pants down slowly and winked. I laughed again.

"Alright, alright I will give you a moment to catch your breath. If I keep staring I am going to want to skip dinner and just have the final course." I said.

"That doesn't sound half bad." Ryan commented, rubbing his belly goofily.

I rolled my eyes.

"Those flowers look pretty fluffy." He said.

"No! we can't skip dinner." I said firmly. "I already made the reservations and the place is hard to get into. It's bad enough we are already late." I looked away so that he could finish changing in peace.

'I hope he can feel everything I have ever felt through all these years, even if I never said it. Even if I stayed silent and held it in. Ryan, you know you are the man I want to spend forever with and the only man with whom I can picture any future together, right?'

'You held me during my parents' accident and held me when I felt like I had no one left. Your family loved me just like their own, despite me being a complete stranger.'

'You are the one I want to live with, love with, and grow with.'

'You always were and always will be my everything.'

'I trust you with my heart. I haven't forgotten a moment with you, not the foggy memories of your little hand that pulled me up from the dirt and wiped mud from my pigtails at age six. Not until this moment now. I have always known, just known, I didn't need anyone else. I am twenty now. We have spent a decade by each other's side.'

'I truly and utterly love you from the bottom of my heart.'

I wanted to tell him... Finally, tell Ryan with my words, that he is my everything.

Not just with actions.

Because there were a million and one ways we said I love you, to each other every single day. Simply by doing what the other needed without a single word said.

So setting up this romantic surprise was only half of it. I wanted to give myself to him tonight, to all of him.

And then I wanted to propose.

'I want that future together with you, Ryan. That perfect big yard, with two tiny kids running around it squealing, their loud laughter mixing with our own.'

'I want marriage and a family, and I am going to start with the first one tonight!'

After he says yes, I am going to surprise him with the second half of that picturesque future. And we could work on part two of my dreams later.

All I have to do is actually propose. 

'Get those loving words that floated around in my head out of it, and give him the plane tickets... That, and keep the secret for half an hour.'

'I had waited this long after all.'

Yet, the excitement was still killing me inside. 'But I could wait… I could wait, just till after we went to dinner.'

I have already waited this long, and we have a lifetime ahead of us so what was a mere few more moments.

Right?

"Done. You can look now." He said.

I turned back around and Ryan held out my jacket for me, I flushed with happiness. 'He is the sweetest. Gentle, kind,how did I luck out so much. I have never had good luck in my life. Most would say I have had some unfortunate experiences, maybe even say I have bad luck. But he makes me feel like I don't.'

"You are breathtakingly perfect, Ryan!'

"You look beautiful tonight Mina." He said, his voice catching happily in the back of his throat.