Part 65
It was the third costume change and she’d managed to slip away unnoticed. As she rounded the corner, he was standing with his back to her. She easily slipped up behind him and put her hands over his eyes.
“Guess who?” said Kevin for her.
AJ felt her hands and knew it was Chelsea but wanted to tease her. “It can’t be my beautiful woman because she’d be wearing a rock on her left hand by now. Is it Michelle?”
The other guys were there too and helped out. “Nope,” laughed Nick.
“Uhh….Leigh?”
“Not even warm,” said Howie.
“Okay, then it HAS to be Kaci.”
“Nope, not me,” laughed Kaci as she joined the group.
“I give up,”
Chelsea moved her hands, “You goof!! It’s me!”
AJ took her hands as he looked over his shoulder. “I knew all along. Didn’t Michelle give you the box?”
“Yeah, she did.”
“You don’t like it?”
“I haven’t even looked at it. I knew what it was and I wanted you to put it on my finger,” answered Chelsea as she took the box out of her pocketbook.
AJ turned to face her and took the box. At the same time, the guys started humming ‘Yes, I Will’. Carefully, he took the ring out of the box, took Chelsea’s hand, and slipped the ring onto the appropriate finger.
His eyes locked on hers, he said, “I am honored that you want to be my partner, my wife, and spend our lives together.”
“You are such a beautiful gift from God….to Annie and me,” whispered Chelsea fighting her tears of joy.
AJ reached up to caress her cheek. “I love you.”
“Let’s GO! The video has BEEN over!” called the stage manager.
“Go on back to your seat,” said AJ as he gave her a quick kiss.
“I’m going to watch the rest of the show from here, Alex.”
“Why?”
“The fans might see my ring and KNOW what is going on. Some of them have already been talking about the message.”
“We’ll talk about this later but I really wish you’d go back out and watch.”
Chelsea couldn’t answer because AJ was being pulled onstage by Kevin. She watched as he blew her a kiss and then decided to go on back out like AJ wanted. She’d just have to keep her ring hidden.
