Elias’s POV
The flashes didn’t stop, not even after they stepped out of the restaurant. The press followed them like they were witnessing something the world had never seen before — as if no one had ever been proposed to before Zack Quinn decided to do it.
I kept my distance, hands gripping the steering wheel, watching from behind the windshield as Ariana smiled under the lights. She looked happy. Maybe genuinely happy. And that should’ve made me glad, right?
Except all I could think about was that it should’ve been me beside her.
When she turned her head for a moment, our eyes met across the crowd. Just for a second. It was enough to make my chest ache.
The reporters kept shouting, asking for a kiss, for a statement, for anything they could twist into another headline. Zack placed a
