#legallylarkins

Some love stories start in candlelit restaurants or on tropical vacations…ours? It started in the University of Houston training room. Super romantic, right? Back in 2019, Zionah had just transferred from Baylor to join the UH soccer team and Melvin was on the football team. We were both recovering from surgery (shoutout to our shared surgeon, Dr.Greaser — thanks, doc!) and spent more time in the training room than on the field. One of Melvin’s friends mentioned that Zionah was the new transfer from Baylor and that was the start of it all. We kept running into each other in the training room, on campus, basically everywhere. It was hard to Melvin honestly, he was the 6'3 guy riding around in a sit-down motorized scooter because of his injury. Let’s just say he made a strong impression — and then we realized we were in the same online geology class. Naturally, we teamed up for an extra credit project. Did we ever finish it? Nope. Did we talk for hours instead and completely forget about the assignment? Absolutely. Then COVID hit, and suddenly there wasn’t much to do — except, you guessed it, more rehab. Between physical therapy sessions at Memorial Hermann and all the random “accidental” run-ins, we became the best of friends. We could talk about everything, from deep life stuff to who was the better cook (which is still up for debate). Slowly but surely, our friendship turned into something more. Casual hangouts became home-cooked meals, Power marathons, and real dates. In 2021, we made it official, and the rest is history. Fast forward to May 7, 2025 — on the coast of Spain, Melvin asked the easiest question Zionah has ever answered: Will you marry me? And of course, she said yes.