The Proposal

by Jasmine Guillory

  “This looks amazing,” she said, because that’s what you say in dreams to people who bring you freshly made breakfast. “Did you make all of this?”

  He smiled that same proud smile from when she’d complimented his risotto the night before. Apparently, no matter how good of a cook you were, you liked it when people told you your food was good. Now that she knew that, she’d tell him constantly.

  “I did. I hope you like scrambled eggs. I wasn’t sure. I know you like pancakes, but . . .”

  Luckily, she was a fan of all breakfast foods.

  “I love scrambled eggs. I love all of this.”

  She could never let Courtney know he’d made her breakfast twice. Oh shit, and he’d made her dinner last night, too. Courtney had such inane ways of judging relationships, but convincing her that it was just that Carlos loved to cook would be a losing battle.

  He got back in the bed next to her, his own plate in his hands.

  “You haven’t even tried it yet. How do you know you love it?”

  She picked up her fork and took a bite of eggs. Delicate and creamy, they were everything she wanted scrambled eggs to be.

  “Now I’ve tried it and I know I love it. Satisfied?”

  He nodded.

  “Very much so.”

  Far too quickly, she’d finished all of her food and lay back down in bed.

  “Oh my God, I’m so full I’m going to die.”

  He was still chewing on his last piece of bacon.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have eaten so fast, hmmm?”

  She pulled the blankets over her head.

  “I worked up an appetite. I was hungry!” she said to the underside of his comforter.

  He pushed his plate down to the foot of the bed and put his head under the blankets to join her.

  “What did you say?”

  They were almost nose to nose, tucked underneath his warm heavy blankets. It felt like they were in a cocoon together. She could happily stay like this with him all day.

  “I said I worked up an appetite for all that food.”

  He put his hand on her knee and ran it up and down the side of her body. She’d kept the sheet wrapped around herself as she ate, but now her whole body was available to him again.

  “You sure did. Why do you think I woke up early to make you breakfast? I thought you might be hungry.”

  “Mmmm, thank you for that.” His hand kept moving up her body. She turned over onto her back, and he pushed her legs open. “What time is it? When do you have to be at work?”

  He kissed her neck.

  “Um. I think about seven thirty? I know how you feel about waking up early, but I thought the coffee and breakfast would help?”

  Her eyes popped open and she pulled the covers down.

  “Seven thirty in the morning?” She looked around the room, not seeing a clock anywhere that would confirm his statement. But then, why would he lie about that? “You woke me up at seven a.m.?”

  He dropped kisses along her shoulder.

  “I know, I know, I’m so sorry. But I was awake. And hungry. And I thought you might want some eggs . . .” he kissed her cheek, “and bacon . . .” he kissed her other cheek, “and strawberry jam . . .” he kissed her mouth. He made kissing into an art form. Never rushed, never impatient, no matter how fast and eager and forceful he was.

  “Hmmmm. I guess you’re going to have to find a way to make my hour of lost sleep up to me. Do you have any idea of how you’re going to do that?”

  She could feel him smile against her skin.

  “Oh, I have some ideas.”

  Later, when he was frantically getting dressed to go to work, he stopped just as he’d buckled his belt.

  “Oh, hey, are you free Saturday night?”

  She picked up her jeans from the floor and pulled her phone out of the pocket.

  “Let me check. Why, what’s up?”

  She scrolled through her calendar—birthday party Friday night, and ugh, a wedding shower with Dana on Saturday afternoon, but nothing Saturday night.

  “Yeah, I’m free. Are you sure you don’t mean Saturday afternoon? If you can give me a good excuse to get out of this wedding shower I have to go to, I’ll love you forever.”

  Ooops. She turned to pull her jeans on and decided to pretend she’d never said that. Luckily, it didn’t seem like Carlos had heard anything past “free.”

  “It’s no big deal, but my buddy Drew and his fiancée, Alexa, will be in town, and I’m going to have dinner with them that night, if you want to join us.”

  Wait, what? He wanted her to meet his friend and his friend’s fiancée? Part of the whole reason she had wanted to stay away from relationships was so she wouldn’t have to hang out with people’s annoying friends when she didn’t want to. The last time she’d done that, she was with Fisher and his friends at Dodger Stadium, and the whole world knew how that one had ended.

  Why hadn’t she waited to see what he’d had in mind before saying she was free? She could have used the wedding shower to get out of this. It would have been the only good thing a wedding shower had ever done for the world!

  “If you have work to do or whatever, it’s cool.” Carlos was digging through his sock drawer. “But Drew and Alexa are fun, and I think you’d like them.”

  He didn’t seem to really care whether she went or not. That made her feel better. Maybe he was just inviting her so he’d have some company around his smug couple friends when they started talking about countertops or wedding flowers or the adorable bed-and-breakfast they’d stayed in on their last romantic getaway.

  “Okay, sure,” she said. “Just let me know when and where.”

  He had met her friends, after all.

  “Will do!” he said as he put his watch on. They walked out of his house together, and he kissed her at the bottom of the steps. “I might just make it to work on time. See you Saturday.”

  She kissed him back.

  “See you Saturday!”

  What had she gotten herself in to?

  * * *

  • • •

  “So this is the new house!” Drew said, standing at Carlos’s front door on Saturday afternoon. “I can’t believe you bought a house without consulting me.”

  Carlos waved Drew into the house.

  “Please, you would have been useless during the entire process. The only reason I managed to actually find a house to buy was because I didn’t have you around trying to convince me that I needed an in-house sauna or man cave or granite countertops or whatever thing it is they sell you on those house shows you like to watch.”

  Drew walked in the house and nodded as he looked around.

  “You know, I’ve gotten Alexa hooked on those things, too? Sometimes on Saturdays she’s all ready to go to the farmers’ market and brunch and yoga and whatever else and, like, four hours later we’re still on the couch deep into a house-shopping marathon. It’s fantastic.”

  Carlos rolled his eyes. Then he looked at Drew’s face. Damn it, the guy looked so fucking happy he could barely even make fun of him.

  “I’ll give you the grand tour as long as you don’t tell me anything more about those shows. The house is pretty small, and I haven’t done half the things I’ve wanted to do with it, but if you tell me that I need a double sink or recessed lighting or any of that bullshit, I’m kicking you out.”

  Drew accepted the beer Carlos handed him and took a long swig.

  “I’m already a fan of this TV. Does it swivel so you can watch it both in the kitchen and from the couch?”

  Carlos nodded and patted the top of the TV.

  “It sure does. It makes me happy every day.”

  After a walk around the house, where Drew asked a surprising amount of questions about the heated floors in the bathroom and the kitchen, they end
ed up on the couch in the living room with the game on.

  “Oh, hey, how’s Jessie doing?”

  Carlos automatically reached for his phone to check to see if anyone from the family had called him. Nothing.

  “She’s hanging in there. Her blood pressure is still high, and I’m still constantly worried about it, but her doctor doesn’t seem to be. She’s still only thirty-three weeks. I think my mom and aunt are saying rosaries every day about it. Hell, I should, too.”

  Drew patted him on the shoulder.

  “She’ll be okay, man. I’m sure her doctor is doing everything she should be.”

  She probably was, but that didn’t make him any less terrified.

  “Yeah. It’s just that this time of year. I think everyone in my family gets pretty paranoid about health stuff. Me included.”

  Ever since Nik had brought it up, he’d been thinking about talking to Angela about their dad. Nik was probably right that Angie was the only person who knew what it was like to lose their dad. Maybe sharing that grief with her would help them both.

  But he wasn’t sure he was ready to do that. He’d spent almost five years trying to beat back his grief; the idea of welcoming it in felt obscene.

  Carlos got up to get them chips and salsa and more beer. Drew immediately grabbed a chip, but hesitated before dipping it into the salsa. Carlos rolled his eyes.

  “Oh my God, you haven’t even been gone a year. I didn’t forget you’re scared of spicy food.”

  “I was just checking! I wasn’t sure you stocked Drew-style salsa anymore.”

  Carlos leaned back against the couch cushions. Nik was right about this couch; it was pretty magical.

  “I don’t. I bought this just for you. Be honored. I wouldn’t buy this bullshit for just anyone.”

  Drew put his hand over his heart.

  “I am, man. I am.”

  At the next commercial break, Drew cleared his throat.

  “Um, actually. Speaking of. There was something I wanted to ask you.”

  Speaking of what? Carlos raised his eyebrows at him.

  “I’m flattered, but I don’t think I’m ready to get married any time soon.”

  Drew threw a chip at him.

  “Fuck you. I’m taken, remember?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I remember,” Carlos said.

  “Anyway. I was going to say that if it wasn’t for you, I probably never would have figured my shit out, and well, will you be my best man?”

  Damn it. Carlos hadn’t planned on getting emotional today, but he was surprisingly touched by this.

  “Oh shit, man, of course I will.”

  “Thanks.” Drew let out a deep breath. “I was going to ask when you were up in Berkeley for the engagement party, but you’d just found out about Jessie at that point and there was a lot going on. Just make sure your speech isn’t too wild—my grandma is going to be there.”

  Carlos grinned.

  “Oh, my speech is going to be fantastic.” Carlos rubbed his hands together and reached for the good salsa. “This is going to be fun. Do you guys have a wedding date yet?”

  Drew shook his head.

  “Not yet—we’re working on it. Probably sometime next summer. Hell, I’d do it tomorrow if I could. But you’ll be the first to know as soon as we have a date. You better lock down that entire week for me.”

  Carlos laughed.

  “You got it. I’m just trying to imagine what I would have thought if someone told me at this time last year that you’d be telling me a year later you’d be ready to get married ‘tomorrow.’ I would probably fall over in shock.”

  Drew picked up the empty salsa bowl and walked into the kitchen to refill it.

  “You probably would have. Hell, I definitely would have. What can I say, sometimes when it hits, it hits.”

  At the next commercial break, Drew said—oh so casually—“Hey, so what’s going on with this Dodgers-game girl? What’s she like? We are going to get to meet her tonight, aren’t we?”

  Carlos rolled his eyes. Drew was doing that “we” thing that couples always did. Had he turned into one of those people already?

  “Yes, ‘we’ are. Lucky for you, she was dying for an excuse to get out of some wedding shower she was supposed to go to, so you’re it.” Well, that was sort of true. Maybe that would stop Drew from trying to turn tonight’s dinner into a whole couples’ thing. “Don’t make this into a big thing. I’m not ready to get married to her tomorrow.”

  “Okay, okay, it’s not a big thing, I heard you the first time.”

  The smirk on Drew’s face made Carlos pretty sure he hadn’t heard him at all.

  * * *

  • • •

  Dinner with Carlos, his friend, and his friend’s probably perfect fiancée was the last thing Nik wanted to do. The one good thing about Fisher had been that all of his friends were so annoying that she’d made fun of them to their faces constantly without them even realizing it. She probably couldn’t pull that off with Carlos’s friends.

  Also, she had no fucking idea what she should wear. Everyone at the shower was in cute little floral dresses, and she hadn’t worn a cute little floral dress since she was seven years old. Her concession had been not wearing black to the shower in the first place. But tonight she wanted to not fit in a little less aggressively.

  She stared into her closet for a full five minutes before she gave up and called Dana.

  “Okay, I went to that boring shower with you; now you have to pay me back by getting me out of this dinner tonight.”

  “Why don’t you want to go?” Dana asked. Nik could tell by her regular breathing that she was running. It was good that she liked Dana so much—otherwise she’d hate her for being able to have a regular conversation during exercise.

  “He’s not even my boyfriend. Why do I need to meet his friends? Plus, what if they hate me?”

  They probably would hate her. They would think she was too mean or sarcastic or abrasive for Carlos.

  “Why’d you tell him you would go, then?” Dana asked. “You usually don’t say yes to things you don’t want to do.”

  Maybe she should wear that leather motorcycle jacket again? She liked that jacket. It made her feel like a badass.

  It would make her feel like a very sweaty badass tonight; it was well over eighty degrees outside. She put the jacket back in her closet with a sigh.

  “That’s not true. I do things I don’t want to do all the time. I went to that stupid shower today with you, didn’t I?”

  Dana’s loud huff from a normal person running would have just meant they were out of breath, but not from Dana.

  “Courtney and I don’t count. No really, why did you say yes?”

  Nik sighed.

  “He asked if I was free for dinner—was I supposed to lie? And he’d just . . .” No, she shouldn’t tell Dana about Carlos making her breakfast. She wasn’t Courtney, but she’d still react to that. “Plus, you guys have met him. It felt churlish to say no to meeting his friends.”

  “Okay, then you have to go. But they’ll like you! We liked Carlos, didn’t we? And Courtney and I are a pretty tough crowd when it comes to men. Wear that navy blue striped dress you wore to my birthday party. And do not wear those booties I know you’re already thinking about wearing. They look like clown shoes.”

  She put the booties back into her closet.

  “I hate you. You’re the worst. I’ll wear some sandals or something.”

  “I hate you, too,” Dana said. “Now I’ve got to go. I’m about to meet my running partner.”

  Nik stopped halfway through picking up her silver sandals. They made her legs look great.

  “Haven’t you been running this whole time?”

  “Just a mile, running to meet her.” Nik had never said “just” and “a mile” about ru
nning in her life. “Okay, talk later! Let me know how it goes!”

  Dinner was at Café Stella, one of her favorite restaurants in Silver Lake and one that had the advantage of being so close to her apartment she could walk there, even in her hot silver sandals. She told people she loved it despite how trendy and Instagrammable it was, but she had been known to post a few Instagrams from it herself. She saw Carlos when she walked in, but he was too busy talking to the two people on the other side of the table to notice her walking toward them.

  Ugh, why was she so nervous about this?

  “Hi,” she said, when she was standing right next to the table.

  “Hey!” Carlos jumped out of his chair and kissed her on the cheek. “I didn’t even see you come in.” They sat down, and she did a double take when she saw the woman across the table from her.

  “Nik, these are my friends Drew and Alexa. Drew and Alexa, meet Nik.”

  Carlos had not told her that Alexa was black. From everything that he’d told her about Drew, mild salsa and all, it would never have occurred to her that he’d be engaged to a black woman.

  And . . . judging by the quickly masked look of surprise on Alexa’s face, Alexa hadn’t known she was black. She hadn’t thought to have the “did you tell your friends I’m black?” conversation with Carlos—she assumed that because he was Latino she didn’t have to. Which was probably partly true; she hadn’t been worried that his friends were racist. But if Alexa had been the white woman that she’d expected her to be, that look of surprise on her face would have been a hell of a lot more stressful. Instead, she felt some of her anxiety about this evening drain away.

  “It’s so nice to meet you both. I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said. Except that Alexa is black.

  “Same here,” Drew said. “I, um, saw your claim to fame on SportsCenter before I even knew Carlos was there.”