by J. Saman
“What the fuck is with you two talking behind my back? When did you become BFFs?”
This gets a laugh out of both of them. Like my being pissed off is hilarious. Of course they don’t answer me.
“Screw both of you.” I take a drink of my wine. “Assholes,” I say pointing at both of them in turn, but they find my little outburst entertaining. They’re laughing so hard now they’re in stitches over it. “You both suck at life; you know that?” This makes Amara snort.
“Fuck, I love you, chicky,” Levi jokes in the familiar way he used to.
“Shut up,” I grumble, only making the two of them laugh again.
“See how easy this is?” he asks and I glare, about to throw a piece of chicken from my pho at him.
I look at Amara in outrage. “I believe you have officially broken the best friend code. Going behind my back with my ex is a direct violation.”
“Maybe, but you’ll thank me one day.”
25
“Have I told you tonight how beautiful you are?” Tom asks as he plays with my freaking ring finger, again, in the back of his car on our way to the Ritz Carlton, Central Park, for the charity benefit he’s making me attend. Why we’re going, I don’t know. He has one night left with me and that’s tonight.
He leaves me tomorrow for London on a ten p.m. flight. I’m a wreck. I’ve been a wreck for a week. I haven’t talked to anyone. I’ve worked, gone to school and clinicals, done my homework, ate and slept.
That’s it.
Though all that kind of sounds like a lot in retrospect.
I’ve gone to Tom’s a few nights to sleep, but in truth, we haven’t spent much time together. I took the week off of work thinking that we’d be together, but we weren’t. In fact, he’s been working late all week to prepare for his leaving. To say that I’m angered by this is a small understatement, but there isn’t much I can do about it.
He’s got work and it’s important. In fact, that’s exactly what he said when I asked if I was going to see him at all. He wasn’t even apologetic about it.
That said, I know he’s upset about leaving me. He sprung a first class ticket on me last night for my spring break. It’s sweet really, but I’m just not in a place right now where I can handle sweet. I’m in a place right now where I’m sad my boyfriend is leaving me and that I didn’t get to spend more time with him before he left.
Coming in second to his work sucks.
I’m also in the place where I’m avoiding Levi, though I’ve talked to his sister on the phone a handful of times. Go figure on that. She’s like a spy who is openly fighting for the other team, but I don’t care. I love her and I want to keep her. I have plans to take her shopping on Saturday and I’m looking forward to it.
Levi hasn’t tried to talk to me again after he left my house last week. I know he’s giving me my space, but I also know he’s counting down the days until Tom leaves. I’m no closer to an answer than I was last week when Levi dropped the I-love-you bombshell on me.
I get the occasional text from him at odd hours that say things like he’s thinking about me. That he misses me. That he needs me.
Those kill me.
Whatever. The point is, the last thing I want to be doing right now is going to a charity event. Write them a damn check and be done with it. “Remind me why aren’t we curled up on your couch together?”
He chuckles.
That’s not the reaction I want. I want him to tell me I’m right and demand that we turn this car around. I’m wearing a black cocktail dress, my hair and nails are done along with my makeup. I look the part, but I don’t feel it.
“Tom, you’re leaving me tomorrow. This is our last night here together. I want it to be just us, not a room filled with hundreds of strangers.” I’m annoyed. I’m despondent. I’m just plain old sad. He chuckles. More freaking chuckling. We pull up in front, and the valet opens the car door on my side so I get out. Tom holds my elbow, leading me inside after palming the valet some money.
“Right this way, Mr. Masters,” an older gentleman, who I assume is a concierge or party attendant, says, ushering us towards one of the elevators off to the right of the entrance.
“Thank you,” is all Tom says as he takes my hand interlacing our fingers. Even though I don’t want to go to this thing, Tom looks hot as all sin in his tux. Like, damn.
The concierge stays with us as we ride up to the 22nd floor. I had no idea there was a ballroom on this floor, though I know the old Ritz in Boston, which is now the Taj, has one on the top floor that I’ve heard is amazing.
We’re silent the entire ride up. Tom continues to play with my fingers in the hand he’s holding. The doors open and we’re lead down the hall. I’m so focused on one of the arrangements of fresh flowers, because it’s massive, that I nearly bump into Tom when he stops. The door is opened with compliments and Tom is handed a key.
What. The. Fuck?
The guy smiles at me, handing me a small bow and everything. Tom steps behind me, covering my eyes with his hands and walking me inside. “What are you doing?” I ask surprised, and a just a little nervous. I’m treated to that damn chuckle again.
He walks me four more steps before he removes his hands and I gasp. It’s a suite. Not just any suite, but an enormous suite, decorated in brown, cream and gold. None of this is what catches my eye though. It’s the fact that there are rose petals of every color scattered throughout the room. White, pink, red, fuchsia, yellow and purple petals everywhere. Champagne is chilling on ice with glasses and chocolate-covered strawberries lie on a platter next to the ice bucket on the dining room table.
Candles. Oh my god, there are candles all around. The room is aglow in the most perfect flickering light. I’m gasp, holding my chest. I’m sure I’m crying, but there is way too much to take in to even notice.
“Oh my god.” That’s the only phrase in my mind right now. This is incredible. So romantic. So beyond anything. I’m giggling, happy and so overwhelmed, because damn, my man did good.
He wraps his arms around my waist, kissing my neck softly. “Did you really think I was going to spend my last night here with you at some stuffy event?”
“Um…yeah,” I say weakly, feeling sort of bad about that now.
“Never, love. Tonight is all about you and me. We have all day tomorrow until I have to leave for the airport. I’ve got the suite for two nights, so if you don’t want to leave tomorrow night, you can stay.”
“Jesus, Tom. This is too much.” I shake my head in stunned amazement.
“Nothing is too much for you.” I feel his smile against the skin of my neck. “I’ve made a dinner reservation, but if you’d rather stay in, we can do that too.”
“Out where?” I twist my head to glare at him as he gives me his crooked smile.
“Jean George.”
“Is that why you got me all dressed up?” I quirk my brow at him, but I’m smiling too, so I’m sure it has little effect.
“That and I couldn’t very well have you wearing your bed clothes to come here. It would have given away the surprise.”
I laugh, turning into him and throwing my arms around his waist. “Thank you. This is a lovely surprise. I’d like to go out to dinner with you and then spend the night making love.”
“That sounds like perfection to me.” He leans down, brushing his lips against mine. “Um, one more thing I want to discuss before we go out.”
Anxiety leaches itself into my gut. His tone is serious, but nervous too and it’s got my heart hammering and adrenaline prickling my skin.
His eyes bore into mine as he slowly lowers himself onto one knee.
What the motherfuck? He cannot be serious right now. He cannot be proposing to me right before he leaves the country. I’m not ready for this. I don’t want to get married yet. I’m only twenty-five. What about Levi?
I just thought about Levi when Tom is on his knees pulling out a small red box. Not good.
Cartier, of course. Damn him. I’
m panicking. I don’t know what to say. I thought Tom knew me. I thought he knew I wasn’t ready for this.
“Lara, my love. Things are changing for us.” He takes my hand and I wonder if he can feel just how badly I’m shaking. I wonder if he thinks it’s just nerves or if he can see my terror. “We’re starting our lives together. We’re moving to another country, but we’re doing it as one unit.” I want to tell him that he’s leaving me for three months prior to that, but he’s on a roll right now, so I don’t interrupt. “I want you to be mine forever. Only mine.”
The way he says that makes me wonder about his real motives for this proposal. Or maybe that’s just where my head is. Shit.
“I want to bring you home to my country as my fiancée, and one day my wife. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” He opens the box, revealing a ginormous oval, solitaire diamond on a platinum band. The massive stone sparkles against the dim candle light. It’s gorgeous. “Will you marry me, Lara? Make me the happiest man in the world?”
My first thought is: Wow, I can’t wear that at work. Strange thought to have when the man you love presents you with a ring. My second thought is: I have no idea how to answer this question.
Again, not the most reassuring thing.
Alarm bells should be going off in my head from my reaction, but they’re not.
I love Tom.
I don’t doubt my feelings for him, just my desire to marry him. “Wow.” Yeah, that’s the best I’ve got right now. He doesn’t wait for the expected yes, instead he takes the ring out and places it on my fourth finger.
It’s a perfect fit.
Heavy and foreign. It’s has to be at least three carats, maybe more. Despite its perfection—and it is perfect—it’s too big. Too flashy. Too much of everything. He stands up, enveloping me in a huge hug followed by a searing kiss.
Am I engaged?
Did I say yes and I didn’t realize it?
Fuck, I totally can’t remember. My mind is going a mile a minute. I don’t know what to do now. Do I say, hey wait, hold up, I need time to think about this? He’s kissing me like we’re engaged. He’s laughing and smiling like we’re engaged.
And I’m frozen.
“Do you want champagne now, or do you want to go out for dinner?”
“Um.” What did he just ask me? Food? “We can go out,” I say staring down at my right hand.
He chuckles, taking my stunned response and demeanor as a good thing. Is it? I have no idea how I’m feeling right now. But all I seem to want to do is run home, crawl up in bed and talk this out with either my mom, Amara, or both.
I can’t do that though.
So instead I take his hand, forcing a smile on my face and head out towards one of Tom’s favorite restaurants like everything is great. Like I didn’t just die inside. Like I don’t wish it was someone else’s ring on my hand.
I’m a horror of a person.
Dinner is great, even though I don’t really love Jean George. It’s Tom’s favorite, not mine. I thought he knew that. I don’t taste anything and lucky for me, Tom orders for us.
My mind is somewhere else. On someone else.
I can’t stop the lingering thoughts about Levi. What the ring on my hand signifies for us.
Can I handle the thought of him walking away? That’s exactly what he’ll do too. Being engaged to Tom means the death of me and Levi. God that makes me sick. So sick that I have to down half my water so I don’t throw up all over the table. Tom is smiling and laughing with the waiter, whom he’s speaking French to, and I’m sitting here sick.
Tom doesn’t see it. How does he not see it?
How can someone claim to know me well enough to want a forever with me and be so shitty at reading how unhappy I am right now? I love Tom. I do. But when I look at him I don’t see our future. I just see a blank space.
26
Tom and I spent most of the day in bed, or milling around the suite, which really is incredible. The views of Central Park are astounding. I’m the world’s biggest wimp. Every time I look down at my hand I want to tell Tom that I’m not ready. That I don’t want to be engaged.
But I don’t.
It seems like the wrong time for the conversation, and as the minutes tick by, I realize it’s too late now. The time to have said something was last night, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to ruin his last night here or our last night together before he leaves.
Part of me also wonders if giving him this ring back would end us.
The day creeps along faster than I’d like, truth be told. By the time the winter sun sets, Tom is dressed and his bags are being taken down by the bellhop.
“Are you going to stay here tonight?” he asks softly as his hand sweeps over my cheek, his eyes roaming my face like he’s memorizing it.
“Why not? Shame to let this room go to waste,” I smile. I’m sad. I hate that he’s leaving now and I won’t see him until my spring break next month. I’m also still freaking out about what I’m going to do about the damn ring on my finger.
I need time to really think about this and then I’ll talk to him about it when I go see him next month.
It’s a shit plan really, but right now, it’s the best I’ve got.
“I have to go, dove,” he says solemnly. “I’m going to miss you so much.”
I nod. “I am too. I hate this, Tom. I really freaking hate this. I feel like we have so much to talk about and I won’t see you until next month,” I start to ramble, my fingers worrying in front of me as I shift my weight back and forth between my feet.
“Lara, it’s going to be fine,” he smiles, brushing a hand against my cheek. “We can talk over the phone and FaceTime, and you’ll be out to see me for your spring holiday.” I nod again. It’s just not the time for this. “I love you so much my gorgeous fiancée.” His smile is pure delight as he says that. Soft lips press against mine and all too soon he’s pulling back, walking toward the door with his arms around me.
“I love you. Safe flight and call me when you land.” My voice is barely recognizable. I am not myself anymore.
“I’ll text you, love. It will be the middle of the night here.”
“Oh, right,” I say glumly. The time change is a bitch. He gives me one more kiss before turning and leaving me standing in the doorway of the massive suite. Alone. That’s it. A little lackluster after everything else if you ask me, but I can see Tom’s already in business mode.
The second I hear the elevator ding, I close the door and run straight into the bedroom, launching myself onto the bed. Picking up my phone, I immediately dial Amara. “I need you here. Now,” I say to her before she can even say hello.
“What the fuck, Lara?”
“Amara, I have a huge honking diamond on my hand and I’m having a major panic attack. Please, pack a bag and come stay in the suite with me at the motherfucking Ritz Carlton. I know you have work tomorrow and I have shopping with Tanya, but I need you.”
“That stupid bastard,” she sighs. “I’ll be right there.”
Thank god she’s coming.
Forty minutes later she’s here, gaping at the suite and my ring, equally. “So, you’re telling me you didn’t say yes, but yet somehow, this rock ended up on your hand?”
“Yeah. I only said wow and apparently he took that as a yes and now I’m fucked.”
“You kind of are,” she says sheepishly. I throw her a look, but she just shrugs. “Sorry, but you are. He left with you wearing his diamond and calling you fiancée. You’re engaged to him until you tell him otherwise.”
I plop back down on the bed, my body getting sucked in by the plush white bedding. “I’m not ready to be engaged,” I whisper.
“Can I ask you the tough question?” she asks looking down on me, her head propped up by her hand.
“What?” I ask wearily.
“If Levi had gotten down on his knee with a ring in hand, would you be reacting like this?” I turn away looking out the dark window. I
used to dream about that. I was only eighteen, but I would imagine how he’d propose to me. Where we’d get married. What our freaking babies would look like.
I would tell myself it was a childish fantasy. That all girls think about that stuff when they’re in love with someone. Those dreams died the second he left me and I haven’t had them since. It was like he took away my ability to picture a future with someone else.
But now he’s back in my life again, talking about how he wants me forever.
I turn back to Amara, her eyes still firmly fixed on my face. I don’t know how to tell her that I thought about Levi all last night. “I used to wonder if our kids would have his hazel eyes, or my green eyes. If they’d be blonde like his mom was, or brunette like we are.” A tear rolls down my cheek, but I don’t stop it before it falls to the blankets beneath my head. “I’ve never thought about what my children would look like with Tom.”
Amara’s eyes soften and a small smile pulls at her lips. “I think you have your answer then,” she says and I shake my head.
“I don’t, Mar. I love Tom. I really freaking do. I miss him already and he’s only been gone a few hours. Maybe I’m just not ready for marriage yet, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be one day?” It comes out sounding like a question. A hopeful question.
She plops down next to me with a whoosh of the blankets. Letting out a sigh, we’re silent for a few minutes before she sighs again. “Maybe you’re right to give it time. You don’t have to wear the ring. Tom isn’t around.” I turn on my side, propping myself up on my elbow.
“You don’t think that’s sort of…wrong, not to admit that we’re engaged?” I ask. I’m really liking that idea.
She shrugs, still flat on her back. “No. I certainly don’t think you should mention it to Levi, unless you want to use this as an excuse to get rid of him.”