I’ve been carrying it around for days because I haven’t found the right moment.
A man is supposed to propose marriage with a ring in hand. Instead I blurted my proposal out empty-handed. Obviously the circumstances are unusual. But in retrospect I should have planned the whole thing better. Same deal, just with some actual forethought going into it.
It doesn’t sit right with me that we’re engaged, yet she’s not wearing an engagement ring.
In fact, there are a lot of things that aren’t quite sitting right, now that I’m living through them.
Like the fact that she’s moving inafterthe wedding because she needs time to go through her stuff and figure out what to take and what to put in storage. I don’t love the idea of my wife having a storage unit full of her belongings, staged and ready to collect the day our marriage ends. It just feels wrong. But that’s the deal.
As dinner ends and we all file out, Lila gets drawn into a conversation with Dad, Sadie, and Walker up ahead while Rafe herds Jonah through the restaurant. Dad’s got both baby girls in his arms, pulling faces and making both girls giggle helplessly. Walker’s got his arm around his wife and he’s smiling with true warmth at Lila now, apparently satisfied that she’s not a crazy con artist.
Tanner claps me on my good shoulder, eyes brimming with sly humor. “Sneaky bastard, ain’t ya? Just getting your house decorated, my ass. Making us think some sweet grandma was putting doilies on your dining table.”
“Not my fault you assumed whatever you want to,” I say, as if that wasn’t exactly my goal.
Tanner knows it too, and he just grins. “Hey. I get it.”
“Get what?”
“C’mon, man, don’t play dumb. You got your pretty pink princess in your bed and now you’ll do anything to keep her happy and riding your d?—”
“You’re talking about my future wife,” I warn him. “And we’re not hooking up. So don’t go saying shit like that around her.”
“Wait, seriously? You two aren’t…” He examines me. “Ohhh. Okay. I get it. You just desperatelywantto fuck her.”
I glare at Tanner.
He grips my shoulder. “Hey, that’s a time-honored reason to put a ring on it. Respect. But I’m happy for you. Really. Figures that when you fell, it’d be like a ton of bricks.”
I open my mouth to tell him he’s wrong, but Tanner’s already moving on, scooping up Jonah into his arms and flipping him upside down while our nephew cackles.
Outside, everyone gives Lila a hug, just like they do to me. But Jonah, now restored to an upright position on the ground but with his hair mussed and glasses askew, stares up at her for one more second. “Can I touch your hair?”
“Sure,” she says.
He takes a strand between his fingers. “So cool,” he whispers. Then, to Sadie and Walker, he asks, “Dad, Mom, can I have pink hair?”
A long discussion ensues as their little family heads back to Walker’s truck. Lila points in the opposite direction. “I’m that way,” she says.
“I’ll walk you.”
As we stroll, she asks, “That seemed to go smoothly, don’t you think?”
“They love you,” I say. “I wasn’t worried about that part.”
She glances at me. “What were you worried about, then?”
“That the situation would feel off. A fake marriage… it’s a strange thing to explain to your family.”
“And did it? Feel strange?”
I look at her. The moonlight catching the pink of her hair, her heels on the pavement, the ring box still in my pocket.
“No,” I say. “It felt easy.”
She smiles. “Despite the weirdness of it all, everyone was so kind. I couldn’t have imagined a warmer welcome if I were your actual girlfriend.”
Something about the way she says it, melancholy, almost, makes me admit, “You’re the first girl I’ve ever brought home to meet my family.”
