“Why are you laughing?” he asks, bemused.
“It looks like you’re asking me to marry you with a lime.”
He grins. “I guess it does. So? Are you taking the lime or not?”
“Yes.” I take the wedge from his hand. “I am indescribably moved by your proposal.”
“Ah, thank you. I think I can promise that a proposal with a lime is the closest I’ll ever come to the institution of marriage.”
“So you feel the same way I do,” I say.
“If people really love each other, then why bother with all the ceremony.”
“Precisely.”
He stands up. “Salt?”
I nod and lick the top of my hand between my thumb and forefinger, and Chris sprinkles salt for me. I do the salt/tequila/bite-the-lime routine. I suck on the lime for a second and then say, “It fits perfectly. All that planning was worth it.”
“I have an eye for these things.” He winks just before he licks and salts his own hand.
It’s a good thing that he can’t read my thoughts, because watching his tongue sweep over his own hand nearly makes my knees buckle. Apparently I have forgiven his disappearing act over the past few weeks. When we are together, that’s easy.
He downs a decent gulp, coughing as soon as he swallows. “God, Sabin drinks some cheap crap.” He sucks his lime wedge nearly dry.
“You’re not kidding. This stuff is pretty bad.” I pause. “Wanna do another one?”
“Totally.”
So we do.
After we’ve both coughed our way through another round of too-big shots, we stand side by side and watch the crowd below us that is progressively getting louder. A group of girls by the front of the stage begins hooting and chanting as someone comes onstage. I squint. “Hey, is that…”
Chris follows my gaze. “Yup. That’s Sabin. He and Estelle must’ve gone down the back ladder. I didn’t even notice.”
We watch as Sabin struts across the stage and waves to the crowd gone wild. “This one’s for the newest member of the clan. I love you already, B.!” he yells into the microphone.
“Oh my fucking God.” I close my eyes. “What is he doing? He sings?”
“He can do anything.”
“I know you’re up there, sweet girl.” Sabin looks in the direction of the rooftop as he swings a strap over his shoulder and begins to run his fingers over the strings of an acoustic guitar. “No more worrying, okay?”
I am both jarred and unspeakably moved by his calling me “sweet girl,” and it takes me a moment to recover. When he sings, there is a beautiful, deep rasp in his voice, and I am nearly gutted by what he is singing to me. I don’t know what this song was originally intended to be about exactly, but I know what Sabin is telling me. He is telling me to protect my heart, but to love. He is telling me about timing, and dreaming, and surviving. And mostly, he is telling me to abandon my worry. To find joy and to live again.
The tears that fill my eyes are, for the first time, happy ones. I blink them away. Sabin shields his eyes from the lights and peers up to the rooftop. He waves and then does a ridiculous champion-boxer move where he punches the air and then throws both hands up in the air while he takes a victory lap around the stage. He is too much in all sorts of wonderful ways.
“Sabin’s a good guy, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Chris agrees. “He is. He’s incredible.”
I keep my eyes on the stage. “You are, too.” Tequila is making me brazen with the truth.
Before I have a chance to regret my words, Estelle rescues me. “That’s your brother, not mine! And, hey, where’s my lime?”
Chris cuts another wedge, this time using the wall instead of going down on bended knee. “I don’t know what’s wrong with him,” he says affectionately.
Estelle takes the bottle with one hand and smooths down her still-perfect hair while she catches her breath from her rushed climb back up the ladder. “Too much to list. But look at him. He’s awesome.” The shot of tequila makes her wince as much as it did me and Chris. “Lord, this is bad booze. No lime could save us.” She takes a spot next to us, and we stand silently watching as Sabin continues his onstage reign. She rubs the cross that hangs around her neck. “I wish Eric had stayed.”
