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Minnie picked up the two controllers from the floor and passed one to him.
‘If we can playStar WarsBattlefront, but only one game then I have to go bake.’
Ian leant forward, put his leaking burrito on the coffee table and started riffling through the games drawer beneath the TV.
‘Something I wanted to talk to you about, Minnie,’ said Ian, loading the game into his Xbox.
‘If this is a coming-out speech, you’re telling the wrong person,’ she said, tilting her chin and looking down at him with wide, serious eyes. Ian leant back and gently punched her on the shin.
‘No, dickhead.’
The game clicked through to split screen and they both started selecting their weapons. ‘You always choose the wrong weapons; you need better rate of fire on your blasters,’ said Ian, shaking his head.
‘Not if you’ve got an accurate aim, you don’t.’
‘I know you’re going to die first,’ said Ian, scooting backwards onto the sofa next to her.
The game jumped into life. Ian and Minnie both leant forward, hands clasped on their controllers, blasting at storm troopers.
‘I’m going to ask Leila to marry me,’ said Ian, eyes still locked on the screen.
‘What?’ squealed Minnie, turning to face him.
There was a huge explosion on the screen as her avatar was hit by a grenade and blown into a thousand pieces.
‘Didn’t I say you’d die first?’ said Ian with a smirk.
‘This is not a game-play conversation!’ cried Minnie, reaching out to take Ian’s controller from him. ‘You’re going to ask her to marry you? When, how? Have you bought a ring? This is so exciting!’
Ian shifted uncomfortably next to her.
‘Yes. Don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know how to do it, that’s what I wanted to ask you. You know what Leila’s like, she won’t be happy with a bent knee in the bathroom.’
‘No, she definitely would not be happy if you proposed in the bathroom,’ said Minnie. She clasped her hands together, shuffling forward to rest her elbows on her knees.
‘She likes a bit of pizzazz. She’d want something original, I know that, but I’ve got no idea what kind of pizzazz, what kind of original,’ Ian scratched his head.
Minnie jumped up off the sofa and clapped her hands together.
‘I knowexactlywhat you need to do. Oh Ian, I am so glad you asked me, this is going to be amazing. We’re going to plan the most brilliant proposal anyone has ever seen, she’s going to love it!’
Ian smiled and then frowned.
‘I don’t want to do anything involving nudity.’
‘Why would it involve nudity?’
‘And no singing, I won’t do singing.’
‘How many proposals have you heard of that involve singing and nudity? Look, I’ve got it sorted, I will mastermind everything,’ said Minnie. ‘What about a ring, you said “maybe”?’
‘I’ve got a ring,’ said Ian, shaking his head from side to side slowly. ‘I dunno if it’s right though.’
‘Show me,’ Minnie said, holding out a palm.
Ian skulked off to the bedroom and she heard drawers being opened and rummaging sounds. Minnie tapped two fists together in excitement. Over the course of their friendship, she and Leila had talked a lot about meeting ‘the one’, the person you’d just know you wanted to share the rest of your life with. Here was Leila’s ‘the one’ saying he felt the same.
Minnie felt her sixteen-year-old self squeal with delight. That wide-eyed naïve romantic, unjaded by disappointment. Ian came back with a blue velvet ring box and opened it carefully in front of her.
