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He winked. “To call? Boy, you’re too old for me to care about you sneaking girlfriends up here. I didn’t much care when you were a teenager and I sure don’t give two figs now.”
I laughed. Looking back, I was probably not as stealthy as Ithought I was. “Just a phone call and just a friend. I’m steering clear of girlfriends for a while.” Maybe forever. Sarah had come with me when my aunt Bette died, and I hated that she’d met my family, hugged my uncle Harold, and made me feel like she was always going to be part of things. I shrugged it off.
He waved a hand. “I’m going to bed, anyway. Have fun with your friend.” He stood, and I pushed my thumb down on my middle finger, cracking the knuckle and stopping myself from helping him up, which would piss him off. He creaked to his feet and pulled me in for a hug. “You’re a good boy, you know that, right?”
I nodded but said nothing, his question hitting me in the chest in an unexpected way. “Good night,” I said, voice rough before I managed to control it. “We’ll get a jump on the lawn in the morning.”
He patted me twice on the shoulder and shuffled down the hall to his bedroom. I heard his door click shut and wandered out onto the patio, where the cool breeze was rustling through the trees. Shoving my hands in my pockets, I ambled toward my car, looking up at the stars. I’d been in LA a long time, and it wasn’t like I couldn’t see the stars there, but not like this. The mountains made it feel like I was the only one in a valley, the only one looking up. I scrubbed a hand through my hair and prepared myself to talk to RJ.
Chapter 25
RJ
I TOSSED MYphone on the empty passenger seat next to me and dropped my head to rest on the steering wheel. The plastic, cool from the air conditioner, felt good against my skin, which was dappled with light reflecting from the gas station’s glowing signs. When I woke up, I hadn’t expected my Sunday to go the way it had.
I’d played soccer with Eric and some of his friends in the morning like always, working up a sweat and getting to be aggressive without being called some sexist or racist term that showed me the true colors of yet another person around me. When I finished the game and grabbed my things from the sidelines, I had a series of missed texts from Britta, Kat, and Del, our token man and the perpetual graduate student in the group chat.
Kat:RJ, did you see the news on social media?
Del:That Case is getting married?
Britta:Why would you say it like that?
Del:Like what? He is.
Britta:It might be hard for her to read.
Britta:RJ, it was on social media today in a kind of very public way.
Kat:Are you okay?
Del:FWIW, you’re cuter than his new fiancée, and her name is Feather, which should make it easier for you to make fun of her.
Britta:Stop helping.
Britta:Del, we’re going to kick you off this chat.
Del:Promise?
Kat:RJ, please text us when you get this.
I’d glanced up from my phone, watching the others wave and head toward the parking lot, but I dropped onto a park bench. Case and I had been over for years. I’d always assumed he’d move on, find someone he wanted to be with who fit what he wanted, someone consistent and polished. Someone nice. Instead of replying to my friends, I opened my browser and searched for Feather, Chicago, and proposal. Case didn’t do social media. That’s how he’d say it, like it was recreational meth.I don’t do that kind of thing.The story came up on the account of what looked to be a petite woman with long braids. She wore artful and colorful makeup, a brush of a bright purple across her lids. She was stunning, and her brief bio said she was a massage therapist and poet.
The post was a thread.
C and I were interviewed by a local news crew after yoga in the park. Here’s the video!
Yoga in the park?I hit play on the video, fairly certain this was a different Case and my friends had gotten it wrong. That was one thing I’d offered we could try together and he’d all but rolled his eyes. Sure enough, there was Case in a tank top and basketball shorts, his arm draped around the woman. Her hair was pulled back, andshe wore a sports bra with yoga pants. The reporter introduced some potential legislation that would affect that section of the park and asked them their opinions. I waited for the Case I knew to emerge, for, even in a T-shirt, the shoulders to go back, his chin to go out, and for him to speak as if his words were the only and last ones anyone needed to hear. Instead, he looked at the woman beside him. “Go ahead.” Two simple words that would have knocked me over like a two-ton truck. Not once in the entirety of our relationship had he encouraged me to go first. Even in bed, it was up to me if I wanted to finish ahead of him. The competition had been fun sometimes—not in the bedroom—but I stared at the interview as the woman spoke for a few minutes about the magic of the space and how the legislation would ruin the vibe.
The vibe?I shifted my gaze to a besotted-looking Case again.Is he high? Did he suffer a traumatic brain injury that affected his personality?Nothing I knew about the man fit into the image I saw before me. When the woman finished talking after sharing how she was sending good energy to the legislators, Case spoke up. “I couldn’t agree more. This place is special. We met here and...” He looked down at the woman longingly before glancing at the camera. “Is it okay if I go a little off topic?”
The crew must have given him the okay, because he dropped to one knee and took her tiny hand in his. “Feather, I was going to ask you to marry me in this park, but since we might not get that chance, I’m asking you now. You’ve changed my life. You know, the last person I was with was cold and competitive and wore me down. You breathed life into me, showing me it’s not about winning but about living, that if I am around a happy person, I can be happy, too; that a special person will make me want to break my own rules. I want to feel sunshine on my face with you in a hundred parks, a thousand parks. I don’t have a ring yet, but will you marry me?”
Tears streamed down her flawless cheeks, and she nodded, a wide smile crossing her face.
What struck me first wasn’t the romance of the moment, it was that he did that on the fly. He’d never done a spontaneous thing in his life, especially not in public and especially not involving a major decision. He was a planner.He didn’t have a ring? He just decided, yep, gonna marry her?The video continued, and they kissed, him swinging her around and the small assembled crowd cheering. He had teared up, too, his eyes wet and his face red. He turned to the camera. “So, please vote to keep the park. It’s a really special place for us.” The reporter appeared on screen again and the video paused on her wide smile.
I continued scrolling to the next thread, where Feather—seriously, her name was Feather?—added more.Obviously, I said yes!
