Page 105 of The Perils of Paulie
Dixon flung my veil over his shoulder and caught mewhen I weaved forward, pulling me well back from the puddle of bile and saliva. To my utter surprise, he slid an arm under my legs and lifted me up in the very best He-Man move. “Paulie is a bit overcome by all of this. Is there somewhere she can sit and have some water?”
Roger turned around in a full circle, but there weren’t a lot of seating options in the parking lot behind a car museum. In the end, I sat on the running board of the Flyer and sipped a little champagne that Roger opened. I felt somewhat isolated, in a little cocoon of happiness, the bubbles from the champagne tickling my nose in a delightful way. In front of me, shielding me from the camera, Dixon stood chatting with Roger and the network people, telling them all about our adventures driving from Prague.
He was giving me time to recover, bless his heart. I suddenly had to know whether or not he loved me, and decided that there was no time like the present to figure out if I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. I tugged on the back of his suit coat. When he turned to look down at me, I repressed a hiccup and asked, “Who is the woman, Dixon?”
He looked confused. “Who is what woman?”
“The woman you intend on wooing properly, not sleeping with in a ramshackle mode as we are doing.”
“Ramshackle... Paulie, what are you talking about?”
I stood up carefully, holding on to him for balance. “What I mean, sir, is whether or not you intend on honoring the marriage that we pretended to have? Because my dad is not going to let me just shack up with you, not that I even know if you want me to, because you haven’t said so, you annoying man.”
“Ow.” He rubbed the spot on his chest that I’d punched when I spoke the last words. “I did tell you. I said that, this time, I wanted to do things properly. It’s important.”
I gawked at him for a minute, then said, “It’s important to properly ask me to stay with you? That’s what you’re talking about, right? Me? Not someone else who you don’t know, because you’re not the kind of guy who’d sleep with one woman while planning on being proper with another woman?”
He took the glass of champagne from my hand. “I think you’re a little tiddly.”
“Probably. But I’m also madly in love with you, and tired of the mean part of my brain telling me that because you haven’t said you love me, too, that means you are going to dump me, at which point I may well consider talking to my dad’s bodyguards about ways to geld an Englishman.”
He laughed and pulled me into an embrace, saying into my ear, “I would kiss you, but I suspect it wouldn’t be the enjoyable experience either of us would hope for.”
“Ew. No. No kissing until I sterilize my mouth.” I pinched his side. “Say it, dammit!”
He sighed and backed up a few steps, pulling me with him, then got down on one knee, and, with a dramatic flourish at me, said, “Paulie Rostakova, light of my life, ache in my loins, and most incredibly wonderful woman in the whole wide world, would you make me a happy, happy man and marry me? Again. This time for real.”
Roger started talking loudly, demanding that Sam be sure to film us, which of course he was doing, because Sam was not slow on the uptake.
I looked down at Dixon and blinked back a few tears of happiness.
“Please answer quickly,” Dixon said, the arm held out toward me starting to waver. “There’s a rock under my knee and my muscles are starting to spasm.”
I grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet, throwing myself in his arms and hugging him as tight as I could. “Yes, I will marry you. Yes, yes, yes. I hope to god there’sa hotel around here, because I badly need to brush my mouth so I can kiss the living hell out of you.”
Roger applauded and announced that, once again, his production had brought a real-life romance to fruition. More champagne was opened. I released Dixon, who looked absolutely exhausted, but extremely happy.
“He still hasn’t said it,” Tabby pointed out.
“Shut it,” I said with a grin to take the sting out of it.
We spent another fifteen minutes being grilled in front of the camera about the last few days, and how we had fallen in love with each other, and anything and everything Roger could think of. And then the Zust arrived, speeding around the corner of the building and only just missing mowing us down. Stephen was driving and slammed on the brakes, then stood in the car to glare at us before turning to Sanders and starting to berate him with the most waspish, acid comments I’d heard in a long time.
“—had done what I told you to do, that would be us standing there guzzling the Bolly. But no, you knew best—you always know best. And just look what it’s got us? Second! Second tothem!”
There was more of that sort of tirade, all of which Sam got on film. (I found out later that the Esses had driven so hard they’d lost their film crew.) I stood next to Dixon, too tired to deal with their drama, and desperately wished I had a toothbrush.
It took another hour or so before we made it to a hotel and I could bathe and brush my teeth three times. After which I went out to molest Dixon in the manner he was due, but he was sound asleep on the bed, buck naked and holding a rose.
I smiled down at him, took the rose, and promptly fell asleep next to him. We slept for almost ten hours.
August 14
To: Angela
We won!
August 14
