Page 148 of Bad at Love
Someone gasps. Jane, I think.
I prop one leg up so I’m down on just one knee now, holding onto her hand.
My heart is beating a mile a minute in my chest.
I reach into the pocket of my cargo shorts and my hands close around something cold and small.
The contents of the Altoids tin that Barbara gave me a year ago.
I ended up opening it the next morning after I woke up in Marina’s bed. She was in a deep sleep and her floor was covered with my poetry about her. I knew then what I’d always known.
It was her.
It was always her.
My kind of weirdo.
And I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life.
I had opened the tin and saw an engagement ring inside, gold with emeralds and diamonds in the shape of a sun.
Of course, I had to visit Barbara after that because I didn’t want to take her engagement ring.
She insisted I keep it and propose to Marina when I was ready. She also told me it wasn’t Cooper’s ring but from one of her other husband’s that didn’t work out, so I shouldn’t feel bad about taking it. She said it would do much better the second time around. I fucking hope so.
And now I’m ready. I’ve been ready for a while but with Marina’s book coming out and the fact that we just put money down on a fixer upper beach house outside of Laguna, I was waiting for everything to calm down.
I was waiting for now.
“Marina,” I say, holding her hand tighter as I stare up at her. “A long time ago you told me that all you wanted was love. That you wanted someone to fall asleep with at night. That you wanted marriage and babies and everything that came with it. You told me you wanted to find your flower.”
“Oh my god,” she says softly, her big, blue eyes brimming with tears already.
“Marina, my bumble bee, my sweet girl…I’m that flower. And you’re mine. I’m your weirdo. And you’re mine. I’m messed up and complicated and you’re messed up and complicated and together we’re better than we ever are alone.” I take in a deep breath. “I know it’s been a long, strange journey for us but I wouldn’t have it any other way because it’s led to this moment right here. It’s led to a whole new chapter in a whole new story. At least, it will…if you say yes.”
She gasps.
I open my fist and take the ring and I hold it out in front of her ring finger, choking back on tears. “Marina, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She blinks, tears falling, stares. Then she says, “Don’t you meanbee-coming your wife?” She laughs at her own joke. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes!”
Joy.
This is joy.
My hands are trembling as I slip on the ring and then I’m getting to my feet and I’m holding her face in my hands and I’m kissing her and she’s kissing me and I couldn’t ever ask for anything more than this.
This.
My woman.
My person.
My future.
My everything.
Everyone else gets to their feet, clapping and cheering and then Scooby comes in and embraces the both of us and then Noah does the same and then everyone else comes over to the huddle and pretty soon Marina and Iare enveloped in the middle of a rather suffocating group hug.
