“Nothing. I just thought it would be nice to get away.”
“Just the two of you. A special road trip,” Abby said.
When Shepley turned to look at her, I shot my best friend a warning glare. Her stoic expression didn’t give anything away, but I still wanted to dunk her.
He traded glances with Travis and then turned back to face me, confusion scrolling across his face. “It’ll give us time to talk, I guess. We’ve been busy. That’ll be nice.”
“Exactly,” I said.
Once I spoke those words, something lit in Shepley’s eyes, and a million thoughts seemed to flip behind his eyes.
Whatever was bothering him, he shook it off and pushed himself up, pecking my lips. “If that’s what you want, I’ll ask off.”
“It’s what I want.”
He climbed out of the pool, his white T-shirt translucent, his jeans sopping wet, his sneakers squishing with each step. “I’ll go in and make the call. But we’ll take the Charger. It might be twenty-five years older, but it’s more dependable.”
“Thanks, baby,” I said, smiling, as he walked away. Once he was out of earshot, I turned to Abby, all emotion gone from my face. “You’re an asshole.”
Abby cackled.
Travis looked from Abby to me and back again. “What? What’s so funny?”
Abby shook her head. “I’ll tell you later.”
“No, you won’t!” I said, kicking water at her.
With his hand, Travis squeegeed droplets of water off his face, and then he kissed Abby’s temple. She left him, swimming to the side of the pool and climbing up the ladder. She took her towel off the lounger and dried off. Travis watched her like it was the first time he’d ever set eyes on her.
“I’m surprised you’re not pregnant yet,” I said.
Abby froze.
Travis frowned. “C’mon, Mare! Don’t say the P word. You’ll freak her out!”
“Why? Has it been on the table?” I asked my friend.
“A few times,” Abby said, looking pointedly at Travis. “He thinks I’m going to stop my birth control the moment we graduate.”
My eyebrows pushed up. “Are you?”
“No,” she said quickly. “Not until we buy a house.”
Travis’s expression intensified. “We have an extra bedroom.”
“Thanks, Mare,” Abby grumbled, bending over to rub the towel over her legs.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m going in. We have a road trip to plan.”
“Hey. If you go, be careful. Shep’s right. The weather is supposed to be bad. Maybe you should wait until the storm season is over.”
“If we don’t go now, we’ll get busy. Once classes start, it will be too late. We’ll have to wait until a break.” I looked to the ground. “The way he’s been acting, I don’t know if he’ll be patient much longer.”
“He’ll wait forever, Mare,” Abby said.
“Too late for what?” Travis asked, climbing out of the pool. “What’s he waiting on?”
“Nothing.” I shot Abby a warning glare before gathering my things and pushing out of the gate. I closed it behind me, keeping my hand on the hot metal. “Keep your mouth shut. You might be his wife, but you were my friend first.”
“Okay, okay,” Abby said, cowering under my stare.
Shepley
“Thanks, Janice. I appreciate it.” I tapped the red button and set the phone on the bed.
Janice had loved me since the moment I stepped into her office for the interview. What had started out as a gopher job had turned into administrative work, and then I’d somehow ended up in the wealth management department. Janice was hoping I’d stay on after I graduated college, promising me promotions and opportunities galore, but my heart wasn’t in it.
I stared at the almost empty drawer of my nightstand. That’s where my heart is.
Once the display light on my cell phone disappeared, the darkness of the room surrounded me. The summer evening sun snuck in through the sides of the curtains, creating faint shadows on the walls.
We’d lived here for less than a year, and already, the walls were crowded with frames holding our memories. It hadn’t been hard to mesh our belongings because the last two years had been us and our and we. Now, I wasn’t sure if it was a symbol of our lives together or if it was a memorial of the couple we used to be.
I’d regretted proposing since the moment America said no. We had become different after that.
I rubbed the muscle between my shoulder and neck. It was thick with tension. I’d already peeled off my wet clothes and wrapped a towel around my waist. It was fluffy, something I hadn’t required before living with my girlfriend, but I had come to appreciate it along with the smell of her lotion on the sheets and the boxes of tissue in every room of the apartment. Even the clutter on her nightstand had become comforting.
I became glaringly aware of the drawer in the nightstand. It held only one item—a small dark red box. Inside was the ring I fantasized putting on her finger, the ring she’d wear on our wedding day, fitting perfectly over a matching band. I’d purchased it two years before and taken it out as many times.
We had a long road trip ahead, and I was going to take it along for the ride. Our drive to Kansas would mark the third time the box would be seeing the outside of that drawer, and I wondered if it would return to its home. I wasn’t sure what it might mean if it did, but I couldn’t keep wondering and waiting.
My hands felt scratchy and dry when I interlaced my fingers and looked at the floor, wondering if I should produce a flowery proposal like last time or if I should just go for it. Asking her to marry me this time would amount to so much more. If she said no, she would have to talk about what was next. I knew America wanted to get married someday because she’d talked about it to me and to Abby with me in the room.
Maybe she just doesn’t want to marry me.
Worrying that it would never be the right time for America to say yes had become a daily torment. No was such a tiny word, yet it had affected me. It had affected us. But I loved her too much to push the subject. I was too afraid she would say something I didn’t want to hear.
Then there were the tiny scraps of hope—like her talking about the future and the larger confirmations, like moving in together. But even as we’d unpacked the boxes, I’d wondered if she had just agreed to get an apartment because she was too stubborn to admit to her parents that they were right about us not being ready.
Still, the fear of the truth kept me from asking. I loved her too much to let her go that easily. She would have to fight to leave as much as I would fight to keep her. I questioned my sanity for even considering proposing a third time, and I feared it would be the first agonizing day of many where I would have to learn to live without her.
If she said yes though, it would make pushing through all that fear to ask worth it.
“Baby?” America called. The front door closed behind her words.
“In the bedroom,” I replied.
She opened the door and flipped on the light. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“Just got off the phone with Janice. She wasn’t super happy about the late notice, but she gave me Friday off.”