Eighteen

“So you think too much,” Jen said, sweeping a piece of hair from her eyes as she stared into the bathroom mirror and began applying her make-up.

“Basically,” I replied from the bedroom. “She said my anxiety is partially a product of over-analyzing things.”

“Hello. I could have told you that.”

“She also said I need to surround myself with a more supportive network,” I added.

Jen stopped and looked at my reflection. “She didn’t.”

“Especially more supportive women.”

Seeing my smile, she rolled her eyes and went back to putting on her face. “You’re a dork.”

“So I’m thinking I need to stop thinking.”

“Usually you have to start doing something before you can stop doing it.”

I rushed up behind her and wrapped my hands around her waist.

“My make-up,” she shrieked as I kissed her on the cheek.

“You look fine,” I said, as I tried turning her around to face me.

She resisted.

“Come on, be supportive,” I joked.

She swatted my hand away. “I need to finish getting ready.”

“It won’t take long, promise.”

“That’s the problem.” She smiled. “Now leave me alone.”

 

                                                                 * * *

The ring had been in my pocket everyday for the last two weeks. One carat of family history wrapped in a small padded case. A Tiffany setting worth more than my life waiting for me to get the balls to ask a woman I’ve only been dating for four months to marry me. If I seem impulsive it’s because I am. But this has nothing to do with rash decision making. This has everything to do with- pardon the estrogen- love.

Let me first say that I’ve never believed in the “one” bullshit. To say that out of the world’s two plus billion women there is only one capable of making me happy is crap. Shit, I could name a few in this town who could make me happy. What I will concede is that when you find a person who you love, who makes you happy and whole and complete, you’d be an idiot to not marry them. Personally, I don’t see why a guy needs multiple years to figure this out.

So I’m going to ask her to marry me. Tonight. At dinner. A complete and total cliché. But at least it will be a surprise.

Maybe it’s a reflection of our society or maybe I didn’t look hard enough, but I found more advice on committing suicide than I did on marriage proposals. I guess if she says no I won’t fuck up next time.

“What’s up,” she says from across the table. “Why so quiet?”

I take a drink of wine and focus on not vomiting. “Nada,” I reply. “Just thinking.”

“About?”

I take another drink. “Us.”

She leans towards me. “And what are you thinking?”

I pick up her hand. “How much I like us.”

She smiles and kisses my hand. “I like us too.”

I want to puke. My heart wants to explode. For some reason I have a boner.

“I’m sorry my hands are so clammy,” I say, pulling them back and pretending to wipe them on my pants. I reach in my pocket and grab the ring. Her hands stay on the table, waiting.

“I don’t care. I just like it when you hold my hands.”

She notices my grin falter a bit. “What,” she asks, suddenly self-conscious.

“Do you love me,” I ask.

“What?”

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do.”

“A lot,” I ask.

“Why? What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

Her vulnerability makes me love her even more. I bring my hands up to the table and take her left hand into mine. She looks down at them, pauses when she notices my left hand remains closed, looks up, back down and then into my eyes. I see tears.

I smile. Then I open my hand and get on my knee. I know people are watching us. Looking nervously- excitedly- as I slowly place the ring on her finger.

“Jen,” I begin to say.

“I will,” she says in a rush of emotion and excitement, the tears coming faster, dropping down her cheeks and across the happiest face I have ever seen.

“Really,” I ask. Relief floods through my body and for the first time in two weeks I don’t feel sick to my stomach. “You will?”

She jumps off her chair and into my arms, knocking me over and giving me a huge kiss. I hear clapping and I feel my tears mix with hers.

“We’re getting married,” I whisper into her ear.

“We’re getting married,” she shouts to the room. Then to me she says, “We should probably get off the floor.”

I’m not going to go into detail about how awesome the sex was that night. All you need to know is that I have never felt so connected to another person in my entire life. Incidentally, I’ve never came so hard in my life. Or had sex in a car.

“Do you want a fall or summer wedding.”

“Fall,” I said immediately.

“Really,” she asked.

“I meant summer.”

She punched me on the shoulder.

“Watch it,” I said. “you might make me run the car off the road.”

“You really’d want to get married in the fall?”

“Why not?”

“I dunno,” she replied. “It’s so far away.”

I did the math in my head. “Only ten months.”

“Yeah, and that’s a long ways away.”

“Like next summer isn’t.”

“Not next summer, this summer.”

“Oh.” I shrugged. “If you want to elope, I’m cool with that.”

“No, I don’t want to elope,” she replied. “I want to do this right.”

“But I thought these things took time to plan.”

She looked at me like I didn’t know what I was talking about.

“They don’t?”

“Not if you know what you’re doing.”

“And you do?”

“Of course,” she replied with a smirk, “don’t you know I’ve done this before?”

“I thought the first two marriages didn’t count.”

“They didn’t. But I still planned them.”

“And you call me a dork,” I said, putting an end to the joke. “Seriously though, you think we could pull it together that soon?”

She thought about it for a minute. “If not, you get your fall wedding.”

“Or we can just swing by the courthouse,” I joked.

“You know what I just realized,” she asked.

“What’s that?”

“Sex makes you stupid.”

“Only sex with you,” I clarified.