“Okay.”
“Promise?”
She leans back, smiling. “Promise.”
I take a deep breath and click the button on my remote control, and the title slide projects onto the wall next to me: “The Top Ten Reasons Why You Should Say ‘Hell Yes!’ When I Ask You to Marry Me.”
Tessa lets out a little yelp. “Ryan. Wait.”
I put my index finger to my lips. “This is just getting you primed and ready for myeventualproposal, okay? I know how much you like having time to ‘process’ before making major decisions, so I’m getting your gears turning nice and early.” I’m lying about that, of course—I’m not walking out of this place without a fiancée. But I swear it’s the last little white lie I’ll ever tell her.
Tessa’s shoulders relax. She nods.
I hit the button for the first slide and up it comes: “Reason One: If you marry me, your family will be thrilled.”
Tessa looks at me quizzically, her lips parted in surprise.
I tell her about my recent dinner with her family in L.A., scrolling through photos of our smiling families together as I do. “And when I asked your parents for their blessing,” I say, “they said that, although the decision is yours, of course, they’d be ‘thrilled’ to welcome me and my entire family into yours.”
Tessa opens her mouth like she’s going to speak and then, without warning, bursts into tears.
Damn, I’m good.Do I know my girl or what?
I move to her and stroke her back and kiss the top of her head as she cries and thanks me profusely for doing that, my heart melting and leaping, all at once.
“You ready for the next slide, love?” I ask. “That was just my opening salvo.”
“They’re not all gonna make me sob, are they?”
“I make no promises.” I bring the next slide up: “Reason Two: If you marry me, my family will be thrilled.” I grin at her. “Do you have any idea how many times in Hawaii members of my familyorderedme to make a move on you? Oh my God. They must have thought I had absolutely zero game the way I kept putting them off.”
She laughs.
“Tessa, seriously, everyonedesperatelywants you to be a part of our family, through any means necessary. Worst case scenario, I truly think they’d be willing to pair you off with Keane, if it would mean bringing you into the fold.”
She laughs again.
I click the remote control and bring up the third slide: “Reason Three: If you marry me, I’ll make you my world-famous guacamole any time you like.”
“Wow.”
“Of course, you can’t appreciate the enormity of this promise until you’ve tasted my guacamole. So...” I grab two bowls off the bar—one filled with tortilla chips and the other with my famous guacamole. “I made you a batch. I promise, once you’ve tasted this guac, you’ll understand what I’m offering you here.”
Dutifully, Tessa dips a chip into the bowl of guacamole and pops it into her mouth—and her entire face lights up. “Nirvana,” she gushes. “Best guacamole I’ve ever tasted. You were right about the cumin.”
“Now, just imagine beingmarriedto the guy who made that—and then imagine him making it for you any time you want. That’d be a truly happy life, wouldn’t it?”
“It’d be the happiest life I could possibly imagine.”
Oh my God. My heart leaps. Did she just tell me she’s gonna say yes? Holy fuck, I think she did!
I click to the next slide, my heart racing: “Reason Four: Based on objective facts and figures and numbers, you should definitely marry me.” I quickly scroll through a series of slides riddled with pie-charts, graphs, and figures, all of them extolling the scientifically supportable benefits of marriage from social, health, and economic perspectives, plus a whole bunch of ridiculous numbers having to do with me, personally (things like my height, weight, IQ, street address, and SAT score).
“The night we met right over there,” I say, pointing toward the stools, “you told me guacamole alone wouldn’t be enough to make you fall in love with me. You said you’d also need facts and figures, in order to satisfy your pesky left-brain. Well, here you go, my love—and, as you can see, the numbers don’t lie. Marriage is the only logical thing for us to do, objectively.’”
“Oh, Ryan,” she says, her eyes sparkling, her smile beaming.
I click to the next slide, a lump in my throat: “Reason Five: If you marry me, you’ll receive a lifetime supply of Morgan-family perks.”
