Shit.
What if we have to actuallyget marriedto convince our families to get along?
It’s like a game of chicken, but instead of racing two bikes at each other at full speed, we’re seeing who blinks first over our threat to have death do us part.
She’s happily nibbling on fruitcake again. Her hair is tucked up in a messy bun on top of her head, and I can’t stop glancing at her belly button ring peeking out between her tank and the bottom of her swimsuit.
It’s no surprise at all that her swimsuit is bright with splashes of color making an optical illusion of a design. Is it flowers? Or is it a bunch of stars between geometric shapes?
Either way, it’s Amanda.
“So Raoul ...,” she says, giving me a look I can’t quite interpret.
I lift my brows and wait.
“He thought you were going to show up to get a ring for someone else. Or was I reading that wrong?”
Nope.
Didn’t expect that.
“You read that correctly.”
“He knew your last girlfriend?”
“Knew of her.”
“But didn’t meet-meet her?”
“Correct.”
“You went ring shopping?”
Not my favorite topic, but I’m the one who suggested we keep up this engagement-and-wedding-planning ruse. I’m the one who took her to meet Raoul. I owe this one to her. “I did.”
“What happened?”
“She was bored and I didn’t know it.”
“Bored by what?”
I blow out a sigh. “I sometimes work long hours. I didn’t always like her favorite restaurants. Swimming as exercise was cliché. I’d rather go sailing than golf. And on, and on, and on.” To include that she got invested in my family’s feud and didn’t understand why I didn’t want to talk about it too.
Amanda wrinkles her nose. “And you were still going to propose to her?”
“Did propose.”
“Youproposedto a woman who thought you wereboring?”
“Didn’t know she thought I was boring until I proposed.”
“Oh, Dane. That’s—that’s a special level of hell. I’m sorry.”
She’s not wrong.
It was hell. Actually, it’s the only time I can remember that my family didn’t find a way to blame the Andersons or suggest that my engagement breakup was better than anything thegingerdead familycould’ve done.
It will not be the same next week when Amanda and I have called it quits. We’re going to have to absolutely sell that we’re better off as friends and want to remain friends.
