“You do?” he asks.
“Yes, sir,” I say.
“Well,”—he grins—“I would eat your pancakes any day of the week.”
“That sounds serious. We’re not even exclusive yet,” I say, teasing him.
“Then, maybe we should be.”
“Should be?”
“Exclusive.”
“Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?” I say.
“I think I am, yes.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m going to need you to do it ‘properly.’”
He chuckles. “How’s that, now?”
“I mean, at the very least, you can get down on one knee.”
“I suppose that’s fair.”
“I mean, given the fact that I got down on my knees last night for you, I just think—”
“My God,” he interrupts. “We’re just a classy pair, now, aren’t we?” Colin stands up and takes a single daisy out of the mason jar. Then, he kneels down in front of me and holds it out to me, dripping.
“Gracie Landing, will you be my girlfriend?” He blinks his eyes for effect.
I accept the daisy. “I suppose I can slum it with you until something better comes along,” I say.
“Perfect,” he says. “I’ll have to write down that line.”
“For what?” I ask, smiling.
“I don’t know. I might want to read it when I give the toast at our wedding.” He grins.
I die inside, wondering what I ever did to make the universe finally smile on me after shitting on me so hard for the past six months.
Colin
Iwantto stay, and I honestly wish I could, but it’s Sunday, and Kissof Death has a doubleheader with Doctor Murvin’s Magic Feet.Dr. Murvin is a podiatrist from another building on the block, and his team lineup consists of three medical assistants, two young receptionists, two older women in the billing department, Dr. Murvin himself, and his three grown sons.
I sometimes wonder if the slow-pitch softball league was created as a place for father-son issues to work themselves out. Like, “Hey, don’t spend a fortune on therapy! Just spend a quick hundred sixty-five bucks per person and take all your issues to the field!”
I was tempted to invite Gracie to come with me to the park, if only because I found having to peel myself away from her excruciating. But she had to write, and I was not in the mood to have to explain her to my father, or Gordy, or Dom. Or, for that matter, to have to explainthemto her, despite the fact that she would probably come up with a million jokes about Gordy alone.
Also, I didn’t want to add any fuel to the Courtney fire.
Because I tend to be a planner, I packed my softball gear in my car yesterday afternoon, along with my team shirt and extra bottles of water. I kissed Gracie goodbye, begrudgingly, and promised to call her later.
I want Gracie to stay as perfect as she is to me in this moment, I think en route to the field. Her smile when I delivered her breakfast in bed was just as intoxicating as our night together. Well, almost.
While she slept this morning, I went out to the store, got some ingredients, and cooked her eggs benedict, my favorite meal from my youth. I was never allowed to order it at the diner as a kid because my father always said, “Eggs benedict is a grown-up meal, Colin. You won’t like it,” and then he would order me french toast and bacon off the children’s menu instead, along with a large glass of plain milk, which I hated, but he said that I had to drink it so that I could be strong.
The very first time I went to the diner with friends in high school, I was a freshman. It was nighttime. A group of us had gone to the movies, and afterwards we hit up the diner because it was one of the few places we could go to sit down, shoot the shit, eat, and stay for pretty much however long we wanted to.
