Ian
Sarah stares at me for so long that I consider repeating my question. All right, it wasn’t just a question. A proposal, really, and a weightier one than “want pizza for dinner?” or “should we watch Outlander?”
“M—married?” Her expression is perfectly befuddled. Like she’s not sure whether to laugh or fall off the couch. It’s the same look she gave me the time I tried to convince her our economics professor was secretly a porn star.
I smile at the memory, which makes Sarah roll her big blue eyes and slug me in the arm. “You dork. For a second it sounded like you were serious.”
“I am serious.” I wipe the smile off my face and do my best to appear like a legitimate contender for Sarah’s hand in marriage. “It makes total sense if you think about it.”
“Marriage,” she repeats, like she’s positive we’re not talking about the same idea. “Pledging to love, honor, and cherish for the rest of our lives when we haven’t seen each other for ten years? That makes total sense to you?”
“Well, when you put it that way?—”
She struggles to sit up, and I go with her, not wanting to be disrespectful. I probably should have thought of that before proposing while naked. The blanket slips down the slope of her breast, and my brain does a quick short-circuit at the sight of that lush, magnificent roundness tipped with a perfect pink rosebud.
Focus, Ian.
I tug the blanket up, determined to be a gentleman about this.
“You have to admit, traditional marriage isn’t very sensible,” I say. “People making a lifetime decision based on emotion or lust or whatever the hell convinces people they’re supposed to make all these impossible promises to another person. Like that’s something anyone can guarantee.”
She’s looking at me oddly, like she’s waiting for a punchline. I keep going, pretty sure I can convince her.
“More than 50 percent of traditional marriages fail because there’s no way anyone can predict something as unpredictable as human emotion,” I tell her. “But if marriage were handled more like a business proposition than some sacred, holy union?—”
“Are you always this charming?” She shakes her head and plucks at the hem of the blanket. “I don’t remember you being this—this?—”
“Pragmatic?”
“—nuts,” she finishes, adjusting the blanket around her breasts. “I don’t remember you being this nuts in college.”
I open my mouth to point out that I’ve changed, but I close it in a hurry. Bringing that up will only serve to point out why I’ve changed, and I’m not ready to have that conversation.
I’m trying to have a different one.
Blame it on Ryan and his adorable new baby, or maybe the look I got from my prospective boss when she said they prefer their executives to be “settled.” Either way, time’s running short.
I rake my fingers through my hair and try again. “How many successful marriages have you witnessed?” I ask. “I’m not talking about people our age who are caught up in the lust-fueled fairytale portion of the program. I’m talking about couples who’ve held on for the long run. Who’ve endured through hard times and heartbreaks and temptations and failures and can still stand to be around each other after all that.”
She stares into my eyes for a long time. She doesn’t answer the question, but she doesn’t have to. Her parents divorced when she was two. Neither set of grandparents were still together. We’re the same, Sarah and me. Both products of a long string of broken vows.
I see it the instant her eyes shift from bewilderment to pity. It’s like someone turned the dimmer switch from romantic mood lighting to all-night study session.
“Your parents,” she says. “You’re talking about your parents.”
Ouch.
Ouch, but she’s right.
I take a few deep breaths and wonder if I should have tried a different approach to proposing marriage. If I should have done this over dinner, or at least with pants on. Emotionally charged conversations aren’t my forte, but this isn’t emotional.
This is business.
“Look, you saw how my mom and dad were together,” I tell her. “One week they’re groping each other in the commons during parents’ weekend, and the next week she’s throwing his shit out the bedroom window because she thinks he’s nailing his secretary.”
“He was nailing his secretary.”
“Or she’s writing him pushy love poems and calling him the love of her life while he’s flying off to Barbados with some bimbo from the gym,” I continue, hardly hearing Sarah anymore. I’m right back there in the turmoil of my sophomore year, reeling from the way my life was unraveling.
