“Fine, where’s the groom?” I feel my blood boiling.
“The bride is a runaway, and we’re encouraging women to be free and independent and run if they have to.”
“What was your name again?” Gonna put her on Ludi’s list.
I stomp off before she says anything and start running as she’s screaming after me to stop. Nobody stops me, though. People scramble out of my way, and I jump and start climbing the rock, straining to get up there to do what I came here to do.
Kaya’s leaning over the rock’s edge to watch me climb and I dislike this because I know she’s got a bad foot that, even though it doesn’t hurt, still isn’t reliable and can slip, so I hurry up, snarling like a tiger when I lose my footing and nearly slip.
She screams. “What are you doing?”
I smile like that crazy motherfucker I can be when people poke my sensitive places. “I bought you a ring, baby.”
“Oh, then hurry up.” She bends and extends a hand as if she can pull me up.
My wife is as fucked-up as I am. We’re a perfect fit.
She “helps” me up by pulling on my wrists as if at this point I can’t do it myself when I almost died getting to the top on my own, but whatever makes her feel good is fine with me. “Thank you, baby,” I tell her.
She hugs me. “You’re so crazy. What are you doing here?”
“I told you. I bought a ring.”
She steps back, and the sun hits her right side and makes her look like some sort of goddess. She’s made up with a golden glow on her cheeks, eyeliner around the eyes, and she’s wearing a tiara and a white bikini. I slide my gaze down them legs and see sandals with heels. I want her to keep those heels.
Maybe I can buy those too so that when I fuck her, I can feel the points jabbing my kidneys.
I bend down on one knee and take out the box, then open it. “Marry me,” I tell her. Should’ve asked politely like most dudes, but I’m not most dudes, and asking is just another form of telling. Might as well use the proper language and not deceive her into thinking there’s choices. She wants me, and I want her. What’s there to ask?
Her hands cover her face, and she peeks between her fingers. I see tears in her eyes and hear nothing from the crowd below because my wife hasn’t answered yet. That’s fine. I stand and take the ring out, grab her hand, and slide the fucker on her finger. Now it’s real hard to say no. Nobody would want to slide this rock off their finger.
“You saw the ring from the photo shoot and went through all that trouble to buy it?”
“Yes,” I lie.
“That’s so sweet.”
I smile sweetly, though I’m getting a bit nervous now. “Well, whaddya say?”
Her eyes widen as if she has nothing to say or maybe because the answer is obvious, I don’t fucking know, but when she saysyes, I grab her, bend her backward, and kiss her. In the corner of my eye, the cameras start flashing.
Two weeks later on a Saturday,my wife and I lie on the couch. She’s between my legs, flipping through a magazine, and I’m watching the History channel.
We have a dog too. It’s sitting on the floor, whining to join us, and I’m ignoring the needy little fucker because he chewed upmy fancy shoes, the only ones I had for weddings and funerals or events where I have to show up refined and normal.
“This is going on our wall.” I’m collecting her images and putting them in my office. It’s my Stalker Husband Cheerspiration Board. Kaya lifts the cover of the magazine.
It’s a picture of us, the one from the rock, where my face is buried in her neck while I bend her over my arm. Her long leg is extended and pointing toward the sky. My wife looks deliriously happy, and the grin in the image reminds me of that uninhibited smile I fell for the first time I saw her.
Some people don’t believe in love at first sight, but I do. I know what I want when I see it, and I wanted her instantly. I would do anything to collect more moments that make her happy. She looks over at me and smiles just like that while we cuddle on the couch.
EPILOGUE
Five and a half years later
“Baby, get the boy moving.”
“I got him.”
