Chapter 36
Claire
blinked. Had he just said what she
thought he said? Had he just said…
Marry him?
As the
words sunk in, her mind began to race.
Was he serious? Was he really
asking her to marry him? For real? She wanted to ask, but she only stared,
unable to find her voice at first. When
she finally did, she uttered one single word, the only one that came to mind.
“Yes.”
Now Nick
blinked. He stared at her for a moment,
looking just like she had probably looked a moment ago. Then his face broke into a wavering smile,
and his eyebrows lifted, carving creases across his forehead. “Yes?” he asked, his voice high, as if he
could scarcely believe her reply.
She felt a
slow smile spreading across her face as a fluttering sensation rose in her
chest. “Yes!” she repeated. “Nick…”
“Claire…”
They both
stopped and shook their heads, still staring at each other. Neither of them knew quite what to say. A million thoughts were still tumbling
through Claire’s mind as adrenaline pumped through her veins, and the reality
of the situation was still sinking in.
Nick had just proposed to her… and she’d said yes. That meant…
“We’re
engaged?” she said weakly, her voice sounding higher than usual too. Tears sprung to her eyes with the unexpected
rush of emotion that hit her. Engaged…
she was engaged!
Nick
grinned and pulled her close to him, kissing her forehead. “We’re engaged,” he repeated in a whisper,
bringing his head down so that their noses and foreheads touched. “I love you,” he murmured, lowering his lips
to meet hers.
She kissed
him back with fervor. “I love you too,”
she whispered, her lips moving against his.
She felt his hands caressing her cheeks, and they remained there even as
he pulled back, cupping her face.
“I don’t
have a ring,” he confessed. “This was…
totally unplanned.” He offered her a
sheepish smile.
“And
totally unexpected,” she added with a grin.
“That might win the award for most random proposal ever, Nick.”
He
laughed. “Well, since we have no ring,
how about a toast?” Turning away from
her momentarily, he grabbed his beer can off the nightstand on his side of the
bed and waited while she did the same.
“To us,” he said seriously, holding out his can.
“To us,”
she repeated, clinking her mostly-empty can against his. She burst out laughing as the beer sloshed
against the aluminum on the inside of her can.
This was the tackiest proposal ever – and she loved it. She was laughing too hard to take a drink,
and so was he. As far as she remembered,
neither of them ever did drink their toast; instead, they laughed till their
stomachs hurt, set their beer cans aside, and finally collapsed against each
other, out of breath.
The last
thing Claire recalled before falling asleep was how wonderful she felt as she
snuggled against Nick, warm from the heat of his body, tipsy from the alcohol
in her system, and blissfully happy from the events of a night she would
remember for the rest of her life.
***
I like the faces you make at me
When we’re lying in bed
They are always so beautiful
I like it when you tuck your body close to me
When we’re sleeping it’s all right
Dream your fears away
I’ll be here all day
Dry your eyes
Cause I’m here to spend
This moment in your arms again
The forecast calls for rain to take away the day
I guess we’ll just have to stay inside the room
I’ll bring your breakfast warm to wake you from your dream
As I lift your head upright
Dream your fears away
I’ll be here all day
Dry your eyes
Cause I’m here to spend
This moment in your arms again
- “Faces” by Josh Kelley
Nick awoke
to the sound of rain pelting against the windows of his bedroom. Normally he hated rainy days, but that
morning, he didn’t mind. He was warm and
dry in his bed, and Claire was still nestled against him, her arm draped limply
across his chest as she slept. Turning
his head to look at her, he smiled. He’d
gone to sleep slightly buzzed from all the beer he’d drunk, but the events of the
night before were still crystal clear to him.
Somehow, he had found it in him to propose to her. And she’d said yes. In an instant, his girlfriend of six months
had become his fiancée.
His fiancée. Now that was weird. He’d never had one of those before. In fact, the only woman he’d even thought
seriously about marrying was Leah, and as he reminded himself now, he’d been
conned into that. He’d felt obligated to
propose to Leah. He loved
Claire. Funny though, he had always
thought that proposing to someone would be one of the most nerve-wracking
experiences of his life. And oddly
enough… it wasn’t. He had felt totally
comfortable. No stressing out over it,
no rehearsing some big speech… he had just said it, and that’s all there
was to it.
That’s because she’s the one, he thought, his heart
fluttering. There was no doubt about it
in his mind. Claire was it.
Dipping his
chin slightly, he planted a soft kiss on the top of her head. He heard a rush of breath as she inhaled
deeply and exhaled in a soft sigh, her head turning to the side as her body
stirred. She lifted her head and rolled
over so that she was stretched out on her stomach, facing him. “Morning,” she greeted him with a drowsy
smile.
“Good
morning,” he replied, reaching out to gently brush a lock of hair away from her
eyes. “Sleep well?”
“Perfect. Is it raining?”
“Yeah, it
is.”
“Mm… what
time is it?”
Nick turned
his head to check the clock, but it was hidden behind a wall of empty beer
cans. “Dunno,” he answered. “Who cares?
We don’t gotta be anywhere today, do we?”
“Nope.”
“We can
stay in bed together all day if we want.”
She smiled
at him and then lifted her left hand in front of her face, extending her
fingers. She gazed at them for a moment
and then dropped her hand, her eyes meeting his again. “Was this part of my dream, or did we really
get engaged last night?”
Nick felt a
grin tug on the corners of his mouth.
“You weren’t dreaming. We got
engaged last night.”
She
giggled. “This is crazy! You’re my fiancée… god, that sounds so
weird!”
“I know,”
he laughed, remembering his identical thought earlier. “Wait till the guys hear… they’re never gonna
believe it. Little Nicky… married??” He could hear Howie’s incredulous voice
saying it now.
“Wait till
I tell my parents… they’re gonna flip!”
Nick’s
elation was momentarily curbed. “Flip??”
he repeated worriedly.
“In a good
way,” Claire added quickly. “I’m the
only daughter… my mom is gonna be so excited to get to plan a wedding!”
Wedding… wow.
That word made it all so real. It
was really going to happen. Yesterday,
all he could think about was wearing his leg for the first time in a month and
taking Claire out for a nice sixth-month anniversary date. It had been less than eighteen hours since
they’d been goofing off in that restaurant, and now, today, they were
engaged. Yesterday seemed like a month
ago, and last night felt more like last week.
A total of three words exchanged between the two of them had changed
everything.
It was, as
she had said, crazy.
But in a
good way.
A weird
gurgling noise interrupted Nick’s thoughts, and he looked at Claire. “Was that you?”
“My
stomach,” she giggled. “Wanna get up
long enough to grab some breakfast?”
She started to sit up, but he stretched his arm across her middle,
holding her back.
“I’ll get
it,” he said. “You lie here.” Easing her back against the pillows next to
him, he rolled away from her and sat up on the edge of the bed.
“Shouldn’t
it be the other way around?” she questioned, looking up at him in
amusement. “I’m the woman, and you’re-“
“The
gimp? Yeah, I know, but I can still
bring you breakfast.”
Claire gave
him a look. “I was going to say
‘incompetent in the kitchen,’ but okay.”
Nick
snorted. “I’m incompetent in the
kitchen? You should talk.” He winked, and she blushed, knowing he was
right.
“Fine, you
win. Make me breakfast.”
He
nodded. “I will.” He stood up and put on his artificial leg,
then shambled out to the kitchen. He
opened the fridge, then all the cupboards, trying to decide what to make. He assembled the ingredients for French
toast, and while it was baking, he poked through the various kinds of cereal in
one of the cupboards. He finally pulled
down a box of Cracklin’ Oat Bran and inspected it for a moment, wondering when
on Earth he’d bought that (must have been a Claire purchase, he
decided), before setting it down on the counter. He smiled briefly in satisfaction and went to
check on the French toast.
Half an
hour later, he walked back into the bedroom, carrying a tray with two plates of
French toast and two glasses of juice.
He set the tray down across Claire’s lap and got back into bed beside
her, stretching his legs out on top of the covers.
“Aww, Nick,
you’re such a sweetheart… believe it or not, this looks great,” said Claire,
smiling down at the breakfast in front of her.
She picked up the small glass of orange juice and took a sip, then
started cutting her French toast.
“Try the
egg,” said Nick, pointing to the hard-boiled egg he’d placed carefully in the
corner of her plate.
She looked
over at him suspiciously. “Why?”
Nick
shrugged. “I know you like eggs?” She narrowed her eyes at him, but shrugged
and reached for the egg. “Careful,” Nick
blurted as she touched it, causing her to look over at him again.
“Nick… what
did you do to the egg?” she asked in a patronizing voice, sounding like a
mother who had just caught her little boy with his hand in the cookie jar. “It has to be hard-boiled… you took the shell
off,” she observed, giving the egg a poke.
The white jiggled against her fingertip.
Nick
chuckled. “What, did you think I would
give you a raw one and wait for you to crack it and have it run everywhere?”
“Yes,” she
smirked.
He stuck his
tongue out at her. “Just open it.”
“Open
it?”
“I mean,
eat it… just eat it.”
Narrowing
her eyes again, she gave him another mystified look, but obediently reached for
the egg again. She picked it up
carefully and brought it closer to inspect.
Seeing the crack in the white where he had so carefully cut around the
middle, she gingerly pulled the top of the egg up. It swung back like a door on a hinge and tore
away from its bottom, landing with a plop on her tray. She looked down at it and giggled. Nick smiled, then looked back at the bottom
half of the egg in her hand, waiting for her to notice…
A second
later, she did. She gasped at first, and
then she burst out laughing. “Nick!” she
cried breathlessly, laughing uncontrollably.
Nick only smiled sheepishly and admired his own creativity. He’d sliced the egg three-quarters of the way
through its middle, hollowed out the powdery yellow-gray yolk, and in its
place, set a single piece of Cracklin’ Oat Bran. As her laughter died, Claire plucked the square-shaped
cereal loop out of its egg encasement and held it up. It sort of resembled a ring, only thick and
square-ish… and made of bran… But she
got the point. Smiling, she set down the
bottom of the egg “box” and slipped the cereal onto the ring finger of her left
hand. It only went halfway before
getting stuck, and she giggled again.
“Sorry,”
Nick said, offering her a shrug.
“No… no,
it’s… it’s perfect,” she replied, grinning over at him. “You are so cute!”
He flashed
her a toothy Crest smile. “Nah, I’m just
cheesy. I wanted you to have a ring.”
“And now I
do. And what a beautiful, crackling,
oat-branny ring it is.” She held her
left hand up and turned it this way and that, as if the ring were sparkling in
the light.
“Just wait
till you get your real ring. I
promise, it’ll be even more beautiful,” Nick vowed.
She smiled
over at him. “And when will that be?”
“Today, if
you want. I know a great jeweler in
town. We can go pay him a visit later if
you want to pick it out.”
She
nodded. “That sounds great.”
“Good,” he
smiled. “Now dig in, my Oat Bran
Queen. Your French toast is getting
cold.” Claire giggled and stabbed her
fork into a piece of French toast, raising the powdered bread to her lips. “How is it?” he asked, as she swallowed.
“Quite
tasty, actually. You were right; you’re
not incompetent in the kitchen.”
“Like you
ever had a doubt,” Nick replied with a smirk and took a bite himself. “Hey, not bad. Our score for the morning – Carter, 2…
Kitchen, zip.”
Claire
giggled and shook her head. “Cute,
Carter… so cute…”
Watching as
she looked down at the cereal ring jammed halfway onto her finger again, Nick
just smiled. A low roll of thunder
sounded in the distance, and the pattering of rain against the window was
relentless, yet his mood could hardly be dampened. As far as he was concerned, the storm was
finally over, and the sun was starting to shine again.
I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day
When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May
I guess you say, what can make me feel this way?
My girl, talking ‘bout my girl
My girl
I’ve got so much honey, the bees envy me
I’ve got a sweeter song than the birds in the trees
Well, I guess you say, What can make me feel this way?
My girl, talking ‘bout my girl
My girl
I don’t need no money, fortune or fame
I’ve got all the riches, baby, one man can claim
Well, I guess you say, what can make me feel this way?
My girl, talking ‘bout my girl
My girl
I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day with my girl
I’ve even got the month of May with my girl…
- “My Girl” by The Temptations
***