Just a Boyfriend

by Wilson, Sariah

  Tears had welled up in my eyes, and I let out a short laugh as I brushed them away. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. I guess that’s not what I thought you’d say.”

  “I wish I’d been a better mom to you. You’ve kept so many things from me that you didn’t have to. I hate that you felt like you couldn’t confide in me. That’s not the kind of relationship I want to have with you.”

  “That’s not the kind of relationship I want to have with you, either.”

  She leaned over and hugged me, and I felt so much like a little kid again, finding comfort in my mom’s embrace, that I almost started crying again.

  My mom said, “Do you know how much I love you? How all I want is your happiness?”

  Then I did cry. I cried for the mistakes we’d both made, for the misunderstandings and the wedge they had created between us. I wanted that to stop, to bridge that gap.

  When she released me, she handed me a tissue from her purse. I used it to wipe my tears and then blow my nose.

  If I wanted to bridge the gap between us, there was someone else we still had to talk about.

  “What about Bash and me dating now?” I asked.

  Her answer wouldn’t change my mind; I had already decided that. But it would be nice to have her support.

  “This is going to be something Doug and I will have to work through as a couple. None of us know what the future will bring. And this is not what we would have chosen because of how messy everything could become.”

  I wanted to interrupt and tell her how wrong she was. That in my heart of hearts, in a place I barely acknowledged even to myself, I had the feeling that Bash was the one. And the idea didn’t scare me, which made me believe in it even more.

  But that was something I would share with him before I told her.

  “You and Ian are adults. You can make your own choices.” Her tone let me know that it was not the choice she wanted me to make.

  I didn’t care, though, what her choice would have been. I figured that was progress.

  “You’re right. We are and we will.”

  She nodded at that and grabbed her purse, as if she was about to leave.

  “Do you need to go?” I asked. “If not, I’d love if we could sit and talk. I could tell you all about Bash.”

  She hesitated for only a second before settling back onto the couch. “Tell me everything.”

  I grinned. “Let me start at the beginning.”

  After hours of crying and laughing and talking, my mom finally left. I had just gone into the kitchen to grab something to eat when there was a knock at the door. I thought my mom must have forgotten something, and I started to say as much when I opened the door.

  But this time, it really was Bash. He stood there, holding a grocery bag with one hand, and it was like all of my feelings demanded to be let free at the same time. So I launched myself at him, arms around his neck, legs around his waist. I needed a full-body hug. To reassure myself that he was here and we were in love and things were all going to be okay.

  “Hello to you, too,” he chuckled, walking into the apartment while still carrying me and closing the door shut behind him with his foot. He took me over to the couch, and I reluctantly let him go.

  “Hi. I love you.” I needed him to know that. Before we could talk about anything else, I wanted him to know where I stood. We had a lot of things to talk about, but I wanted to reassure him of my feelings.

  I could hear the relief in his voice. “I love you, too.”

  “I missed you,” I said.

  “I can tell.”

  “What’s in the bag?”

  “Presents.”

  What could he have brought me? Chocolate? Flowers? He was so thoughtful.

  He reached into the bag and pulled out . . . a can of nuts. He handed them to me.

  “Um, thank you?” I said, not understanding the meaning. Did he think I was nuts? Or our situation was nuts? Both would probably have been accurate statements.

  “They’re Blue Diamond almonds.” He pointed at the brand name. “They’ll have to do until I can afford real diamonds. Because that’s the kind of gift you deserve. Someday. After I go pro. I’ll buy you the biggest and most important diamond of all.”

  His meaning was clear. My heart melted into about a million tiny puddles. How cute and romantic was he? He made me feel like my whole body was smiling.

  And someday he was going to give me an engagement ring. Which I realized was everything I’d ever wanted.

  Then he reached back into the bag and pulled out a ham. An actual spiral-sliced, honey-glazed ham. He looked so proud of himself when he handed it to me.

  “I was at the store buying you the almonds, and it didn’t feel big enough. I wanted you to have something big that would show you just how much I love you, and they don’t carry turkeys this time of year. So ham it was. And ham is like bacon, but bigger.”

  I tried to keep the amusement out of my voice. “It is big. I don’t think it’s going to fit in our fridge. You know, this isn’t really the sort of thing a suitor brings over to his fair maiden.”

  “Logan brings Jess pizza, and it’s her favorite thing in the whole world,” he said, as if that explained it.

  “I knew I liked that girl.”

  “Hey, why are your eyes red?” he asked, his voice filled with concern. “Have you been crying? Is everything okay?”

  “It’s fine. My mom came by to talk.”

  “Really? How was that?”

  “It’s been brought to my attention recently that when it comes to my mother, me not being able to say no to her is weird. Which you kept trying to tell me, and I didn’t hear. Now I have to figure out my life without her playing such a huge role in it. I need to break that cycle. Just so you know, it doesn’t really matter what she says or thinks. Because I’ve already made a decision. I want to be with you if you still want to be with me.”

  A happy smile broke out across his face, so bright and brilliant that I fell in love with him all over again. “Ember, of course I want to be with you. You’re the most important thing in my life.”

  His words warmed me, like he’d lit a cozy, perfect fire inside me. How could there be this much happiness in the world? “I’ve personally witnessed how you feel about food, so I know you must mean it.”

  “I do mean it. But I want to know how things ended with your mom.”

  “I told her I can’t keep acting like I used to and need to cut those apron strings. It was good. I told her about you and our history. I don’t know if she’s on board, but she’s not going to actively stand in our way or anything.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “It is what it is. I may slip up and fall back into old habits, but I’m going to do my best not to. What I do know for sure is that I want to be with you, and our opinions are the only ones that matter.”

  Before I could finish my sentence, his mouth was on mine, sweet and loving. Like he wanted to convey his emotions with his lips and not his words. When he finally let me come up for air, all I could say was, “Wow.”

  “I talked to my mom today, too.”

  I straightened up, surprised. “Seriously? How did that go?”

  He grimaced slightly. “Better than I’d expected. I didn’t yell, which I figure is a good thing. I think we’re on a good path, but I’m not ready to spend a major holiday with her or anything.”

  “Right. So start with Arbor Day and work your way up?”

  He laughed. “Something like that. I also realized that my depression might have played a bigger role in me going off to Pennsylvania than I realized. Her depression is what caused her to leave us. I know it doesn’t change anything, but I thought you might like to know that there might have been other forces at play in that moment between us.”

  That made sense, and while I’d come to terms with the reality of our last teenage encounter, this made me feel even better. “It does change my perspective. Does it help you with understanding why you
r mom left? Being able to forgive her?”

  “It does. But I don’t really want to talk about her or get into all that right now. I want to talk about you and about us and what’s going to happen next.”

  I sucked my breath in. Why did that sound ominous? “Okay. Like what?”

  “Like why did you run away from my dad’s house?”

  “I was afraid.”

  “Afraid?” he repeated. “Of what?”

  “At first I thought it was because I was so scared of what my mother would think. That she’d turn against me and our relationship, and I still wanted to please her and make her happy. But when I really started thinking about it and what had made me so upset, I realized that what I was most afraid of was losing you. Afraid that you’d choose your dad and your family over me. Because I am so, so scared of you walking away from me again. I’m not sure I could bear it.” My body shuddered with an unshed sob; I struggled to keep it in. I tried to cover it up, but I’d known, deep down and for a very long time, that the fear of losing him was the real driving force behind me wanting to stay away from him. I had told myself it was half a dozen other things because I didn’t want to acknowledge how deeply I loved him when he’d left, but the truth was I didn’t think I was strong enough to go through it again.

  He put his hand under my chin, gently tugging so that I would look in his eyes. “If you’d stayed, you would have heard me telling my dad that I love you and that I didn’t care what he thought about us. That you’re everything to me. I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to worry about that ever again. I am ashamed of the fact that I ran away from you once. I didn’t stay and fight for you like I should have. So now I’m staying. Now I’m fighting. I will be here no matter what.”

  At that the sob broke free, and he gathered me up, holding me tight against him. His steady heartbeat soothed me, as did his hands stroking my hair and his kisses pressed against my temple, my cheek, wherever he could reach.

  When I could finally catch my breath again, I stayed put. This was where I always wanted to be, in his arms. “I’m never going to run away from you again. I promise to always stay and work things out.”

  “I promise the same thing,” he said.

  “So . . . are we doing this? You and me?”

  “Definitely. You and me. Forever.”

  I leaned back so that I could look him in the eye. “No matter what kind of obstacles, problems, and other junk we get thrown at us?”

  “E,” he said, just before he planted a sweet kiss on the tip of my nose, “you jumped out of an airplane, you stood up to your mom, I finally had a conversation with mine, and our parents know about us. We worked out what happened in the past, we’ve apologized for it, and we know going forward that we’ll fix whatever’s broken. The scary and hard parts are done. Everything else is just cake.”

  “Did you bring cake, too?” I asked, excited at the prospect. “Now that I have my own personal and very handsome food fairy, I need to know if I can make requests.”

  He laughed, the sound wonderful and infectious. “Do you know how much I love you?”

  Now that everything was out in the open, now that there were no more secrets between us, now that nothing stood in the way of us being together, I knew exactly how much he loved me and that I always would.

  EPILOGUE

  EMBER

  Two years later . . .

  “I thought you might be hungry, because that’s usually a safe bet. I brought you cake,” Bash said.

  “That’s why I love you,” I told him, taking the plate. “Aw. Only one slice?”

  “I couldn’t exactly hijack the entire wedding cake for you, E. People would notice.”

  He looked so handsome in his suit that I’d had a hard time during the entire ceremony paying attention to anything else. I was wearing the pale-pink bridesmaid dress my mother had agreed to after I’d told her I wasn’t interested in the electric-yellow dress she’d originally selected. (Lauren and Marley had backed me up.) Doug and my mom had decided to renew their vows and wanted to have the wedding party they’d missed out on the first time around. Lauren and Marley were the other bridesmaids, Bash had been the best man, and two of Doug’s brothers were the other groomsmen.

  It had been a lovely ceremony and an even better reception. Bash and I had waltzed and danced to almost every song until he had convinced me to sneak away with him and find a spot to cool off.

  Our parents had chosen to have their recommitment in the spring at a nearby country club. The same one where Bash and I had participated in the waltzing competition. The trees surrounding the clubhouse were flowering in various shades of pink and white. Our pathway was lined with white Christmas lights, and we found a small bridge that overlooked a tiny but adorable stream. Bash had left me there for a minute while he went back for what he called “supplies.” Which turned out to mean cake, smart man that he was.

  A flower from a nearby tree came loose and landed in the stream. I watched as it wound its way down, under our bridge and beyond to where I couldn’t see. The last two years had felt like that, rushing forward quickly, with us not knowing where things would go or what would happen to us.

  I had decided to keep nursing as my major and minored in creative writing. I figured I would need a way to support myself while I tried to become an author. I got my first job at a hospital in Seattle and had joined a local writers’ group as I continued honing my craft, almost ready to send my story of Sven and Julia off to some agents. Bash kept telling me I didn’t need to work, that he would take care of me so that I could just write all day.

  He had chosen to stay on at EOL for another year instead of going to the other Division 1 schools that were recruiting him day and night. I had told him to go to the best one, that our relationship was strong enough to withstand the time apart. We could do the long-distance thing. But he’d insisted that Coach Oakley had such great connections that there was no point in leaving. And of course he’d been right; Bash had been invited to the NFL Scouting Combine his senior year and had been selected for the NFL draft. He was a third-round pick and had been chosen by his hometown heroes, the Seattle Seahawks.

  Logan kept saying he was going to fix this and get Bash traded to the Portland Jacks as soon as possible. But we were good with how our lives were going. Maybe that was a possibility someday; Jess and I had also kept up our friendship, and now that she was expecting her first baby, I wished I could be closer to help out.

  “Today’s been kind of a perfect day,” I said to Bash.

  “It has been,” he agreed. “What did you think about the ceremony?”

  “It was nice. I thought Mom and Doug were very sweet.” It was obvious that they were madly in love and had actually become nice role models for me.

  “Maybe we should have objected,” he said with a wink.

  “Considering this isn’t the eighteenth century, I say no.” Especially since our parents had come around to the fact that we were a couple and planned to stay that way. My mom in particular had started talking about how amazing it would be that she and Doug could share a grandchild that would be related to both of them, and thought they should have the priority at holidays. I kept telling her to slow down, in part because we weren’t even engaged, and also because she wouldn’t be the only potential grandma. Bash had been slowly working to repair his relationship with his own mom, and it had come a long way. He wasn’t as close to her as Marley was, but they had made some massive strides. We’d had several dates that had included his younger siblings, Elijah and Evelyn. Elijah reminded me so much of Bash that it was kind of freaky. And although I chided my mom for jumping the gun, when I looked at those two, I could imagine the kids Bash and I would have together.

  “You should try the cake. It’s really good,” he encouraged me in a strange voice. It made me think he was keeping things from me, something we’d promised not to do.

  “Why are you being so weird?” I asked.

  “Try it and find out.”
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  Shaking my head I speared my fork into the multilayer chocolate cake.

  “Spending time with my dad today . . . seeing how happy he and Tricia are . . . it made me think. Really think. About what I wanted. About what is most important in my life.”

  His gaze was focused on my cake. What was up with him? “At least you figured out that cake is very important,” I teased as I went to get another bite. But my fork hit something solid, which fell onto the plate. I looked up to see Bash down on one knee.

  I realized that the piece of fallen cake had a ring.

  A ring with a diamond big enough to be seen from outer space. I gasped, fished the ring out of the piece, and started sucking the chocolate cake and frosting off it.

  Giddy love bubbled up inside me, while glitter bombs exploded. He was proposing!

  “Ember, maybe here and now is not the best time to propose to you. But I can’t wait anymore. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life eating bacon and cake with you. I want to laugh and joke with you and have extremely tall children. I promise to never make you go to the top floor of any building and to be your sounding board for every story idea you ever have. I will support you and love you forever and ever. Will you marry me?”

  I couldn’t help it. My feelings overwhelmed me, and I started laughing. It was so like my adorable Bash to propose with food. “You do realize you gave me a choking hazard, right? If it hadn’t fallen out, I would have eaten it and choked to death.”

  He looked playfully offended. “I wouldn’t have let you eat it.”

  “Are you sure about that?” I had actually seen cases like this in the emergency room before.

  “I was carefully watching you. I’m always careful!”

  “Respectfully disagree.” I loved teasing him and was so glad that I was going to spend the rest of my life doing just that.