The Proposal

by Jasmine Guillory

  “I almost called you on the way here and told you I didn’t need you, but I knew my friends would have yelled at me and told me not to be a fool.” She paused. “I think I’ve given other people similar advice, now that I think about it. It’s always easier to give people advice than it is to take it yourself.”

  Should he put his arm around her? He really wanted to, but she’d just had a dramatic breakup a few days ago, and she might smack him and order him out of her house. But she was curled up on the couch next to him like that, all cozy with her wine; this seemed like a prime situation for making a move, right?

  “Speaking of giving advice,” she said, “you said that you spend a lot of time giving advice to teenagers, and I’m totally curious about your job. What does it mean, to be the assistant director of a teen clinic?”

  Okay, it seemed like she just wanted to talk, as they sat here shoulder to shoulder in the dim lighting on her couch while holding glasses of wine. Great.

  “Excellent question, and one that I’m still kind of figuring out the answer to. I’ve only been doing it for about six months, but I love it so far. Basically, all of the health care of the kids that the medical center serves—who are in the twelve to nineteen age group—is routed through our clinic. The goal is to recognize that teens are in a special place, both mentally and physically, and to serve their needs as best as we can.”

  “I wish my doctor’s office had had a teen clinic when I was a kid,” she said. “I always remember feeling so grumpy about still going to a pediatrician when I was a teenager, surrounded by babies and toddlers.”

  She took another sip of wine and picked a piece of lint off of his shoulder. He felt lulled by her touch, the warm night air, by her presence.

  And also probably the wine.

  She stood up to get the bottle of wine from the fridge and brought it back over to the couch.

  “You said you’d only been there for six months—where were you before that?”

  She tipped the wine bottle toward his glass and raised her eyebrows at him. He nodded. Was she trying to get him to linger? Had the whole “I’m afraid of my ex” thing just been bullshit to get him to come up to her apartment? Would he care if that was the case? He grinned to himself. Would he care if a hot girl made up a story about being scared of her ex-boyfriend to get him up to her apartment? Hell no, he would not care.

  “I was at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital on the Westside. I liked working there a lot, but this job is different from what I’d been doing there, and it’s a lot of fun. Plus, it was great to come back to the Eastside and be closer to my family.”

  But wait. He didn’t know this girl that well, but from his few interactions with her, she seemed pretty forthright and honest, almost to a fault. He didn’t really think she’d make up a story if she wanted him in her apartment. She would just ask him if he wanted to come upstairs.

  Plus, if someone was pretending to be scared, they would have acted much more scared than she did when they walked in. She hadn’t been clingy or crying or any of that stuff. She’d just looked tense and angry. And she even hadn’t hinted for him to come over; he’d been the one to offer.

  “I spend so much time with L.A. people who are from somewhere else; it’s always fun to meet a real local,” she said. “Do you have a big family?”

  He rested his hand on the couch, right by, but not on, her knee.

  “Yes and no—it’s a big extended family, but Angie’s my only sibling. But we grew up right around the corner from my mom’s sister, Tia Eva, and her daughter, my cousin Jessica, who is basically like a sister to me. She’s the one I told you about at the bar who I got the ‘Is that you?’ idea from.” He smiled. “That’s another reason why this was a good time to move back to the Eastside; Jessie’s pregnant now with her first kid, and my whole family is over the moon.”

  She tucked her hair behind her ears and looked up at him. He liked the way she concentrated on him when he was talking, like she was really listening to what he had to say.

  He also liked the way the neckline of her shirt kept dipping lower and lower. He had to force himself to not let his eyes linger for too long on her cleavage.

  “Are you over the moon about the baby, too?”

  Her shirt dipped off one shoulder. He really wanted to reach over and push it off all the way. It took him a minute to remember what she’d asked him. Right, right, Jessie’s baby.

  “Oh yeah, definitely. You’d think that after being a pediatrician for years now I’d think babies are a dime a dozen, but I can’t wait until Jessie has hers. Not that I’m ready in the least to have one of my own, but that’s what’s going to make Jessie’s so fun. Being an uncle is going to be great. All of the fun and none of the responsibility.” He laughed. “Plus, this way, my mom will get off my ass about giving her grandbabies because she’ll have Jessie’s baby to hang out with.”

  She looked at him sideways.

  “Or, she’ll be on your ass even more because she’ll be so excited about the one baby that she’ll want more.”

  He held his finger up to her lips.

  “Shhhhh, don’t say that. She knows it’s going to be a long time before that happens. I have too many other people to take care of right now. I’m just glad that I’m back on the Eastside. I can be closer when the baby is born, as well as for things like killing spiders—real and imaginary—late at night for Angela.”

  She took the last sip of her wine and smiled at him.

  “She’s lucky she has you. I was lucky that I had you around tonight, too.” She sat up straight and put her feet on the floor. “Do you have to be at work super early in the morning? It’s getting late.”

  That sure sounded like his cue to go. Damn it. He looked at his watch and barely noticed what it said.

  “It’s getting pretty close to my bedtime.” He put his hand on her arm. “Are you going to be okay tonight?”

  Her eyes shot to the door, but she nodded anyway.

  “Of course. I’ll be fine, don’t worry about me.”

  He’d been on the point of standing up. Instead, he settled back down on the couch.

  “Well, when you say it like that, I’m worried about you. Do you want me to . . .” He was going to say, “Do you want me to stay?” but that sounded like he was inviting himself into her bed. And while he’d love to get an invitation there, he didn’t want to look like even more of an asshole than he already had tonight. “Do you want me to stay until one of your friends can get here?”

  “I feel ridiculous even thinking about doing that, but . . . maybe. Courtney has to be up at the crack of dawn, so I don’t want to call her. I can call Dana, though. I don’t think she’s filming tomorrow. Oh God, that reminds me! Instagram!” She pulled her phone out of her pocket.

  He had no idea what the hell that meant in this context.

  “Instagram?” he asked.

  “Fisher Instagrams his whole life, for ‘branding’ and his fans or whatever. If he’s updated in the last few hours or so, at least I’ll know what he’s up to.”

  She typed something into the search bar on her phone while she talked.

  “I blocked him on everything, so he can’t contact me, but if I’m logged out, I can still see . . . oh my God, Carlos. Look at this! He’s in Vegas!”

  She turned her phone around so he could see the video of Fisher dancing terribly at some club. He let out a shout of laughter.

  “Wow.” He scooted closer to her so they could both watch. My God, she smelled good. He wanted to stay this close to her on the couch for a long time. “Is this guy for real? Play it again.”

  She played his video four or five more times, and they laughed harder every time.

  “This is almost as good as the middle-finger ring picture,” she said, still laughing.

  He raised his eyebrows at her.

  “What middle-fin
ger ring picture?”

  “Oh my God. I’m so sorry. I didn’t show you. You and Angela left before we looked at his texts. Look at this picture he sent me.”

  She scrolled through her phone and pulled up a photo of a blurry middle finger with a blue engagement ring on it. He recoiled.

  “Oh my God. He seriously texted you this?”

  As she’d scrolled to the photo, he’d seen flashes of a few of the texts Fisher had sent her after the proposal. That fucking bastard.

  “I know. I know.” She was still looking at the photo, and not at him. “You don’t have to say anything. I have terrible judgment in men; we all know that now, but this is really incredible, right?”

  He stood up. He was glad for her that Fisher was out of town, but now he had no more excuses to stay here.

  “It’s so incredible that I need to go home now to process that. And also because I have to be up, awake, and ready for patients at eight thirty a.m. tomorrow.”

  She walked him to the door.

  “Sorry for keeping you up, and thanks again.”

  She reached out to hug him, and he pulled her in tight. Her body nestled up against his felt so good. He wanted to hold on for much longer and forced himself to let go.

  “Glad I could be here. Good night. And if you want to stack a chair behind that door after I leave, feel free. No one will know about it but you.”

  She laughed and reached up to kiss him on the cheek.

  “I just might do that, thanks.”

  Chapter Five

  . . . . . . .

  Nik shut the door behind Carlos and closed her eyes.

  Maybe, she thought, if she stood there for a few minutes with her forehead against this door, it would magically take away the far too many feelings going through her head right now.

  She gave it about two minutes, but it didn’t work. So she flopped back down on the couch and pulled the blanket over her face.

  Why hadn’t he offered to stay with her that night, Fisher or no Fisher? She would have said “No, you’re too busy, I don’t want to inconvenience you more than I have,” and he would have offered again, and she would have said, “Are you sure?” and he would have said, “Of course,” and she would have said, “You really don’t have to, but . . .” and he would have said, “I want to!” and then she would have tackled him on the couch. That would have been a much better ending to tonight than her being on her couch alone feeling like an idiot.

  Worse, he hadn’t even tried to kiss her! She’d given him every damn opportunity—she had practically shoved her boobs in his face—and he’d been all smiling and talking about his cousin and his patients and blah blah blah. Sure, she’d asked him about those things and hadn’t asked him, “Do you like my boobs in this shirt, Carlos? I grew them just for you,” but he should have gotten that that was what she’d meant.

  Ugh, and she hadn’t even invited him upstairs on some sort of “come look at my etchings” pretext. She’d wanted him for—gag—protection. When she’d unlocked her front door, she’d been so grateful that he was there. She’d felt actually comforted by his presence. Even when he’d ordered her around in a way that she would normally hate, she’d still been so relieved that he was there.

  How humiliating. She, Nikole Paterson, who prided herself on being self-sufficient and self-reliant and an Independent Woman, et cetera, et cetera, had caved under the slightest amount of pressure and called on a man to come save her. And she’d almost thrown herself at him in the process.

  Okay, this was getting way out of hand. Sure, her fingers were dying to run themselves through his thick dark hair, and her hand had lingered a little too long on his bicep tonight, and every time he curved those inviting lips of his into a smile, she wanted to pull him closer. But a rebound with Carlos was a terrible idea, remember? She neither wanted, nor needed, a rebound with anyone! That was why she’d hinted it was time for Carlos to go home. Men were trouble. She’d learned that over and over again. Plus, Carlos was a doctor, and she was done with doctors. They thought they were better than everyone else.

  She’d never forget that time when her digital recorder had failed unbeknownst to her during an important interview and she’d burst into angry tears about it to Justin. He’d said, “Come on, Nikole. It’s just an interview with an actor; it’s no big deal. Unlike in my job, no one’s going to die because of a little mistake.” She was still mad she’d stayed with him for another year after that.

  She shouldn’t have let Carlos come over in the first place. Even though he’d seemed nice and, yes, she had wished in a weak moment that he’d ended up in her bed, he still clearly thought that she was a helpless woman who needed him to protect her. He’d joked about that, but was it really a joke?

  Letting men see your vulnerabilities was always a mistake. There must be better avenues out there to protect herself against creepy ex-boyfriends than calling for the nearest man to protect her.

  * * *

  • • •

  “A self-defense class?” Dana asked. “You want us to go to a self-defense class together?”

  The three of them were all out at the bar two days later, partly because she hadn’t left her apartment since Monday night, partly so she could share her great idea with them.

  “It’s a good idea!” Nik said. “They’re supposed to be very empowering.”

  Courtney and Dana both stared at her like she had sprouted a second head.

  “‘Empowering?’ Since when do you use words like ‘empowering’?” Courtney asked.

  She had a point.

  “Sorry, I’ve been looking at too many self-defense class websites. But doesn’t it sound fun to go punch some stuff? It’ll be a great workout.”

  Now Dana looked interested. The poor thing had to constantly exercise. She’d gotten a best friend role in a sitcom the year before, which meant she could never get above a size two, and even that was pushing it.

  “That does sound fun, but is this one of those classes where everyone is supposed to share some trauma or something and then you punch it to, like, conquer your fear or whatever?” she asked.

  “There are a bunch of different kinds,” Nik said. “They teach you how to defend yourself, and—”

  “Yes, I got that; it’s right there in the name,” Dana said.

  “Shut up, you know what I mean. It’ll help us be more confident walking down the street at night or dealing with creepy guys.”

  “I drive everywhere, and I’ve been dealing with creepy guys for over twenty years. What else you got?” Dana drained her drink.

  “Hmm, will it also help some of us deal with ex-boyfriends who send vaguely threatening messages?” Courtney asked.

  She’d sort of hoped that they wouldn’t connect the dots about why she was interested in the class. It was a ridiculous hope, though. Unfortunately, she had intelligent friends.

  “You didn’t tell me that.” Dana sat up straight. “What the hell did he say to you?” She pulled out her phone. “I’m texting my roller derby friends—what’s his address?”

  Nik grabbed her phone away.

  “You don’t need to text your roller derby friends. It’s not like that.”

  Dana smacked Courtney on the shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me this was happening? He’s freaked her out so much that she wants to take a self-defense class?”

  Courtney took Dana’s phone from Nik and handed it back to Dana.

  “Why am I getting yelled at for this?” She pointed at Nik. “She’s the one who should have told you.”

  Dana squeezed the lime into her gin and tonic before she took a sip.

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’m mad at both of you. But I know you saw her on Monday. You told me she’d blocked Fisher, but not that his messages had gotten her to the self-defense class state. I’m going to that man’s house with a pitchfork.”

&nbs
p; Even when they drove her crazy, Nik loved her friends so much.

  “You don’t need to go to his house with a pitchfork.” She took a sip of her drink and reconsidered. “At least, wait a few days—he’s still in Vegas.”

  Dana opened the calendar on her phone and made a note.

  “Look, this isn’t about Fisher,” Nik said. Her friends stared at her with identical looks of disbelief. “Okay, fine, it’s not only about Fisher. It was just . . . when I got home on Monday, after his texts and all of the harassment from random dudes, I was so paranoid. I even . . .”

  She’d tried to avoid telling them this, but part of her always knew it would come out in the end.

  “So Monday night I had dinner with Carlos, and . . . I was so anxious about all of this that I got him to come check my apartment with me. It made me feel so stupid.”

  Dana put her arm around her.

  “Oh, honey. That sucks, but you have nothing to be ashamed about. It’s those assholes who made you so worried who should be ashamed of themselves. I’m glad Carlos was there.”

  Nik leaned into her friend and nodded.

  “He cracked jokes the whole time, thank God. If he’d been super nice and thoughtful and concerned about me, it would have made me throw up.”

  “Okay.” Courtney put her drink down. “I’m also very glad he was there for you, and I’m even more glad he wasn’t all weird about it, but what will make me the gladdest is if you tell us you slept with him afterward.”

  She shook her head.

  “No, guys, seriously, it wasn’t like that.”

  Courtney pursed her lips.

  “But why wasn’t it like that? He’s hot, he’s clearly into you, he’s the perfect rebound, and good Lord do you need one.”

  Only the first one of those points was correct.

  “No, I told you. I have to swear off men for a while. Every relationship I’ve had with a man in the past decade has been awful. There was Justin and Fisher, and remember that graphic designer I dated last year, who told me he was in an open marriage on the fourth date? I’ve had enough.”