The Proposal

by Jasmine Guillory

  Oh God. This was the kind of person who said “all of your beautiful faces.” What had she gotten them into? She saw Courtney and Dana exchanging glances.

  “So, as you all know, this is a six-week course to teach women how to fight.” She smiled at the half circle of women gathered around her, and they all smiled back. More or less. “Some of you probably signed up for this class thinking about how they do self-defense classes for women in the movies. You know, a man all dressed up in lots of padding, and everyone gets to beat him up and knock him down; we all laugh, right?” They all nodded, more sure of themselves this time. That was exactly what Nik had wanted. To be able to punch a man and walk away from the class confident knowing she could.

  “Well, that’s not what we do here.” Natalie’s voice had changed. It was still pink and sparkly, but somehow had steel behind it, too. “We don’t want this to be some fake empowering nonsense that lets you leave here after you knock down a man covered in padding, who was unable to move and who’d given you, like, ten minutes of warning that he was going to try to attack you. What the hell good does that do you?”

  Hmmmmm. This was getting interesting.

  “If we did that, you’d leave after six classes, still completely unable to face whatever it was that drove you to sign up for this class. That’s not what I’m about. In my classes, we’re going to face those fears head-on. And we’re going to teach you how to punch like a girl. Because you know what?”

  Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)” suddenly blasted from the invisible speakers in the room, and the whole class jumped, then laughed, then sang along.

  “That’s right. We run the world, girls. Don’t ever let anyone forget that.” Natalie beamed at them. Nik suddenly noticed the size of her biceps. She had definitely misjudged this woman by her blond hair and cheerful voice, that was for sure.

  “I know, I know, you’re all looking around for the punching bags and boxing gloves. That’s next week. Today we’re going to start with loosening up and learning some form.” She smiled at them, a smile that felt like a hug. How did she do that?

  “Okay, everyone!” Natalie bounded to the front of the class and faced them. “Now, we’re going to learn proper form. We have to get your hands, your arms, your shoulders, your back, and your legs all in order.” She demonstrated a punch, her ponytail swinging. “That’s what you are all going to look like before the end of next week’s class. Now, let’s talk about how you stand. That’s the most important part.”

  Nik imitated Natalie’s stance. She already felt stronger. She bet if Carlos saw her now, he wouldn’t think she was some sort of weakling.

  Well, okay, she still didn’t know how to throw a punch, but she would very soon, which was the important part.

  “We get to use punching bags next week, you guys!” Courtney said as the three of them walked out of the gym an hour later. They were dripping with sweat and had huge grins on their faces. “I can’t wait.”

  Nik looked over at Dana.

  “What did you think, D? I know this one became a convert as soon as she saw the sparkles, but you were more skeptical. You going to keep going with us?”

  Dana jumped into the front seat of Nik’s car.

  “Absolutely. Now that I think about it, I’ve always wanted to know how to punch someone in the jaw.”

  “Same here,” Nik said.

  * * *

  • • •

  Carlos woke up extra early on Friday morning and went for a run. The hell with apples; it was a run a day that kept the doctor away.

  He was so tired of Angela bugging him about going to the doctor, and lately Jessie had been doing it, too. They’d started bringing this doctor thing up over a year ago when he made the mistake of letting it slip that he hadn’t been to the doctor in years. He knew it was because they were just paranoid about something happening to him like it had happened to his dad, but he was fine—he kept telling them that. He knew his own family history all too well; he didn’t need to go into detail with someone else about it. And he already knew everything he needed to do for his health, and he didn’t need some other doctor bugging him to cut carbs and exercise more, blah blah blah.

  He’d planned to take a few hours off on Friday afternoon, so when he left work early, he drove down to Los Feliz to the bookstore he liked there, Skylight Books. He’d promised Jessie that he would pick up some books for her to read while she was on bed rest. He was pretty sure that Jessie was more stressed about having preeclampsia than she’d let on to him. Books would help her relax, no matter what she was reading.

  “Looking for anything in particular?” a voice next to him said. Oh thank God, someone on the staff to give him advice.

  “I am, and I need some help.” He turned around to find Nik standing next to him, that worried look on her face from Monday night replaced by a grin.

  “Hey! What are you doing here?” he asked. He pulled her into a hug. He’d been on the point of asking her to get a drink last night, but she’d gone radio silent on him for a few hours, and when he heard from her again, it would have been way too late.

  “I’m here all the time,” she said. “Today there’s no particular mission other than seeing if I can find a book I’m in the mood for. I have stacks of brand-new books at home, all of which I was excited to read when I bought them, but now . . . none of them seem quite right to me.”

  He nodded.

  “Yeah, I know how that is. All of the books that you have are sad books when you’re in a happy book mood, or vice versa. Or dense when you want a page-turner.”

  She smiled up at him. Her skin almost glowed in the warm light, her hair bounced as her head turned, and her huge smile made him feel warm inside. He couldn’t help but to smile back at her.

  “Exactly! All of the books I have right now are either very smart nonfiction books about very important issues that I would rather jump in front of a moving train than read right now or novels where all of their New York Times reviews said the writing was ‘beautiful,’ and I don’t have the patience for beautiful writing right now. What are you looking for?”

  They walked a few steps together, away from the woman who seemed to be bothered by their above-a-whisper-level conversation.

  “I’m shopping for my cousin who’s on bed rest, and she’s obsessed with true crime. Books like that stress me out, but she can’t get enough of them. But since I can’t read them without having nightmares, I have no idea what I should get her. Plus, she’s a librarian, so I’m always terrified to buy her books.”

  Her eyes lit up.

  “It’s your lucky day because you’re looking at Southern California’s true crime book expert. I’d call them my guilty pleasure if I believed in guilty pleasures. I can give you as many recommendations as you have bookstore dollars to spend.”

  Well then. It was his lucky day for more than one reason.

  She picked up a book from the shelf they were standing in front of and paused.

  “Wait, is this the same pregnant cousin you were telling me about the other night? What happened?”

  He’d forgotten that he’d told her about Jessie. He was impressed that she’d remembered.

  “Yeah, Jessie. She has preeclampsia. We found out this week.” He tried not to let on how anxious he was. “She’ll be okay, we think—it’s not the most serious kind, but it’s going to be a long twelve weeks for her.”

  She squeezed his arm.

  “Oh God, that must be so stressful.” She turned back to the shelves, her hand still on his arm. He resisted the urge to flex. “Okay, this just means we’ve got to get her some excellent books that will make her happy to stay on the couch. Do you know what she already has?”

  They walked out of the bookstore forty-five minutes later, a bag of books in each of his hands.

  “Can I buy you some coffee to thank you for your help?” he ask
ed her.

  “Absolutely not, I owed you this favor,” she said. “But I can buy you coffee to thank you for your help on Monday night.”

  He laughed.

  “Okay, how about I buy you coffee and you buy me coffee then?”

  She steered him down the street.

  “Deal.”

  They ended up at a coffee shop with outdoor seating a few blocks away and sat down at a shady table with their iced espresso drinks.

  “Preeclampsia can be scary, right?” she asked. “How is your cousin doing?”

  Thank God someone understood that.

  “It can be really scary, yeah. I think Jessie’s doing okay, but I’m not sure if she’s taking this seriously enough. She’s only twenty-eight weeks, so we’re all just hoping the baby stays put for at least another two months.”

  He’d been terrified when he got the first text from Jessie. Thank God it wasn’t as bad as he’d initially thought, but that terror hadn’t completely dissipated.

  She touched his clenched fist. He forced his fingers to relax enough to clasp her hand without breaking it.

  “What’s making your face do that?” she asked him.

  He scrunched up his face at her, and she laughed.

  “My face do what? What is my face doing?”

  She touched his cheek with her free hand.

  “You have a dimple in this cheek right here. All afternoon and evening on Saturday, I saw it winking at me. The same thing happened when we were in the bookstore just now. But as soon as we sat down, the dimple disappeared. And lines appeared up here.” She drew a line across his forehead with her finger. He closed his eyes at her touch. She dropped her hand, and he opened his eyes.

  “Remind me not to go to Vegas with you,” he said. “You’ll let everyone know all of my tells!”

  “Oh no.” She shook her head. “I’m an excellent Vegas buddy. I’ll tell YOU everyone else’s tells.”

  He laughed and sighed. His face was probably doing that thing again, but he couldn’t help it.

  “This early in her pregnancy, for her to get this diagnosis—there’s a lot that could go wrong. I don’t want the rest of my family as anxious about this as I am, so I’m trying to be calm about this when I talk to them. I’m just worried.”

  “Where’s her spouse in all of this, or is she single?”

  He shook his head.

  “No, she’s married, her husband’s great. But Jessie and Angela and I grew up together, she doesn’t have any siblings, so I’m sort of her big brother, as well as Angie’s.” It had always been his job to take care of Jessie and Angie. And since his dad died, he’d made an effort to always be there for them, even when he’d lived all the way over on the Westside. Jessie was still his responsibility, Jon or no Jon.

  “Anyway, I was supposed to go out of town this weekend, but I’m going to have to cancel. My best friend Drew got engaged last week and he and his fiancée are having an engagement party in Berkeley. I was supposed to fly up tomorrow morning, but I can’t leave Jessie now. I still have to cancel my flight and call Drew and tell him I’m not coming.”

  He sat up straight and tried to shake all of this off. Why had he just let all of these stupid emotions out to this woman who barely knew him?

  “Sorry for spilling all of that. I’m sure you didn’t come get coffee with me in order to hear all about my family drama.”

  She shook her head and squeezed his hand.

  “Well, you didn’t go get dinner with me in order to become my private security guard, so I’d say it’s about even.” Her face lit up. “Ooh, here’s a thing that I bet a pregnant woman on bed rest will love: cupcakes. Courtney’s shop is just a few blocks away. Want to walk over there?”

  Chapter Seven

  . . . . . . .

  Nik shook her head when she saw the pink and white polka-dot Cupcake Park sign. What was she doing bringing Carlos here? She would never hear the end of it from Courtney. But he’d looked so sad about his cousin. Cupcakes were the first thing she could think of that might cheer him up.

  “Hey!” Nik said to Courtney, who stood behind the counter with a smirk on her face. “I brought you a customer.”

  Courtney waved as she carefully placed an assortment of cupcakes into a box for the woman standing at the register.

  “Hey, Carlos, good to see you again. Welcome to Cupcake Park. Nik can give you the rundown of all of the flavors while you wait. She knows them almost as well as I do.”

  Nik gave him a wry smile as they went up to the counter.

  “As much as I hate to say this, she is correct. I curse the day one of my best friends opened a cupcake shop so close to my apartment. And unfortunately, it looks like business is booming, so she’ll be here for a while, tempting me with her delicious sugary treats. I think she did this to get revenge on me for something.”

  Courtney and her customer both laughed.

  “I can’t tell if you’re the worst possible advertisement for my store or the best. I guess time will tell.”

  The customer picked up her bag containing two big boxes of cupcakes.

  “Get the strawberry ones,” she said. “Those are my favorite. Those and the coconut-lime ones. Ooh, and the matcha ones!”

  Nik shook her head after the customer left the store.

  “All of those are very good, but she’s wrong. He should get the confetti ones and the lemon ones.”

  Carlos smiled at Courtney.

  “Those flavors all sound great, but I need to start with some red velvet. These are for my cousin, and those are her favorites.”

  Courtney smirked at Nik, and Nik put her head in her hands.

  “What did I say?” He turned from one to the other.

  “When I was opening this place, I insisted that I needed to have red velvet cupcakes. Nik argued strongly against them. She said my whole shop was going to be about unusual and interesting flavors, and that red velvet cupcakes weren’t good enough for me.”

  “They taste like nothing!” Nik said. “They’re just a vehicle for cream cheese frosting, but you can put cream cheese frosting on other cupcakes!”

  “I guess I can see who won this argument,” he said, and gestured to the case full of red velvet cupcakes.

  “A good cupcake shop has got to have some crowd pleasers,” Courtney said.

  Courtney was always so happy that she’d been right about red velvet, damn her.

  “You’re shopping for your cousin?” Courtney asked Carlos. “Any special occasion, or a just because cupcakes are great?”

  He smiled at her, but he had that sad look in his eyes again.

  “Sort of. She’s pregnant and newly on bed rest, so I wanted to bring her some cheer.”

  “Oh no, your poor cousin. Okay, some cheer, coming right up. How many do you want?”

  Carlos put his bags of books on a chair.

  “A dozen. At least. If I know my family—and I do—everyone is going to be coming by her house in the next few days, and they’ll all eat one, minimum.”

  “Okay, got it.” Courtney pulled out a big pink box. “Here, I’ll put together an assortment of Cupcake Park’s greatest hits, and Nik can take you into the back to show you my kitchen, aka my pride and joy. One question: how do you feel about spicy food?”

  He looked at Nik and they both laughed.

  “I feel great about it. Why? Do you have a spicy cupcake?”

  Courtney grinned her slightly evil grin.

  “Nik, you tell him all about my spicy cupcake while I put together this box of treats, okay? And yes, yes, I’ll give him some of the confetti cupcakes.”

  Nik led Carlos through the door marked employees only and tried to ignore Courtney’s knowing look. It was like she thought the whole reason Nik had brought Carlos here was for Courtney to start up the rebound refrain again.
<
br />   To be fair . . . she’d been thinking a lot about that moment on the couch the other night. Maybe too much about it. If Courtney did start up the rebound refrain again, she might be somewhat more receptive. Maybe.

  “How long has this place been here?” Carlos put his hand on her lower back to steer her around some cardboard boxes stacked on the floor.

  “Just over a year.” Would he slide his hand up her back to put his arm around her shoulders? Come on, give her this one thing. YES. YES, HE WOULD. She leaned toward him and tried not to let her smile show her triumph.

  “Did she have another bakery somewhere else?”

  Nik shook her head. How could he expect her to have an actual conversation with his arm around her like that, and his warm body right next to her?

  “No, she used to be an investment banker, isn’t that wild? But she’d saved up a ton of money and had always loved baking. About a year and a half ago, she saw this place for lease and took the plunge.”

  “Wow,” he said as they walked through the kitchen. “That’s inspiring.”

  She nodded and looked up at him.

  “Agreed.” She wanted to touch his hair so badly. It was slightly too long and a little messy from the wind. If she could just brush it back with her fingers . . .

  She felt a buzz from his pocket, and they both jumped and pulled away from each other. He shook his head and reached for his phone.

  “That was Jessie, wondering when I’m coming over. I should probably . . .”

  She nodded.

  “Yeah, let’s go get your cupcakes from Courtney.”

  They emerged back into the store. Courtney’s smirk was in full bloom. Nik glared at her, but it didn’t make the slightest impact.

  Carlos pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed her his credit card. “Thanks so much for the cupcakes. I’m sure Jessie will love them.”

  “My pleasure.” She ran his card and handed him the receipt. “Thanks for coming by, and I hope this isn’t the last time. And make sure you warn everyone about the spicy chocolate cupcakes; they’re the ones with the chili pepper on top.”