The Proposal

by Jasmine Guillory

  Nik turned around to make fun of Dana for being the teacher’s pet, but Dana was beaming so hard she didn’t have the heart to do it.

  “Other side!” Natalie shouted to the class. They all turned and kept going as she finished her loop around the room.

  “Okay, everyone! Great job. Now you all get boxing gloves. And look, I know that in a real situation you’re not going to be able to pull out your boxing gloves before you can defend yourself or a loved one. But we have to protect ourselves as we learn how to do this, don’t we? You learn how to punch these punching bags hard with these gloves on, and you’ll be able to break a man’s jaw with your bare fist. I guarantee it.”

  Ahh yes, that’s the other reason she didn’t mind Natalie’s sugar-sweet attitude. Because every so often, she could see the cyanide hidden in there.

  Natalie walked them through wrapping their hands with tape and putting on gloves. Nik held her fists up in the air. She nodded at them with a triumphant smile. Her whole body felt stronger, just with these on.

  There were two rows of punching bags hanging in the room, one on each side. She, Dana, and Courtney were all in a line.

  “Okay, great! Everyone is ready. Now, remember everything I told you, remember your form, and start punching!”

  Nik stood back, paid attention to her form, and sent her fist flying into the punching bag.

  Holy shit. Natalie wasn’t kidding. That thing was like a brick wall. But it was pretty satisfying to see it swing from her jab. She threw another punch.

  After a few minutes, Natalie was at her side.

  “Nik! You’re doing so, so great today—just look at you.”

  She grunted, tried to make her form perfect, and punched again.

  “Oh, that was a good one. Excellent job. One question: why did you sign up for this class?”

  Nik looked at the punching bag instead of at Natalie.

  “Eh, I thought it would be fun to come with my girlfriends, you know.”

  Natalie patted her on the shoulder and smiled.

  “Of course! Okay. Now tell me the real reason.”

  Nik turned to look at her, and Natalie was smiling back, as bright as could be. Nik sighed.

  “My ex-boyfriend was a real asshole.” She realized that could describe more than one person. “Actually, too many of my ex-boyfriends are assholes.”

  “You aren’t alone there!” Natalie stood behind the punching bag and held it still. “Okay, now picture their faces on this punching bag. And then punch the hell out of it.”

  Nik took a step backward, stared at the bag, and let her fist fly. It felt great.

  “Fantastic!” Natalie said.

  Nik grinned.

  “That was fantastic, wasn’t it?”

  By the time they made it to the bar after class, all three of them were high on pure adrenaline.

  “Did you see me punch that bag?” Courtney asked the other two. “By the time we’re done with this class, I’m going to have it flying across the room. I promise you.”

  “I’m going to be so fucking sore tomorrow, and I don’t even care.” Nik made a fist and flexed her just visible muscles. “My biceps hurt right this second, and I’m not even mad about it. That was awesome.”

  Dana said nothing; she just beamed at the damp table.

  Pete dropped their drinks off at the table, and they all thanked him.

  “Now do I get to say ‘I told you so’ about this class? Aren’t you guys glad you did it with me?” Nik asked them.

  “I am very glad we did it with you,” Dana said.

  Courtney shook her head.

  “Sure, fine, the class is better than we thought, but Dana and I have a much bigger ‘I told you so’ coming up.”

  She’d walked right into that one, hadn’t she?

  “What did we sayyyyy?” Courtney said to Dana, her hand raised high in the air. Dana high-fived her, with a small, but just as smug, smile on her face. “We told you that you needed a rebound, didn’t we? I can’t believe we’ve waited this long. Tell us everything.”

  Nik couldn’t keep the smile off her face as she told them the story—or most of it, at least.

  “Thank God we convinced you to get over that whole bias against doctors thing,” Dana said.

  “Oh, I still don’t like doctors, but in the end I couldn’t help myself,” she said.

  The three of them all laughed.

  “Wait.” Nik had a terrible thought. “What if Carlos doesn’t realize that this is just a rebound? What if he’s a serious relationship kind of guy? I don’t want to accidentally get into another Fisher situation.”

  “Oh, come on.” Courtney laughed. “This is Los Angeles. There is no such thing as a ‘serious relationship kind of guy’ in this city. You don’t know this because you aren’t looking for one, but I promise you, men like that don’t exist here.”

  Nik shook her head and drained her drink.

  “That can’t be true. Remember all of those cozy little couples holding hands at brunch last time we went? Also, one of the supposedly mythical serious relationship Los Angeles men just proposed to me, remember?”

  Courtney rolled her eyes.

  “Fisher doesn’t count. Everything about that proposal was fucked up. And all of the couples we saw having brunch were there after their third successful date, but they’ll move on to someone else within three weeks to three months, maximum. Serious couples don’t go to brunch; they stay home and cook for each other. Everyone knows that.”

  Courtney liked making bold pronouncements about what “everyone knew,” most of which just made Nik laugh. But this time . . . Nik’s mind flashed back to some cozy brunches she’d made for Justin. She gratefully took her new drink from Pete.

  “Okay, but what about all of the married people? You’re not going to claim that there are no married people in all of Los Angeles, are you?”

  Courtney sat up straight and winced.

  “I think I’m already sore from that damn class. Yes, of course there are married people in L.A. People arrive in L.A. in serious relationships or already married, that’s the only way it happens. No one meets a spouse in L.A., except for celebrities, and those relationships are all fake, anyway.”

  Dana, who had been rolling her eyes throughout all of Courtney’s decrees, nodded.

  “Our cynical friend over here is wrong about everything except that last thing. Celebrity relationships are all fake.”

  Nik narrowed her eyes at Dana.

  “Wait, you can’t mean all celebrity relationships. Even I know in my heart that John and Chrissy—”

  “Back to Carlos,” Courtney said. “I knew he was worthy. You told me how much he liked the spicy cupcake. And I believe we all remember that Fisher did not.”

  All three of them nodded.

  “Excellent point.” Nik waved at Pete and pointed at their drinks to request another round. “I feel like, in the future, all you need to say is ‘Fisher liked that’ to steer me away from someone, or ‘Fisher didn’t like that’ to steer me toward them.”

  Pete put their drinks down on the table to a flurry of thank-yous.

  “However.” Nik took a sip of her gin and tonic and smiled. “I do have to thank Fisher for one thing: if he hadn’t proposed to me at Dodger Stadium, I never would have met Carlos. And after last night, well, that would have been a real shame.”

  The three of them clinked glasses.

  * * *

  • • •

  Carlos walked into his apartment on Thursday night with an enormous grin on his face. He should be exhausted, after getting barely any sleep at Nik’s place last night, then racing home just to shower and change and head to an extra-long work day, but he didn’t remember when he’d felt less tired. He was ready to go back to Nik’s tonight to keep going. If only.

  He w
as very glad he’d texted her this morning about Friday night. He’d almost waited, in the interest of being chill about everything, but then he remembered how much he’d hesitated to ask her out for drinks in the first place, and how ridiculous that felt now.

  He walked into his kitchen to see what he could scrounge up for dinner. When his phone rang, he was certain for about a second it was Nik calling him. He glanced at the screen and shook his head at himself.

  “Hey, Angie.”

  “I heard you talked to Jessie last night.”

  “I did.” He’d almost forgotten about that. It had happened right before he realized he had run out of gas. “She sounded good, but bored. She said I have to get her more books. I’m going to try to do that tomorrow or Saturday.”

  When he’d suggested Friday night to Nik, he’d had no real plan in mind other than to see her again. But then she’d texted him back asking him what he was in the mood to do, and he felt like the answer she was looking for was not “sex on your couch, then pizza, then more sex was pretty great last night— we could do that again?” The guys she tended to go out with were probably “fancy pizza place in Silver Lake where you had to stand in a long line” kinds of guys, and nothing against guys like that, but that wasn’t him.

  “Jessie told me you yelled at her. You have to stop doing that! It’s going to make her blood pressure worse, I already told you that. And I looked up preeclampsia, and—”

  “Angela. Are you really trying to tell me something about medicine you found on the Internet right now? Seriously?”

  But also, he had to come up with an idea for something to do with Nik—before they got to the good part—that made it clear this thing wasn’t on a path to a proposal. He liked her a lot, and the sex had been great, but he was not on the hunt for a girlfriend, let alone a wife. All he wanted from Nik was to have someone to blow off steam with every once in a while, whether that was more great sex or more great sex plus a few drinks or more great sex plus some joking around, et cetera.

  “I’m just saying, if you want Jessie to relax, you’re going about it the wrong way. The books were great and so were the cupcakes. Keep doing things like that. Stop hounding her about her blood pressure.”

  Why did his family always say things like this to him? He wasn’t “hounding” Jessie; he was just trying to make sure she was taking care of herself. He wished he had some of Nik’s rosé right now. Hell, he wished he had Nik with him right now.

  “Fine. I just wanted to make sure that she’s taking this seriously. I don’t want anything to happen to Jessie or the baby.”

  He walked over to his pantry, his favorite room in this house. He hadn’t had time to cook for a few weeks, and he’d missed it. All of the chopping and stirring and puttering around relaxed him after a long day. He put a big pot of water on to boil.

  “I know,” she said. “She knows that, too. Just try to be more gentle about it with her, okay?”

  “Okay, okay, I promise. Satisfied?” he said to his sister. Nothing else would get her off the phone.

  He hoped Nik understood that he wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. He thought so. Because after everything that had happened with Fisher, both at the Dodgers game and afterward, he was pretty sure Nik was in no mood to get back into a relationship. But was there a way to make that clear to her without acting like he assumed she’d fallen in love with him or something?

  Oooh. Here was an idea. He put his phone on speaker so he could text and keep talking to Angela.

  What’s your feeling on Mexican food? Any interest in checking out my favorite taqueria?

  There. A date at a taqueria should say “fun, but not serious” right on the label.

  “Hey, speaking of medical stuff.” Angie’s voice got really casual. Too casual. “Have you thought any more about making that doctor’s appointment? Just you know, with Jessie having these issues, and our family history and all, it’s good to . . .”

  “Angela.” He grated cheese harder than necessary into a big bowl. “Stop. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine.”

  “I know that’s what you say, but what does it hurt to get a few checks?”

  He was so tired of this conversation. He didn’t want to go to the doctor, and he didn’t need to go to the doctor.

  “Angela. I’m fine. I eat healthy, I run, I get enough sleep, I’m making myself a salad for dinner right now. Relax. Channel your worry about Jessie in a more productive way than bugging me, like knitting or chopping wood or something calming.”

  He reached into the back of his pantry and found his pepper grinder. He ground a bunch of pepper on top of his mountain of grated cheese.

  He checked his phone, just to make sure he hadn’t missed Nik’s text. Not that he assumed that people would always text him back immediately, but this morning when he’d asked Nik if she wanted to hang out on Friday night, she’d texted back pretty quickly.

  “Knitting? Chopping wood? Have you never met me before? I tried to knit a scarf once and ended up almost cutting off the circulation in my fingers. And do you think I live in a cottage in the woods and have an ax? I live in Los Angeles, remember? The way we do stress relief here is yoga classes, acupuncture, and weed.”

  “Okay, great.” He added salt and a handful of dried spaghetti to the now boiling water. “Go to yoga, go to acupuncture. As your older brother, I cannot advise you to do that last one, but if you do it, maybe you’ll stop bugging me, and we’ll all be happier and more relaxed!”

  Maybe Nik was offended that he was only suggesting a taqueria. Maybe she wanted him to be one of those “standing in a long line for fancy pizza” kinds of dudes. Maybe she was standing in one of those lines with another guy right now.

  “Yes, well, I’ll see what I can do.”

  He pulled his tongs out of a drawer and stirred the pasta with them.

  “Hey, have you talked to our friend from Dodger Stadium lately?” she asked. “I told you I liked her, didn’t I?”

  Maybe she’d said yes this morning just to pacify him but he’d never hear from her again, and his text would be just out there in the universe, unanswered, forever.

  “Nope. Anything else you need to nag me about tonight?”

  “Shut up and go eat your salad. Talk to you tomorrow.”

  Ten minutes later, he sat down at his kitchen table with a big bowl of cacio e pepe. Okay, yes, it wasn’t a salad, but man couldn’t live on lettuce alone, could he? Plus, he’d worked off a lot of calories with Nik the night before.

  His phone buzzed.

  Come on, I’ve lived in California way too long not to love Mexican food, what an insulting question. If I get over the insult, which I’m not sure I will, checking out your favorite taqueria sounds great.

  He laughed at his phone and put down his fork.

  A thousand apologies. But who knows, you may not like everything at this place. Some of it might be too spicy or too weird for you.

  He took his first bite.

  Want to bet?

  He grinned.

  Chapter Eleven

  . . . . . . .

  Nik woke up on Friday at her usual eight a.m. and immediately thought about her date with Carlos that night. Okay, it wasn’t a date date. It was just a glorified hook up, with food first—she was pretty sure they both knew that. But still. Whatever it was, she was excited about it.

  She forced herself to work all morning, but by noon, her mind was wandering to where they’d go tonight, how he would look, and oh shit, what she should wear. The last time he’d seen her it was after she’d raced out of her house when Courtney had called her in a panic, and she had not at all been prepared to see anyone, let alone him. She needed to show that she could look good if she tried.

  Something casual, chill, and cool. Something she would look incredibly sexy in, but still looked like a normal outfit to wear to a taqueria on the Friday ni
ght of a holiday weekend. All of that should be no problem at all for her, the person who had worn her holey Stanford T-shirt and threadbare yoga pants almost every day this week.

  She dug into the back of her closet, the place she put stuff that she bought whenever she got a big rejection and let her online shopping fingers roam free.

  Oooh, that leather jacket. She’d bought it last month when the New Yorker had rejected a piece she was sure they’d love. It had arrived in the middle of one of L.A.’s spring heat waves, so she hadn’t even tried it on and had stuck the box in her closet.

  She opened it and winced at the number on the receipt. What had she been thinking? Was it too late to return this?

  Then she put it on. Holy shit, this thing made even her old yoga pants look hot. She adjusted the zippers and grinned at herself in the mirror. If she wore that, plus her one sexy pair of jeans that gave her an ass like one of those rap guys’ girlfriends, she could wear any shirt and she would look great.

  She sat back down at her desk and looked at her to-do list, full of crap she had no desire to do. After fifteen minutes of trying to make phone calls and just getting voice mail boxes—some of them full—she gave up. It was Friday afternoon; everyone on the East Coast had already cut out of work by now, and everyone on the West Coast was pretending they had. She might as well join them.

  After an hour and a half of yoga, an hour of yoga recovery flat on her back on her couch, a shower, and an hour of trying on shoes and makeup to go with her outfit, she was ready for Carlos, only two minutes after he was supposed to pick her up. Luckily, he was five minutes late.

  “Hey! I’m outside. Sorry I’m late,” he said when he called. “Should I come up, or . . .”

  “No, I’ll come down,” she said. She felt ridiculously high school. She rolled her eyes at herself. This wasn’t a date, remember?

  Carlos was standing at the door when Nik walked outside. She’d kind of expected him to be waiting for her in the car. That made her feel even more high school, but in a good way.

  “Hi,” she said to him.

  He grinned at her.