The Proposal Plan

by Charlotte Phillips

  She didn’t smile. ‘What do you mean by “give things a try”?’

  ‘Try being together as a couple. Not just as friends. For starters we could have a proper night out, just the two of us. Nothing heavy, just a relaxing evening. And then I thought we could both do with a break, so maybe we could think about taking a couple of weeks off, going somewhere hot. What do you think?’ He looked at her expectantly. He thought she would jump at the chance, didn’t he? Why wouldn’t he think that? she supposed. Every other woman did.

  Her heart was deflating. She could almost feel it in her chest. Disappointment flooded her. He hadn’t changed at all, had he? She remembered some of those lines, almost word for word, from the night he’d met Ed’s friends and flirted with Joanna. And why on earth did he think a holiday in the sun was the way to go? As if a relationship between them wasn’t unreal enough, he was suggesting they take it and put it in an artificial setting with perfect surroundings. When they came home she knew the honeymoon would be over. And so would their friendship. What she needed to hear was that he was prepared to throw one hundred and ten percent into it alongside their everyday lives and challenges. She took her hands away from his and walked into the sitting room.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ He followed her, sounding genuinely confused. ‘What did I say?’

  She sat down on the sofa, elbows on knees, and blew a stray tendril of hair out of her eyes. She looked up at him and shrugged. ‘It’s more what you didn’t say, to be honest, Gabe,’ she said.

  He frowned. ‘I’ve laid my cards on the table, Lucy. This whole proposal thing of yours, spending time with you, looking at you gaining confidence, sorting things out with your dad. I realised the last thing in the world I want to do is help you get married to someone else. I tried not to show it, God knows I did, but last night it just got the better of me. And there’s no point me trying to hide it any more. I’ve fallen for you and I want you to be with me.’

  ‘Gabriel, our friendship means everything to me.’ She looked up at him. He was standing with his arms folded indignantly. Still frowning. He’s not used to women knocking him back, she thought. I do believe he thought he’d come here and I’d just fall into his arms. ‘So much that I’m just not willing to risk it by having a fling with you.’

  ‘Hang on a minute—’

  She held up a hand. ‘Let me finish.’ She was firm but quiet. For once she had her temper under total control.

  He looked at her impatiently. ‘OK, go on.’

  ‘Last night, Gabe, when you kissed me.’ She dropped her eyes shyly and looked down at her hands. ‘No one’s ever made me feel like that before.’

  He was across the room in three quick strides, kneeling in front of her, his hands on hers again. ‘Then let’s give it a go,’ he said softly, his mouth so close to hers that she could just touch it in a slight movement, take him down the hall to bed right now. ‘What have we got to lose?’

  She pulled her hands away and forced herself to stand up. ‘Everything, Gabriel. And that’s exactly the problem. I don’t want to lose you as a friend and if we go ahead with this and it doesn’t work out I’m scared that’s exactly what will happen. Your relationships last five minutes. And then you can’t turn back the clock. Things would never be the same. We’d have lost everything. So if this is just about you panicking because I’m settling down, there’s no need. Nothing will change for you and me, Gabe. We’ll always be best friends, no matter what.’

  He stood up next to her and looked intently into her face. ‘It’s not about that. It’s about us being more than just friends. I’ve changed, Lucy. I can make this work. And I promise you that, no matter what happens between us, we will always be friends. Always. You don’t need to worry about ruining that by being with me.’

  Could she really believe that? She looked at him and swallowed hard to keep the threat of tears at bay. She wouldn’t let him see her cry; she was absolutely determined about that.

  ‘I need time to think, Gabe. I feel terrible for just talking about this with you while Ed’s in the dark about what’s happened. I can’t think about anything until I’ve sorted things out with Ed. I have to make things right with him—you must see that. I can’t just pretend last night never happened. I’m not the kind of person who can gloss over that and then sleep soundly at night. All this is too sudden. I need to work out what I’m going to do.’

  ‘Well, you can’t still be intending to propose to him,’ Gabriel said boldly. ‘Not now.’

  Her temper stirred. ‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Because you say so?’

  ‘Because of what happened. The way you just said you feel. You can’t go ahead with it now.’

  ‘Maybe I can’t. But even if things finish with Ed it doesn’t automatically follow that diving into a relationship with you is the right move. Try and see it from my point of view, will you? You’re suggesting I throw away a good relationship, one that was good enough, by the way, for me to be ready to marry the guy, for you, who has the track record of a rock star for making relationships work. Already you’re suggesting we go away on holiday. What I need is to know we could work in the real world before I would ever take a chance on it working out in some unreal holiday environment.’ She sighed. ‘You mean the world to me, Gabriel, as a friend. I just don’t know if I can give that up. How do I know you’ve really changed? That you’re really ready for this—a proper, grown-up, serious relationship?’

  This was getting her nowhere. The way things were headed they would end up having a row. She needed to clear her head, decide what to do. ‘I need you to leave, Gabe. I’ll call you later.’

  His face fell. ‘No. I’m not leaving. We need to talk this through.’ He grabbed one of her hands. ‘Please, Lucy.’

  ‘I need to think!’ she shouted at him. ‘Stop pushing me, Gabriel!’ And then her voice broke a little as she lowered it and tried to speak calmly, to make him listen. ‘I need you to get out now and give me some space.’

  He dropped her hand as if it were suddenly red hot. ‘OK, OK.’ He held his hands up submissively. ‘I’ll go now. Give you time to think. But listen…’ He moved back towards her a little, as if he couldn’t stop himself, and clenched his fists. ‘Just promise me you’ll think about how it could be between us,’ he said. ‘We have so much going for us—you can’t deny that.’

  She only gazed back at him steadily until he left the room and she heard the front door bang shut behind him. He hadn’t once mentioned proper long-term plans. Something in Gabriel had been broken all those years ago when Alison died. Could she really believe that one kiss with her had mended it? That he now had the capacity to give her everything she needed? Because she needed security and safety to be happy, she needed to rely on him in the same way she needed air.

  Gabriel didn’t bother going home again after he left. He felt that the prospect of their relationship was balanced on a knife edge. He felt uneasy. Had he really given it everything he’d got? Had he really opened his heart to her and let her see in? Or had a decade of keeping women at a distance, avoiding any danger of loss, made him hold back? He didn’t know. But if he’d got this wrong he would lose her anyway now and he wasn’t sure he could stand that. He knew her well enough not to paint her into a corner, knowing that would only make her dig her heels in against him. The only thing to do was to back off and give her time to think. And it had to be her choice at the end of the day. What she wanted. Not something she’d been pushed into, but something she embraced.

  He turned the car in the opposite direction to his flat and made for the motorway. For Gloucestershire. He was determined to get this right. Lucy would never settle for anything less than marriage; he knew that. If he had any chance of winning her over he had to be prepared to be with her for always, to put aside all his fears that the past might repeat itself and that he might lose her the way he’d lost Alison. He had to take a leap of faith. He found with surprise that the idea filled him with nothing but hope and delight. He had spent years av
oiding even the thought of it. He just hoped that when she was ready to talk, he could make her listen.

  Lucy opened the oven and removed the mess inside. She’d put the cakes in before Gabriel arrived and had forgotten about them. They were burnt and rock hard. A total disaster. She hoped that wasn’t a reflection on her life. She felt emotionally drained and exhausted. She did her best to try and think clearly but her mind felt groggy and slow. What she needed was fresh air and she longed for a run by the river to clear her mind. She wasn’t sure of what she wanted to do, of where to go from here. So Gabriel didn’t want her to propose to Ed. But he didn’t seem sure how he wanted things to proceed between them. He seemed afraid to commit to anything more than ‘giving it a try’. Was she not worth more than that? Surely gambling their friendship meant more to him than that.

  She had no idea whether she and Ed could work things out, but, even if he could forgive her behaviour, would it be right for her to stay with him after this? Could she live with the lack of passion that came so easily to her with Gabriel as long as she had the settled security that Ed had always given her and that was so important to her?

  Or did she risk everything, literally everything, on Gabriel? Her stable relationship with Ed, her friendship with Gabriel, which was more like a family tie really, her home because if something went wrong with Gabriel she couldn’t live here, not any more. Heart or head? Which way should she jump? When it came right down to it she was scared. Scared of everything she had to lose.

  Gabriel sat in silence in his house. He was deep in thought. Ed’s message on his answering machine had been blinking away when he’d got back from the swift visit he’d made to his family home. Still unable to shake the sense of unease that had descended on him when Lucy hadn’t simply fallen instantly into his arms, he was immediately put on edge at the sound of Ed’s voice. Had Lucy spoken to him? Already? He began to frown as he listened to the short message.

  ‘Er, right… Gabriel?’ A pause. ‘Not there, then?’ Gabriel raised exasperated eyes skyward. For all his business aspirations Ed had yet to master the art of the slick answering machine message.

  ‘Ed here. Lucy’s Ed.’

  The way Ed spoke, as if he somehow belonged to Lucy, made Gabriel bridle with jealousy. He might not hold Ed in particularly high regard but there was no getting away from how much Ed had meant to Lucy for a considerable time. He would be a fool to underestimate that.

  ‘Just wondering if you can make it to The Abbey tonight. Half-seven-ish. Bit of an evening planned and I’m sure Lucy would like you to be there. Bye, then.’

  The machine clicked off. What the hell did this mean? She couldn’t have told Ed about them, then, as she’d said she was going to. Was she having second thoughts? Or was this some kind of ruse on Ed’s part to get him in the same room, have it out with him? Gabriel had no feelings of guilt. In his opinion Ed didn’t deserve Lucy; it was as simple as that. If he’d been up to the challenge she would never have been tempted to look at anyone else. It was Ed’s own fault if she found what she needed elsewhere. He knew in his bones that he, Gabriel, was what she needed—it was just convincing her of that fact that was the problem. Lucy felt guilty enough for the both of them, it seemed.

  He picked up the square velvet box that rested on the table in front of him. It opened with an almost inaudible squeak. Nestled inside was an ornate emerald ring in a Victorian setting. He took it out and twisted it between his finger and thumb, studying it. The green was the colour of Lucy’s eyes. It had been his grandmother’s. After Lucy’s reaction today he had known he had to find a way to convince her that he could offer the lifelong security and love she craved. Maybe this ring, a piece of his family, to which she’d always dreamed of belonging when she was a child, could help him do that. He snapped the box shut. Whatever this evening was, whatever happened, he intended to be there. He intended to fight for her now in any way he could.

  The Abbey was a popular bar showing a mixture of live music and televised sport. Somewhere in the course of her relationship with Ed it had come to belong to them in the way bars and pubs sometimes did when you visited them often enough. As she walked down the steps and through the door into the mellow darkness, dotted with flickering hurricane lamps on tables, Lucy’s stomach was a knot of nerves. Perhaps by the end of the evening she would have some clarity about her feelings. About what she wanted to do.

  She needed to talk things through with Ed. If everything had been right with their relationship she would never have looked to Gabriel for more than friendship. Yet the moment she had begun to think about pushing for commitment from Ed, her long-buried feelings for Gabe had begun to resurface. Slowly at first but gathering momentum until at the dance she had been unable to exert the self control she always believed she had when it came to principles like infidelity. The physical and emotional way Gabe touched her transcended all rational thought.

  She was clear about one thing. She had to be totally honest with Ed about what she had done, how she had let him down. She wasn’t sure Ed would still want to talk to her, or even look at her after that. She couldn’t let herself think about Gabriel until she’d gone through with this.

  She glanced automatically towards the table halfway down the room. Years of sitting at it had given it the tag ‘our table’ whenever they attended together and both of them felt irrationally aggrieved if anyone else dared to sit at it. She stopped and stared. There was no sign of Ed but Yabba, Suzy and Kate were sitting there, drinks in hand. Digger was standing at the bar and raised a hand in her direction as he caught sight of her. And was that Joanna sitting with her back to the door?

  She felt a surge of exasperation. So much for an evening of in-depth soul-searching with Ed. After their argument he’d obviously decided that the perfect way to get things back on track was a night out with all their friends. As if on cue she noticed Ed himself striding across the room from the stage area where the live music, a jaunty-looking man with a synthesizer and backing track, was setting up. So not only an evening with their friends but an evening of shouting all conversation over blaring music. She tried not to tense up as Ed swept her into a hug.

  ‘Great, you made it! Come on, let’s get you a drink.’ He pulled her by the hand towards the bar as the jaunty man kicked off with a loud sixties track. Ed raised his voice to compensate. ‘Orange juice?’ he shouted.

  She nodded. ‘Ed.’ She tugged at his sleeve to get his attention. ‘Ed!’

  He looked round.

  ‘I thought we were going to talk,’ she half yelled. ‘You know. After yesterday. Straighten some things out.’ She could see Digger standing behind Ed, very deliberately not listening, and she frowned at him. He looked away.

  ‘We will, we will! No harm in having a good evening out though, eh?’

  He gave her waist a squeeze and she felt an odd sense of unease at his enthusiastic manner. Ed was behaving weirdly. She wondered for a moment if she’d got it wrong on the phone and if he really had somehow found out about her kiss with Gabriel. Was he going to make some kind of scene? She dismissed the thought immediately. Ed was a straight-down-the-line kind of guy. He didn’t have hidden agendas; they weren’t his style. She was just on edge because of the weight of her conscience. And the way the evening was going there was no way she’d be able to do anything about that here.

  They made their way to the table and she reluctantly took the vacant seat between Ed and Joanna.

  ‘How’s Gabriel?’ Joanna asked her at the first opportunity.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. ‘He’s well, as far as I know,’ she said shortly. How could she be expected to put Gabriel out of her mind when people kept mentioning him at every turn?

  ‘Ask him yourself, Jo,’ Ed said, raising a hand in greeting towards the door. He kept his other arm clamped firmly around Lucy’s shoulders in a gesture of possessiveness that didn’t escape her notice.

  Lucy’s heart felt as if it had been jumpstarted; she felt her pulse begin to race. Not a gradu
al climb in heart rate but an uncontrollable leap. She turned to look. The bar might as well have been empty. For her there was no one else here. The irritating music faded to a background hum. Her green eyes met his grey ones and she was home.

  Why didn’t Ed make her feel like this? Not just now, but ever. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d looked at Ed and thought that the world could end right there and then and she wouldn’t give a damn as long as she was with him. Gabriel crossed the room and sat down opposite her. Every cell in her body was in a heightened sense of awareness. Her desire for him was so acute that she worried the others would guess her innermost thoughts, and she tried hard to avoid looking at him.

  As Ed kissed her cheek and stood up to speak to someone her rational mind kicked in with another twist of unease. What was Gabe doing here? This wasn’t one of his haunts; he preferred the trendier wine bars and nightclubs closer to the city centre. She felt a sudden prickling of worry that maybe he intended to confront Ed with what had happened between them, force the issue despite all they’d said that afternoon. She couldn’t do that to Ed. For heaven’s sake, all she wanted was the chance to come clean to Ed, to treat him with the decency he deserved, and yet all people and circumstances seemed to be thwarting that.

  As soon as Joanna had finished her effusive greeting of Gabe—did she need to kiss him on both cheeks?—Lucy leaned in across the table towards him, fighting the urge to reach out and touch him.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she asked in an awkward stage whisper, trying not to draw attention from the others. Especially Joanna, who looked none too pleased at having Gabriel diverted.

  ‘Ed invited me.’

  Her heart felt like a brick in her chest. ‘Why would he do that? He never calls you up, invites you anywhere. He leaves all that to me, if we ever see you socially. Which we hardly ever do.’ She looked at him urgently. ‘What is going on?’

  ‘Well, I did wonder, to be honest. I actually thought you might have told him about us. I was almost ready for a showdown even though he said you’d be here, too.’