Page 112 of Bar Down Baby!
I didn’t want her to conceive of a time where Barry and I didn’t love each other.
When I felt like my heart rate wasn’t nearing two hundred, I pried myself off his chest, but kept my hands on his shoulders. “Barry.”
Barry sunk his head back against the headrest.
“Yeah?”
I swallowed and sat back to get a good look at his face. It was too dark for my plans, so I reached overhead and clicked on the cabin light, both of us wincing at the bright light momentarily.
That was better, though. His nose was crooked from the times it had been broken, the scar from last season now a thin line on his left cheek. He’d buzzed his hair short for summer, and I loved running my hands over it. I liked his hair every way, liked him every way.
“Can we get married?” I whispered into the still quiet of the car.
It was only a single startled beat before a wide grin covered his face, his eyes lit up bright. I laughed, already relieved even though he hadn’t answered me yet.
“You mean it?” he asked. “You have to really mean it.”
I laughed again and reached back for my purse to retrieve the little box I had stowed there. Seeing it, Barry made a startlingly gleeful sound and shook me until we were both giggling.
I opened the box and plucked the gold band from its case. I held it between my fingers like an offering. It was, I suppose. An offering of myself, my trust, my commitment to try really, really hard to love him as best as I could forever.
“I really mean it,” I said.
Barry grabbed my face, one hand on either side, and pressed a long hard kiss to my mouth.
“Yes,” he said, and kissed me again. “Yes, tomorrow, even.”
“Not tomorrow!” I shrieked. “Our families may never forgive us if we elope.”
“Fine, next week,” he bartered, then gasped. “Let’s do it in the backyard.”
The yard was looking especially good these days, the grass thick and green, my grandpa’s rose bushes full of bright blooms.
“I’d marry you at the bowling alley. Could buy everyone onion rings,” he said.
“Maybe your brother should do some stand-up, too? Just so we’re hitting all our first date bases.”
“I like how you think.” Barry kissed my cheek, my jaw, my neck, my earlobe. “Say yes,” he whispered.
“This ismyproposal,” I chirped, indignant. He only grinned and batted his dark lashes at me until I heaved a dramatic sigh. I grabbed his left hand and slid the gold band onto his ring finger—no takebacks as far as I was concerned.
“Yes,” I told him, inciting a whoop and a hug so tight that the ache in my boobs reminded me we needed to get inside and either feed Frankie or pump.
“Can I give you your ring now?”
“When did you get a ring?” I asked, startled that he may have almost beat me to a proposal.
Barry shook his head, looking almost embarrassed. He reached behind me and clicked off the light, which I clicked right back on, waiting for his answer. He busied himself by pulling my dress back up my shoulders and tugging up the zipper while I waited.
When I didn’t crawl off his lap even though my dress was righted, he exhaled and smiled sheepishly.
“Last December. I took you to work and found you singing a very off-key rendition of a song you didnotknow the words to.”
“Hey!”
“Okay, you knew about forty percent of the words,” he amended. “I’d spent a sum total of twenty-three days with you and decided that I should have a ring on hand for the moment I convinced you to let me love you.”
My heart squeezed tight. I couldn’t believe there was a time I believed I’d never see him again.
“I’m glad you got traded,” I whispered.
Barry pulled me against his chest and rubbed circles over my spine, laying light kiss after light kiss onto my head. “Me too, Harvey.”
When we’d spent well over our twenty-seven minutes in the garage and my boobs really could not take being full anymore, he led me inside. The future could never be sure, but we’d make it.
This I was really, totally, completely certain about.
