CHAPTER 15
May
After the ceremony we get in the car and head home, but Steven doesn’t take the regular route. Instead he hops on the freeway.
“Do we have…plans for today?”
“Maybe,” he says as he reaches over and puts his hand on my leg just above my knee.
“Celebrating your award?”
“Amongst other things,” he says.
“Other things?”
“How about those Dodgers?” he asks.
“You don’t follow baseball.”
“I do starting right now.”
I laugh and let it go. It’s better to focus on having fun today than wondering what he may or may not have planned.
*****
We spend the middle of the day down in Huntington Beach. It’s so fun to be this close to the water. To watch the surfers and hear the strange and funny words the surfer kids use. Just the term they use to refer to themselves is funny. Grommet? How can you not laugh at that?
Just before sunset we meander on over to the Huntington Harbor and low and behold Steven has rented a gondola!
“Are you kidding me?”
“Nope. Hop in,” he says.
“Wow.”
“And they’re real gondolas from Venice,” Jonathan, our gondolier, says.
We get out into the harbor and Steven reaches his arm behind me to embrace…or so I thought.
Instead I hear some ice moving and he pulls out a bottle of champagne!
“Wow…you thought of everything,” I say as he brings out our glasses.
“You say that and you haven’t even heard Jonathan sing yet.”
“Jonathan, you sing?” I say turning around. Just before I get the last word out he’s already singing something in Italian. In Italian! I have no idea what it means but it sounds absolutely romantic and perfect.
Steven pours the champagne into flutes and hands me one.
“What are we toasting to?” I ask.
He looks up at Jonathan, who quickly fades the song out and then back at me. He takes my flute and sets it back in the ice along with his.
Then he stands and offers me his hand.
“Is it safe?” I ask.
“Life is full of uncertainties,” he says. “But they’re a lot more fun when we face them together.”
I smile and carefully stand up trying not to tip over the gondola. It has a very solid feel so I’m not too worried about it once I get up and realize just how safe it really is.
And then suddenly I’m the only one standing because Steven kneels right in front of me, while still holding my hand.
“We had a lot of fun working on our fake wedding vows didn’t we?”
“Oh my gosh,” I say.
“But you know what would be even more fun and more memorable? If we got to actually recite them. At least that’s exactly what I want to do and I hope you do to.”
“Steven,” I say.
“Since I saw you again just a few short months ago I knew. I knew things were different and from that first moment there was no going back. I never look at you the same and after today I hope you’ll never look at me the same either. And that’s because from this day forward I want you to always look at me the way you are right now. To look at me as your best friend, your confidant, and your lover…forever. And I promise with everything I have inside me that’s exactly how I’ll always look at you.”
“Your words are so…beautiful,” I say.
“No matter how beautiful they can never be as beautiful as you. And your beauty is what I want to see the first thing in the morning when I wake up and the last thing before I fall asleep, if I can fall asleep that is. It won’t be easy with how excited I’m going to be knowing my best friend will be by my side forever. My best friend who one day soon hopefully will also be my wife and the mother of my children. If you agree. This is what I ask and this is what I promise if…you will do me the honor of making me the happiest man in the entire world today and forever more. Will you marry me?”
I’m overwhelmed by everything that’s transpired these last few months. If my sense of survival wasn’t heightened so much from the situation I’d pass right out and into the harbor, but before I do anything I want to fall right into those big arms of his.
“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes, I will marry you my Steven Shield!”
He slides the ring on my finger. It’s big and beautiful and sparkles in the sunset, just like his eyes when he looks at me that way.
He stands up and our lips meet before his arms wrap around me.
We stand there together as the boat slowly glides across the water. Life could not be more perfect.
“Now we can toast,” he says.
I laugh and he gently wipes away my tears of joy.
“To my everlasting love for you,” he says raising his glass.
“And my love for you. Forever,” I say.
We clink glasses and take a sip of the champagne.
Nothing has ever tasted so good, until a second later when his champagne soaked lips meet mine for the first time as fiancée and fiancé.
But this time…it’s for real.