Stella

Tonight is the grand opening of the rec center. The foundation is throwing a big celebrity party for community leaders, the council members, and Dane’s NFL friends and teammates.

Leaning against the open doorway of the bathroom, the man of the hour watches me get dressed. His hazel eyes flood with undeniable appreciation.

It’s been ten days since the hospital incident and he hasn’t said a word about the blonde. I’m not going to chase him with a skillet. I will not do it. Or shout like a fishwife, even if at times I want to. And trust me I want to. I haven’t even told Delia lest I find a freshly dug grave in the garden and Dane missing. For once I’m not going to assume the worst. He deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Instead I channeled that energy into something good. I started making arrangements for the nonprofit organization I intend to run. After New Year, I’ll give Ira notice. Knowing his ability to read my mind, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if he already knows.

Sitting on the end of the bed, I slowly roll on a pair of black stockings.

“Lord Jesus, are those stockings?” Pushing off the doorframe, he stalks closer.

“Pantyhose are uncomfortable,” I tell him with a sly smile.

“I approve.”

A few more strides and he’s on me, taking my face in his hands and kissing me like a man sentenced to life. I expected the sex to cool, for him to put some distance between us. That did not happen. On the contrary, once the doctor said it was safe to resume relations he was on me with no less passion.

“If you don’t stop being so goddamn sexy, we’re gonna have a problem.” He pushes me back on the bed and settles between my thighs, only our underwear separating us. Well…that and the blonde…and his inability to express what he feels for me.

“Dane––” I say between the laughter. “We don’t have time.”

“We have a lot of lovemakin’ to make up for now that Pops is gone.” His voice fades as he maps a trail of kisses up the side of my neck, his hands sliding along my body, petting and squeezing all the right places.

Lovemaking? I don’t go there. Nope. I don’t go anywhere near it. Taking a good hold of his hair, I lift his head and search his bright eyes and sexy smile. Nothing on his face indicates that he realizes what he said. “Your father left ten days ago.”

“I hate being quiet.” Tell me something I don’t know. He starts sucking on my throat, nipping and kissing his way from my jaw to my ear. “When I shoot my load into you it’s like a sneak peek into heaven, and I wanna celebrate…thank my maker for makin’ you for me.”

“That’s…I don’t know what that is,” I remark, biting back laughter that will only provoke him to continue. Smiling, he looks down at me. There’s so much adoration in his eyes that the words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Do you think it will ever end?”

The mood goes from fun to somber in less than zero seconds. Every muscle on Dane’s body stiffens. “What do you mean––end?” he asks, careful to keep his tone neutral.

“This, between us, all this chemistry…do you think it ends?”

“No, baby,” he immediately answers. “I’ve never felt this way before.” He examines my face, his focus super intense. And Dane intense is a sight to behold. “Have you?”

“No.” Not even close.

He smiles then. “You’re the best time I’ve ever had, Shorty.”

Sweet. He’s always been sweet. But those are not the words I was hoping for.

* * *

“Can I steal away my girlfriend for a moment?” Dane says to the rec center director, Mr. Donaldson, who was in the midst of explaining all the wonderful programs he has planned for the kids in the neighborhood.

The party went off without a hitch, the rec center beautifully decorated, the catering delicious. Close to twenty-five of his NFL buddies made it. He introduced me to each and every one. It’s moments like these that I realize how fundamentally different we are. I would rather sit in a corner and hear Mr. Donaldson’s plans down to the minutia while Dane thrives in the limelight. I can’t help but wonder if it spells doom for us.

Without bothering to wait for a reply, Dane drags me away. I give Mr. Donaldson an apologetic look and he smiles back in understanding.

“That was rude.”

“I haven’t had a moment alone with you since we got here.”

Here comes the eye roll. “We’re not here for alone time. Quite the opposite actually.”

As if he hasn’t heard a word, he continues to pull me along with purpose, a man on a mission as he guides me through a side door that leads outside. The second the doors open, the cold hits me like a two-by-four. I wrap my arms around my waist. It’s the first week of December and the ground frozen, a thin shell of ice on everything. We reach a small garden that’s been prepped for landscaping when the ground thaws, a lonely stone bench its sole resident for now.

“Dane, it’s cold out here.” All I’m wearing is a black jersey dress. “I’m not exactly dressed for cavorting in these temperatures.”

Slipping off his suit jacket, he places it over my shoulders. I snuggle into the heat still clinging to it. I bury my nose under the fabric and take a deep breath of his scent as a tremor racks my body. I’m not sure if it’s caused by the cold or his strange behavior. It crosses my mind about a million times that he’s dumping me for the blonde. My pulse starts to thrum in my throat.

“What’s going on?” My hand automatically covers my swollen tummy, a new habit. One that’s become quite common as of late.

Taking my shoulders, he guides me to sit on the bench and sits next to me. “It’s almost Christmas,” he says absently. As if it’s an afterthought.

Christmas? Seriously? I’m about to have a nervous breakdown and he wants to shoot the shit about Christmas? All I can do is nod, my energy engaged in staying calm and breathing. Passing out is not an option right now.

“I have so much to be grateful for. Almost too much.” He tips his head back, his gaze drifting up at the clear night sky. “It humbles me, to be so blessed––” His throat works as he swallows. “Grateful…I’m grateful for everything God’s given me. But most of all, you.”

He turns to look at me then, his expression solemn, his gaze direct, no sign of guilt or shame. “I wanna take you on vacation and keep you so busy you don’t wanna come home. I want to hold your hand when our child comes into this world. I want you––” His jaw locks. He breathes deeply and he swallows. “I want you to hold mine when I’m old…would you do me the honor of being my wife?”

I don’t breathe. I can’t even blink. My mind can’t process what just happened and operate my body at the same time. When it starts working again, my entire vocabulary is reduced to one word. Marry. He wants to marry me.

Dane pulls a little red box out of the pocket of the suit jacket I’m wearing and opens it. Inside the Cartier box, three rectangular diamonds wink back at me. Catching the light from the newly installed security floods, the stones return fire.

“The middle stone is the baby that brought us together,” he explains in a low voice. “And the ones flanking are you and me.” I continue to stare, trying to piece together how this could’ve happened and I didn’t see it coming. “They’re not big but the stones are perfect. Like you are to me.”

A switch is flipped, and suddenly synapses fire and connect. My lips part, my heart expands and contracts, and blood rushes in my ears. Tears flood my eyes, welling up in the corners and spill down my cheeks.

“Baby––” I hear him say, his voice muffled by all the noise in my head. I look up into his beautiful face and see caution. “You haven’t given me an answer.”

One moment I’m soaring, ready to throw my arms around him and profess my love, and the next I crash back down to earth. Because it hits me all at once. No love. No mention of love whatsoever. Beautiful sentiments expressed beautifully, but no love…where’s the love?

I wipe the tears away from my face. “I thought you were getting ready to dump me.”

“What?!” He looks as shocked as he sounds. “Why would you think that?”

“Three month rule…and I saw a picture of you kissing the blonde, Dane. It was all over the internet.” He looks confused so I clarify. “The night I went to the hospital.”

He looks away for a beat. Judging from his expression, he’s searching his memory. I know the instant he recalls it.

“Christy.” For a brief second his eyes close, his shoulders drop as he exhales his frustration. “She caught me by surprise and kissed me. She was drunk. High too, I think.” His expression changes, suspicion present in his narrowed eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I didn’t think we had a problem. One stolen kiss from a drunk girl was hardly worth rememberin’.”

“A drunk ex-girlfriend.”

“Hey––look at me,” he says, and I do. “It wasn’t worth rememberin’.” His eyes dart all over my face, searching for a sign of agreement. “You believe me, right?”

I do believe him. Dane isn’t my father. He’s not sneaky cowardice. He’s bold honesty. If he were to fall for someone else, he would break it off with me first. I know it in my heart and soul. At my nod, he exhales loudly.

“Why do you want to marry me, Dane?” The question demands to be asked. I hold my breath as he stares back quizzically.

“Why?” he repeats, his tone communicating very clearly that he thinks this is a dumb question.

“Yes, why?”

“Because we’re great together––better than great.” His eyes soften. Taking my hands in his, he kisses the knuckles on each one. “The perfect team…don’t you agree?”

My heart falls off a cliff. Correction: he pushed it off of a cliff. The perfect team? Is this some kind of joke? My hands slip out of his and my head shuts down, retreating to a place where I’m not completely devastated.

“This is kind of unexpected…can I think about it?”

He takes forever to answer, watching me carefully. I don’t give anything away and neither does he. Though it’s not a stretch to assume he’s not happy.

After a curt nod, his eyes move away. “Will you wear the ring at least?” Sensing my reluctance, he adds in a thick voice, “For me.”

I don’t have it in me to hurt him any more than I already have. I love this man with everything I’ve got, will love him forever regardless of what happens between us.

I nod and he pushes it onto my finger. Standing, he pulls me up.

“Let’s get back inside. It’s freezing out here,” he says without looking at me.

We walk out of the garden hand in hand with a palpable tension the size of an ocean separating us. As soon as we step back into the party room, I realize what’s going on. His NFL buddies knew he was proposing. The entire crowd did, by the looks of it. Because as soon as they see us, smiles drop, voices grow quiet, and whispers weave through the crowd.

“Did she say yes?” A boy’s voice rings out of the silence. Angel Castro pushes to the front of the pack. He takes one look at Dane and the joy on his face slowly fades away.

* * *

Dane

Man, was that an epic fail. I stare at the bottle of Patron in my hand with mixed emotions. Much the same way Stella feels about me apparently. I sink further into the couch and put my feet up on the coffee table. The minute I do, I hear her telling me it’s “unsanitary.” Except she can’t tell me because she ain’t here, made me drive her back to her apartment and I didn’t argue. I need time to clear my head and drink. Not necessarily in that order.

The silence in the darkened living room sits like an anvil over my heart. The house I bought and renovated with painstaking care feels like a fucking funeral home without her. I’m about to skip the glass and go straight to drinking from the bottle when I decide to make a call first. The phone rings and rings. When it eventually goes to voicemail, I try again.

“Whuuuut?” I get on the third ring. The slurred speech gives me pause.

“Are you drunk?”

“Kinda. What’s it to you?”

I’m not in the frame of mind to deal with this right now. “You haven’t had more than a beer in ten years and you pick tonight to get wasted? What the fuck, Noah.”

A long stretch of silence happens, long enough that I check to see if he ended the call. Nope. Time ticks away on the screen of my iPhone.

“I saw Maren,” I hear an eternity later.

He never talks about her, so this is big news. “I told you to stop watchin’ YouTube. Why you wanna torture yourself like that?”

“She was here––with that dickhead she’s datin’…came to visit Rowdy. He’s gettin’ worse.”

Ah shit. Rowdy is not only Noah’s business partner, but also stepped in as a surrogate father when Noah’s parents were killed in a car accident. It just so happens he’s also Maren’s grandfather.

“This might make you feel better. I proposed and Stella told me she wants to think about it.”

Silence again. Then I hear it––the laughter. It starts slow but picks up speed pretty quickly. “Are you shittin’ me?”

“I wish I was, brotha. I wish I was.” I run a hand through my hair and tug at the ends. At this rate, the woman is gonna make me bald.

His laughter dies down. “What happened?”

“Fuck, if I know. I got a nice ring and everything, made it all romantic and shit and you know I don’t do romance.”

“Mmmm.”

“I love her,” rips out of me. It feels like if I don’t tell someone, I might just explode from the pressure of keeping it down. “I love her more than I love myself. I love her so damn much I don’t know what I’ll do if she doesn’t love me back.”

I’m in serious danger of turning into my father is what runs through my mind. Noah doesn’t need to know that though.

“Whut? What do you mean you don’t know if she loves you back? Didn’t she tell you?”

The question embarrasses me. It takes me a minute to answer. “Not yet.”

“That’s weird. I saw the way she was lookin’ at ya at J’s place…you told her and she said nothin’?”

I hesitate before answering. Don’t know why, but I do. “I haven’t told her yet.”

A long, tired exhale comes through the phone. A funny feeling in my gut tells me I may have screwed the pooch on this one.

“You didn’t tell her.” It’s not a question. I get another loud exhale. “Well, no shit she wasn’t jumpin’ up and down at the prospect of marryin’ a dumb motherfucker like you.”

“I didn’t wanna scare her away. She’s real skittish about it.”

“If love scares her, then she ain’t ready for it. Go tell her you love her. Tell her everything you told me and she’ll be alright.”

His words get inside of me and germinate. Thing is, I want to tell her. Hell, I’ve been wanting to shout it from the top of the Empire State Building for a good long time now. Letting her take the lead on this has been absolute fucking torture, and I’m done with it. I’m sick and tired of waiting for her to say it first. Tomorrow she’s gonna hear it––whether she’s ready for it or not.

My black mood parts, and I remember I’m not the only one hurting. “Now why can’t you do that for yourself?”

“Not the same thing,” he grunts. “I hurt her the worst way you can hurt a woman…this is my punishment.”

There’s no point trying to talk sense into him when he’s in this state. I wonder if he’ll even remember this conversation tomorrow.

“Do me a favor, if you feel like drinkin’ again, call me first?”

“Yeah…’kay,” he mutters, half-asleep already.

“Love you, boo.”

“Mmm.”

The line goes dead. I stare at the bottle of Patron resting on the coffee table. Minutes later I slam the top back on. Time to make more changes.