Eight
That night was the same as the other night when we’d shared her bed. Only this time, she threw her leg over mine and put her arm across my chest. As if she was cuddling with me in her sleep. I hadn’t said anything about the last time because I didn’t want her to feel weird about it. She couldn’t control what her body did when she wasn’t awake. Her warm skin pressed against mine, since we were only wearing tank tops and shorts, so there was a ton of skin exposure.
I was tired and I wanted to sleep, but I didn’t think I could. I maneuvered onto my side, with Cara’s limbs still wrapped around me. Would it be bad if I put my arms on her too? Or if I snuggled into her? Since I was awake, was that okay? I didn’t know, but I wanted to be close to her. I liked sleeping next to Cara, even if she hogged the bed and wouldn’t let go of me. There was a comfort in knowing another person was going to be there when you woke up.
I wasn’t alone.
I hoped Cara wouldn’t mind as I wiggled closer to her and rested my forehead against hers. As if she approved, she made a little happy sighing noise in her sleep.
“Goodnight friendiancee,” I whispered and finally let myself fall asleep.
By the time I woke up the next morning, I was alone in my bed again, but I could hear singing in the kitchen and the sound of sizzling bacon.
I hoped Lisa wasn’t around, or else she was going to have a fit. She did not like it when I even went near the kitchen. I had no idea why, but every time I used the kitchen, I got passive aggressive notes on my door asking if I could not touch her stuff (I didn’t touch her stuff), or not load the dishwasher THAT way (I didn’t know what way she was doing it), or not take her spices (I had never taken her spices), so a lot of times I made something in the microwave as quickly as I could and scurried back to my room.
The singing got louder as I stretched in bed. I must have slept well because I couldn’t remember waking up a bunch of times like I usually did. I also had to pee like hell.
I stumbled out of bed and to the bathroom before heading to the kitchen to see what was happening. Cara had her hair piled up on her head in the perfect messy twist and was swiveling her hips to a song that was playing in her head as she whipped some eggs together in a bowl.
“What’s going on in here?” I asked, and she realized I was there and almost dropped the bowl.
“Oh, you’re awake.” I leaned against the counter and crossed my arms. Her face got a little red as she stopped whipping the eggs.
“Good morning,” I said, motioning for her to hand me the bowl. “Your bacon is going to burn.” She blinked once and then cursed, rushing to turn the bacon over so it didn’t turn black.
“Sorry, you were so out of it that I didn’t think you were going to be up for a while. I was going to bring you breakfast in bed like a good friendiancee should.” I clumsily whipped the eggs as best I could until they were combined and passed them back to Cara, who poured them in a pan to be scrambled.
“That’s really cute, Cara, but you don’t have to do stuff like that.” She didn’t owe me anything.
“I know, but I wanted to. It sounded like fun.” She moved the eggs around in the pan as the toaster went off. “Can you get that out?” I nodded and grabbed the plates that she’d set out, and stacked the toast on them. She’d found a tray to carry everything into the bedroom that I was ninety-nine percent sure wasn’t mine and belonged to Lisa. I almost said something, but I didn’t want to kill her joy. I would take the heat from Lisa if she somehow found out we’d used her tray and got pissy about it.
Cara dished the breakfast up on the plates, and I filled wine glasses with orange juice to be extra fancy. By the time we were done, the tray was so heavy that we both had to carry it so one of us didn’t drop it.
“Shit, I forgot butter,” she said, about to get up, but I stopped her.
“I got it.” The second I returned with the butter, Cara asked me if I could get the jam, and then the salt and pepper. I laughed and brought her everything she wanted.
“I’m such a pain in the ass,” she said.
“But you’re my pain in the ass. I mean, at least legally.” She pointed her fork at me.
“Not yet.” I narrowed my eyes.
“You backing out on me, Care?” She smirked.
“Maybe I’m looking at other options.”
“What kind of options?”
“Maybe you’re not the only one who wants a trophy wife,” she said. “I could leverage this offer into others.” I burst out laughing.
“Okay, so who are the lucky dudes? Or not-dudes?” Cara and I hadn’t really talked about what people would think about the two of us being married. Of course, she was straight and it would look like she wasn’t when she married me, but that didn’t appear to bother her at all.
“Oh, a very dashing gentleman offered for my hand, and I’m considering. He’s a lawyer-billionaire-cowboy and his name is Thaddeus McRich Goldblood XIV.” I was dying. I was laughing so hard that I had to hold onto my dresser to stay upright.
“I have so many questions,” I said, barely getting the words out.
“He also owns several lions, castles, helicopters, and at least one spaceship.” She was playing this up with a complete straight face and it was so much funnier that way. This wasn’t the first time Cara made me laugh so hard that I thought I was going to rupture a lung or two.
“Only one spaceship?” I said, wiping my eyes.
“He’s building a second as we speak. We’ll go to Mars for our honeymoon. That is, if I accept his offer.” I sat down on the bed and gulped down some orange juice.
“Well, that’s a lot to compete with. I’m not a billionaire or a cowboy and I don’t have a spaceship or a tiger.” Cara huffed dramatically.
“Then what do you have?”
“Money?” I said. “And I do love you. Not in a marriage way, but that still counts, I think. And I’m really good at shoulder rubs.” She nodded seriously.
“That is a lot to consider. Give me a moment.” She pretended to be deep in thought, but her hand was fiddling with something under the pillow.
“Okay,” she said, nodding decisively. “I have made my decision.”
“And?” I said. I had a feeling I knew what she was doing, and my heart had started pounding a heavy rhythm. Was she?
“And I have chosen you, Loren Alyssa Bowman. Will you marry me?” She brought out the ring and held it out to me. My hands shook, and I thought I was going to cry and laugh at the same time.
I couldn’t even speak. My heart was going berserk in my chest and I didn’t know how to calm it down. I didn’t know how to calm me down.
“Yes,” I finally said, my voice choked with emotion. My eyes burned and my chest was so tight, it was as if my organs had expanded and were too big to fit anymore.
Cara put the ring on my trembling finger. I held my hand up and tilted it back and forth. The ring was just so pretty and I was happy to finally have it on my hand.
My focus went from the ring to Cara’s smile and I was hit with a thousand emotions, all of them intense, some of them confusing. A thousand voices were screaming in my brain, all shouting different things, a cacophony of joy and elation.
“I know it wasn’t fancy, but we’re not fancy, so there you go,” Cara said, and I wanted to scream and jump up and down and drink a shot and dive into a lake and do a bazillion other things. There was too much inside and I had to let some of it out.
“Are you okay?” she asked, and I realized I was crying, so I wiped the tears.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said and started to get a little embarrassed about my outlandish reaction, even if she had no idea what was going on inside me. I took a few deep breaths and then tried to distract myself with food.
“You did a good job,” I said, and she smiled.
“Good. You were kinda quiet there, so I was worried I’d been too much of a dork.” She wasn’t a dork. She was my best friend and I loved her more than anything.
“No, it was perfect,” I said. It was just the kind of proposal I’d want if I was really getting married, but this was probably the only one I’d ever get, so I was going to treasure it.
The sparkle of the ring kept distracting me as we ate, and I couldn’t stop looking at it.
“It took me a while to get used to,” Cara said, catching me looking at my newly bedazzled finger.
I held my hand out and she put her left hand next to mine. I snuck a picture with my phone.
“You’re not going to post that, are you?” she asked.
“No. I just wanted to have it. That’s something else we need to discuss. I know we’re going to tell close friends and so forth, but are we going to announce this on social media or anything?” Cara munched on some bacon and thought about it.
“I don’t see where it would come up? Like, we don’t have to post anything publicly and then no one will even know. If we posted even something vague, I think we’d have to deal with way too many questions. Don’t you think?” I wasn’t sure what I thought, but I did know I didn’t want her to do anything she wasn’t comfortable with.
“Yeah, probably. And you’re not, you know, queer, so that would lead to a lot of questions for you to answer.” In an ideal world, we wouldn’t have to worry about that, but it wasn’t, and I wondered what she thought about it all.
“I don’t mind,” she said in a low voice. “People are going to think whatever they want, but it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care.” She wouldn’t look at me, and her face was a little red, but her voice was determined. Cara raised her chin and met my eyes.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said again, and I wasn’t sure if she was trying to convince me or herself. I wasn’t going to argue or press her about it. That was something she had to decide.
“Okay,” I said, but I guess I didn’t sound sure enough. She grabbed my left hand with her left and squeezed until the ring cut into my finger. A little drop of pain.
“I love you, Loren. Every part of you.” The tears were threatening to make their appearance again. I remembered when I came out to her. She’d sat there for a few seconds, gave me a hug, told me she loved me, and asked which female celebrities I thought were hot. And that was it. Ever since then she’d been on board with my life. No conditions. No “I love you even if you’re queer.” Just “I love you and you are queer and I love your queerness because it’s a part of you.”
“Thanks,” I said, my voice choked.
“Anytime you need a reminder, you let me know.” She put her arms out for a hug and I fell into her, so we ended up horizontal on the bed, laughing. I spit out some of her hair from my mouth and wiped my eyes.
“You’re the best. The best friendiancee a girl could ask for,” I said.
“Ditto.”