Chapter 18
18
JACK
* Six Months Later *
“ Y ou’re really not going to tell me where we’re going?” Violet shoots me a sideways glance as I drive us downtown.
“Of course not. Check out the definition of the word surprise on your phone. See what it says.”
“Very funny.”
“It’s not funny. A surprise dinner situation is extremely serious. No funny business whatsoever allowed.”
She bursts into laughter.
Over the past six months, Violet and I have made a point to engage in lighthearted teasing as often as possible. She keeps me from spending too much time with stuffy paperwork. I keep her grounded when she falls into a day-long sketching zone and forgets to eat. She calls me a businessman. I call her a hippie. There are many traumatic moments where we pretend to be deeply offended, then make up over gourmet chocolates.
We pull up in front of Grapevine Walls, where we had our first date. “Oh good!” she exclaims. “I love the food here, and I’m really hungry.”
“Perfect.”
I escort her into the restaurant and straight through to the horseshoe-shaped leather booth at the back. There are customers near the very front of the restaurant, but we have the back section to ourselves.
Violet laughs when she notices the centerpiece as we sit down at the table – three Bird of Paradise flowers in a crystal vase. “It’s your alien freak bird!”
“Yes.”
After we order, I turn and take her hands in mine. “Baby, it was six months ago that my entire life changed. You strolled into my office, told me how to redecorate it, and you’ve been improving my life ever since.”
Her eyes glow. “You’ve been helping me as well,” she says. “Gaining confidence. My first corporate account. Teaching me”…her eyelashes flutter…“about things I didn’t even know I needed.”
I squeeze her hands, then stand up and come around to the side of the booth, right in front of her. Reaching into my jacket pockets, I pull out two identical, small black boxes, then drop to one knee.
“Violet, you are the love of my life. I want to spend every moment of every day trying to care for you, comfort you, laugh and learn and live with you. Will you please do me the supreme honor of…” I hold up the two boxes, nodding between them.
“Wh-what?”
“Pick one.”
She blinks sharply, her eyes flicking in a triangle between my eyes, then each box, then back again. Her right hand reaches out, hovering. Then she points to the one on the left. I drop the other one back in my pocket, then open the box she chose.
She gasps at the huge emerald ring.
“Violet, will you marry me, and make me the happiest man alive?”
She’s already nodding, tears filling her eyes, and she leans down to kiss me before I can even slip the ring onto her finger. “Yes,” she finally sputters. “Yes. I can’t believe it.”
I slide back into my seat, then slip an arm around her. “Believe it, baby.”
She holds out her hand to admire the ring, which looks darker in the dim light of the restaurant. “Wait until you see it in the sun. It sparkles like crazy,” I chuckle.
She looks up at me with a twinkle in her eye. “What was in the other box?”
I shrug, reaching for my wine. “Guess you’ll never know.”
It was a set of keys for my house, and a business card for the dealership where we’ll be buying her a car next week. I realized that once she moves in, we won’t always have the same schedule, so it will be easier for her to be able to drive herself to work when she needs to.
She’ll weasel it out of me by the time the pasta arrives, I’m sure.
But until then, I’m just going to tease my sweet flower girl like the nasty, uptight, corporate CEO that I used to be but no longer am.