Chapter 21 Miz
21
MIZ
Aimé: So didja tell hot stuff you wanna come over?
Aimé’s text interrupts my overthinking about the generosity of Kal’s gift while I’m cooling down from my early morning run. I snuck out without waking Kal sleeping on the couch. Last night, we fell asleep watching the movie, so I missed my first night on the new mattress. Now I can’t wait for tonight. So much so that this morning, I just had to press all ten fingers into it just to keep me until then. It took all my willpower not to sink the rest of my body onto it.
I pause to text Aimé back, relishing the warmth of the rising sun at my back. I had texted Daniel last night, after Kal fell asleep, and felt weirdly guilty about it. Based on my oopsie by the door yesterday, he probably assumes Daniel and I are back to our usual on-again, off-again. I’ve never worried about Kal’s judgment, but I really want him to know that’s not happening and will never happen. But I also don’t want to bring Daniel up at all.
Me: Says he’s busy. Obv he doesn’t want ME to go to him!
Aimé: Make him an offer he can’t refuse ;)
Me: Ok I’m not that desperate
Yet. I know I have to offload that ring soon. I’m starting to get jumpy every time I see a house with a RE/MAX sign planted out front, as if Daniel will run out and confront me. And I can’t have another false-alarm close call like last night. My heart can’t take it. But today’s not the day—we’ve got places to be, romance to fake.
—
Kal’s house is the first stop in our day of Zipcar-ing through Toronto taking our photos, so he can drop off his bike, shower, and pick up his “costumes” for the day. My location pick is first on our photo day: Ripley’s Aquarium. Specifically, the jellyfish tank—my favourite part, where supposedly we had our first date. From there we hop over next door to the CN Tower, Kal’s pick, where apparently I took him when he was new to Canada, despite his terror of heights. Like me, he has not dared the glass floor, two thousand feet above Toronto. We manage to do it together, though it turns out to be almost as terrifying as getting married was. Our third spot is Snakes & Lattes, which we’ll say we frequent, especially to play Taboo, a favourite of our gang in Addis back in the day, and we have the photos to prove it. A where it started and where it’s at kind of theme.
Kal takes the wheel next, taking us east and parking a few blocks shy of his theatre. We walk to a small park, in the centre of which is a three-tier fountain, surrounded by twenty-seven (Kal counted) dog sculptures, each a different breed, all staring up at a giant golden bone at the top. Of course! This is one of Kal’s favourite spots in the city. The doggie diversity struck him as such a contrast to Addis, where the majority of the stray dogs were only a handful of breeds. “Can this count as one of my locations too? Please?” I beg.
“We’re not here for them. Come,” he says, taking me by the hand. I feel as if I’m on an adventure. He stops under a lamppost a few feet away from the fountain. “Heads up.”
I look up. Perched on a piece of jutting metal at the top of the lamppost are a pair of little sculpted yellow birds side by side. “Aw. So cute!” I pull out my phone for the photo. “What’s our story to go along with it?
“This is where I proposed.”
That pulls me up short. “Oh. Huh. Yeah. We forgot that part,” I say, swallowing.
“I didn’t,” he says, his voice low, his gaze searing into mine. Holy shit, what is going on? With a sharp inhale, I swivel my head, as if taking in our surroundings.
“Or this could be where we had our first big fight over what kind of dog to adopt. Or I wanted a dog, but you wanted a cat, so we compromised on a bird!”
He nods, taking it into consideration. “Sure, if you prefer.” But he sounds…disappointed? Dammit, fine.
“Okay, so ahem, why did you pick this spot to propose marriage, Kalkidan?” I say, colouring his name with a stereotypically nasal white guy/officer of the Canadian government voice.
He drops into character immediately and answers me formally, laying on the accent thick, landing hard on his r ’s. “Because, sir, the symbolism of the birds. They represent lifelong loyalty to me. They remind me of my parents. And I always used to think of Mizan as a kind of unattainable bird.” He leans in close. I hold my breath, trembling a little. “There’s actually an old people song about that,” he whispers to me in his regular voice.
I whisper back. “Send it to me sometime.”
We stay forehead to forehead a beat too long, until an actual living dog barges in on us, snapping us out of it. We take a bunch of photos with the birds and then have to hustle because Kal says his next location is best by sunset. We head back out west, burning up another hour, and end up on the Humber Bay Arch Bridge. “You are on your romance game today, my friend,” I say. “Remember when you called me, so sad?”
“I’ll never forget it,” he says, leaning on the railing. “The day the love locks died.”
The bridge’s wires used to be packed with all kinds of love locks, something Kal just couldn’t get enough of, until one day, all of a sudden, they were gone. Turned out, overnight, the city had culled them in a major cleanup operation. Now there were only a few locks left, some new, but most looked like the really sturdy kind that no steel cutter could bite through. “I guess the gesture lost meaning for people when they realized the locks wouldn’t stay forever. What does though?”
Kal unzips his bag and reaches in. I back away. “Tell me you didn’t.”
With a smile wide as Lake Ontario and wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, he pulls out a combination padlock dangling off of his finger. “I did.”
I cover my eyes. “Oh jeez, you know we could have just pretended any one of these was ours.”
“That’s bad luck. Do you want to do the honours?”
“You go ahead, darling. I’ll take the pic.”
“I can take a picture for you two—a gorgeous couple,” a voice says. We turn. It’s a tall retiree pausing her power walk. I’m too mortified to speak, but Kal takes her up on her offer. She snaps a thousand photos of us putting the padlock on and choosing today’s date for the code. Then, at her insistence, we snuggle up, my hand on Kal’s chest, the tops of our heads touching. We’re separating when she says, “Oh, you’ve got to smooch!”
“Um,” I say under my breath.
“We kind of should,” Kal murmurs without moving.
I close my eyes and tilt my face up to his. I stay like that, waiting, forever. Hello ? Just as I’m about to open my eyes, silky soft lips press on mine. Warmth swooshes down my body. I feel him sigh, his fingers grazing my chin, and the tiniest moisture as the tip of his tongue taps shyly against my lips. I begin to part them, my heart on the edge of exploding.
“Adorable!”
We leap apart.
“Here you go!” She gives me back my phone. “Best wishes!” She marches off.
“Alrighty then,” I say, watching her go, the high receding. “That was…that was good.”
“Great!” He watches her go a bit too long as well before turning back to me, smiling and nodding.
Okay, then. I’ll have to do all the blabbering. “Damn, you’ve been depriving the Toronto ladies though!”
“That was all you.”
“Was not!”
“Lips don’t lie, Mizan.”
“Hips, you mean?”
He shakes his head, smirking like he knows something I don’t.
“Get outta here! Okay, but actually, we better head back. I have to head to my mom’s to help with Thanksgiving prep.” We technically still have one more stop to do—my pick this time—but after that kiss, I feel as if we’ve done enough for today. Come on, Miz, friends kiss on the lips all the time, and yeah sometimes the tongues do an oopsie, but so what. Grow the fuck up!
“Wish you could join us for our feast,” Kal says, interrupting my little mental self-spanking. “Call me when you reach?” he says, opening his arms for a goodbye hug.
“I’m driving you back home, goof.” I take the hug anyway. Can’t ever have too many of those. Before we leave, I give in to the urge to tug on the padlock, check that it’s secure, even though I know it’s going to get hacked off one day anyway.