Chapter 38
Chapter 38
I kept pressing. Making sure he was true. Not yanking my chain. “What’s your favorite thing about her?”
He spoke without having to think about it. “Her hope. Which is second only to her love. To have suffered what she suffered, and yet still wake up hopeful, smiling, and not bitter and angry at the world. That’s some crazy kind of love.”
I scratched my head. “You really love her?”
“With all of me.”
“She love you?”
He nodded. “Think so.”
In the last few months, with all the pressure to find Frank and then Bones, I’d been singularly focused and known little life outside that cauldron. While I’d been away from Freetown for weeks at a time, Camp had been there. Standing on the wall. But that stance also placed him in close proximity to Casey. “So you’ve actually been on a date with her?”
“Lots. Although it’s not like I’ve picked her up in my dad’s Mustang and taken her to a nice restaurant or anything. Given everything, we’ve been forced to get to know each other inside a pressure cooker. First her book. Then Frank. Now Bones.” A pause. “Life hasn’t been exactly normal. We fell in love in the middle of a war.”
I knew the answer, but I was goading him. “You sure you don’t just want her money? ’Cause she has a lot of it. ”
“I’ll sign anything you or her want me to sign.”
“You’ve only known her a couple months. You sure?”
“When you know, you know.”
The more I hung around this guy, the more I liked him. “You asked her yet?”
“No.” A chuckle. “Which explains why I’m kneeling in the snow after hiking up Everest. I been needing to talk to you first.”
“When were you thinking you might do that?”
“I’m doing it right now.”
“No, I mean ask her.”
“Oh.” A shrug. “Tonight.”
“Really? Working kinda fast, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” He pointed down the mountain, toward Freetown. “There’s that crab boil tonight, so I thought we’d do that and then maybe ride the lift up to the Eagle’s Nest. If that’s okay with you?”
The day had the looks of a clear night, which would make for a romantic ride up and back. Not to mention the view from the porch. His thought process made me feel a bit guilty. I hadn’t thought much about Summer lately. I certainly hadn’t taken her on a date. The ache in the pit of my stomach told me it was probably worse than I thought, and Summer hadn’t said anything. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“Afghanistan.”
“What?”
“We were in the mountains. Ten thousand feet. Colder than I’d ever been in my life. Took shelter in a mosque only because we’d saved the imam’s kids. I remember standing on that ledge, overlooking a bunch of hardship below and promising myself that if I ever got the chance to ask a girl to marry me, I was going to do it from a place like that. Someplace high up where what hurts below can’t get to you.”
“Did you seriously think of that all by yourself?”
“Well... sort of. I been reading these novels, and they got me to thinking.”
“Novels? ”
“Yeah.”
“Which ones?”
He shrugged.
The thought that my own words had anything to do with this was a strange comfort. But it also picked at the scab. The ache grew, proving that maybe I’d been more in touch with the tender part of me at one time.
“You nervous?”
A pause. “Just a bit.”
“You getting down on one knee?”
“Of course.”
“Good, she deserves that.”
He nodded. “She deserves the fairy tale.”
Told you I liked this guy. He continued, “If it’s okay with you, I worked it out with Summer to have a little get-together afterward down in the Planetarium. Thought we’d play a bunch of pictures of Casey.”
“You really thought this out.”
“You learn that in the Teams.”
“Evidently. You got a ring?”
A single nod. “Clay put me in touch with your friend Mr. Harby. He made one custom with my mom’s stone.”
“Just checking. Us guys can sometimes miss the things that matter.”