Hale Maree (18 page)

“
He asked me to marry him
for real, and he gave me a ring.”

“
Get the fuck out of here!”
Sher explodes into the phone. “What’s it look like? It’s a rock,
isn’t it? Tell me exactly. I want every detail, from the ‘Will you’
to the ‘I do’. Ok—go.”

I recount what happened, and it’s way more
exciting to say it out loud to Sher, especially when she’s cheering
and shrieking at every word. I jump out of the chair, and hold up
my ring to the last bit of daylight coming in through the
window.

“
You should see it, Sher.
It’s incredible,” I say.

“
Did you pick it out, or did
he?”

“
He did.”

“
Oh. My. God!” she swoons.
“Ocker sounds sooo perfect, Hale.”

Hearing her say it makes me smile. “You
should see what he looks like.”

“
What do you mean? You said
he was hot...oh, wait! Are you saying what I think you’re saying?
Did you do
it
?”

“
No,” I laugh, peeking
behind me to be sure I’m still alone. I huddle over the phone and
whisper to Sher, “But he stripped all the way down to his boxers,
you know? Sher, you wouldn’t believe his body!”

“
TELL ME!” she
shrieks.

“
He’s got muscles like you
wouldn’t even believe,” I tell her.

“
So, he stripped down,” Sher
says slyly. “Does that mean you did too? Don’t lie now. You know I
always know when you’re lying.”

I giggle.

“
Like now. You’re going to
try to lie,” Sher says flatly and, of course, she’s right. So, I
don’t.

“
He
looked
at me.” I say, blushing, even
though its just Sher I’m telling.

“
There? He looked
there
?” she breaks out in
wild giggles. “Did he, you know, touch you? Oh Hale, tell me every
single thing—did he go down on you? Was it sexy seeing him there?
What am I talking about? Of course, it’s sexy! Oh man, that’s the
best, sexiest thing ever! Did you absolutely melt?”

“
No, no, he just looked,” I
say. “And I don’t know what he looked like, because he blindfolded
me with his tie.”

“
Are you kidding? Holy shit,
that’s nuclear!” she squeals. She pauses to yell at one of her
siblings who is beating on the bathroom door, begging Sher to get
out. “Go away!” she shouts and then, to me, “Seriously, Hale, I’m
so freakin’ jealous. I want an Ocker with load of money and muscles
and blindfolds. Holy shit is that hot!”

“
You know what’s really
hot?” I whisper. “He told me it looked
beautiful
.”

“
Get out of here!” she
shouts. “That’s so
romantic!
No wonder you’re marrying him. You hit the
jackpot, Hale, you totally did. Tell me more about the
ring!”

“
It’s gorgeous, Sher,” I
say, moving my hand back and forth to admire the sparkle. “It’s got
purple sapphires all around the outside and there’s a big diamond
in the center, but it looks like it’s got this blue
tint...”

“
It’s an infinity diamond,”
Oscar says from the stairs. I whirl around to see him leaning
there, and the blush that’s been hanging around my face all day
explodes across my cheeks, until I’m sure that I look like the tip
of a hot thermometer.

“
How long have you been
standing there?” I ask, and Oscar smiles his handsome
smile.

“
Long enough to know what’s
hot,” he says.

“
Ugh,” I say, as Sher
demands to know, from her end of the line, what’s going
on.

“
I’ve gotta go Sher,” I tell
her. “I’ll call you soon, okay?”

“
Tomorrow!” she shrieks at
me. “Call me tomorrow!”

“
Okay, bye,” I say, turning
off the phone. I hold it out to Oscar, instead of taking it to him,
just so I can watch him walk to me across the room. He takes the
phone from my hand, then grabs my wrist and pulls me into his
arms.

“
Come downstairs,” he says.
“It’s time to celebrate.”

#

“
We’ve got some news,” Oscar
says, when we hit the kitchen. Landon’s eating canned soup at the
table and Amy is painting her toenails.

“
Oh yeah?” Amy twists around
and holds up her foot, so we can admire her crimson toes. “What do
you think?”

“
Gorgeous,” I
say.

“
I asked Hale to marry me,”
Oscar says. Amy drops her foot.

“
Are you kidding?” she asks.
I shake my head and hold up my left hand.

“
Congratulations! You know,
I had a little something to do with it, right? Do you like it,
Hale?” Landon asks. But Amy cuts off my answer by whipping back
around to face him.

“
You were buying that today?
While we were shopping? And you didn’t tell me?”

Landon shrugs. “Oscar wanted it to be a big
surprise.”

“
I bet he did,” she says
sourly. She turns back to us, but it’s Oscar that she pins with her
glare. “Don’t you think it’s a little soon? You were still with
Sophia last week. You were Mr. Loyalty, remember, OC?”

“
I do,” Oscar replies
evenly. “I don’t know why I need to explain this to you, Amy, but I
found the girl I want to marry and I’m not letting her get
away.”

“
Yeah, hon, what are you
getting so riled up about?” Landon asks.

“
You don’t think it’s a
little rushed?”

“
It’s not my business,”
Landon shrugs. I shift anxiously beside Oscar, and he drapes an arm
around my shoulders.

I was hoping for too much. I hoped that Amy
would gush and shriek and want to inspect the ring, like Sher would
if she were here, and that Landon would clap Oscar on the back, and
they’d shake hands and break out something to toast with. But I
didn’t think we’d get totally slammed for rushing, or that it’d be
followed up with an ‘it’s not my business’ chaser.

“
If you thought Sophia was
flipping before, just wait.” Amy says. “Are you gonna make me be
the one to break it to her? Because I’m sorry, OC, but I’ll have to
totally make you sound like an ass.”

Oscar frowns. I’m sure he didn’t expect it
to go this way either.

“
No, I’ll tell her,” he
says. “But thanks for celebrating with us and making the night so
special.”

“
Whoa now,” Landon says,
rising from the table. “You’re absolutely right, OC. My best buddy
is only getting married once—God willing—and this is the night to
celebrate it! This isn’t about Sophia; it’s about Oscar and Hale.
Congrats, Hale! Come here and give me a hug! Let’s have a drink and
hope it stays in me! What’ve we got to drink?”

“
I have a bottle of
champagne and then it’s beer from there on out,” Oscar
laughs.

“
It’s all champagne
tonight!” Landon says. “Alright, buddy, bring on the
toast!”

Landon catches me up in a big bear hug, and
Oscar pulls the champagne from the fridge. Amy, however, just
screws the cap on her nail polish. When Landon releases me, and
we’re almost left face-to-face, she pushes a smile across her face
and says, “Congrats, Hale. I guess the best girl won.”

It’s like she’s stomping on all the warmth
and budding friendship we had going at the mall. Her glare makes me
feel like I should apologize, but all I want to do is punch her in
her big, sour face.

“
I wasn’t trying to steal
him,” I say. “I’m sorry about Sophia, but it wasn’t like I did
anything on purpose. This just—happened. I was surprised
too.”

“
Lighten up, babe,” Landon
tells Amy from across the room. “Let it go. This is supposed to be
a party! Sophia’ll be fine. You don’t have to fight her
battles.”

Amy seems to snap out of it. She lifts her
chin and gives Landon a smile. “I’m not,” she says. She lifts my
hand in hers to take a look at the ring. She flashes me an attempt
at an apologetic smile. “This isn’t earning me a place in the
bridal party, is it? I am happy for you. I just wish things had
happened differently.”

I don’t say
me too
this time. I don’t
really want to let her off the hook, but I’m not good at holding a
grudge either. And this is Oscar’s best friend’s girlfriend. We’re
probably going to be seeing a lot of each other, and it’d be nice
if things could get back to the way they were at the
mall.

She looks at the ring and gives me a
feather-light embrace.

“
Congratulations,” she says,
then walks away to get the cup that Landon holds out for
her.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

A COUPLE HOURS LATER, LANDON is smashed. So
smashed that he spends ten minutes trying to get out one sentence,
but he keeps cracking up in the middle and then he starts over at
the beginning and tries again. When Oscar turns his phone back on,
it starts ringing almost non-stop, and Landon starts parroting
after every single ring, “You gonna get that?” until Oscar switches
it off again.

“
Who is it?” I ask, and he
frowns like he doesn’t want to tell me, but he does.

“
Sophia,” he
says.

I haven’t drunk anything but
a couple sips of the champagne. I still feel a little sick about
what happened with Amy and Landon, and I think Oscar might feel the
same, because he hasn’t gone back for more to drink either. But
Landon is taking care of most of it, and Amy is right behind him.
Twice, she’s ambled over, sloshed her beer on me, and told me how
she
wants
to be
happy for us, she really does. All I want to do is sneak away and
call Sher, so I can feel happy again.

“
I know,” Amy announces. “I
want to go swimming! Who wants to see my new bikini? It’s
red—red—like my toes.”

She stumbles over to the shopping bags
strewn across the Inflato-mattress and stuffs her arm into one of
the bigger bags.

“
I’ll wear this!” she says,
pulling what looks like a lot of red string, with a couple red knee
patches attached, from the bag.

“
I’ll watch,” Landon says,
stumbling over, as Amy grabs her shirt and peels it off. She’s not
wearing a bra.

“
I’m almost naked!” she
laughs, as Landon shouts at her that everyone’s looking. Oscar
shields his eyes with a hand on his brow, peeking at me from
underneath with a
wow, I can’t believe
she’s that drunk
grin. But then Amy peels
off her shorts too and she twirls them, like helicopter blades,
over her head.

“
Put on clothes!” Landon
bellows at her.

“
Alright, alright,” she
snaps, but it takes her twice as long as it should to figure out
how to get the bikini on. When Landon sees that we’re not looking
at his naked girlfriend, he sidles over to her and gets tangled in
her bikini strings, laughing and mumbling things that are
uncomfortably loud enough to hear.

“
Let’s go outside,” Oscar
says. “We can sit on the beach and make sure they don’t drown
themselves.”

We go out to the beach, but even though
Oscar switches on the floodlights at the back door and at the top
of the house, they don’t quite reach the part of the beach where
the dock extends out. It’s not pitch black tonight, though, and the
moonlight sparkles on the water.

We sit on the sand, and Oscar says, “This
isn’t the engagement party I wanted us to have.”
“Amy’s really mad. And I don’t think Landon agrees with how fast
it’s all happening.”

“
Landon is worried that
we’ll jump into this and jump right back out. He knows something is
strange about how I met you, but he can’t figure it all out, and
he’s frustrated that I’m not telling him everything. But I don’t
think we should include anyone else. Secrets still have a way of
leaking out. Even with the strongest friendship, you never know if
it’ll still be intact a year from now. And if, a year from now, a
friend might think your secret isn’t that big of a deal anymore, so
why keep it. That’s how things come to the surface.”

“
I’m not telling anyone
else. Not even Sher,” I say. I don’t mention that it makes me feel
sick inside to keep anything from her, especially when I could use
her help to figure out what to do.

“
Good,” Oscar says. He looks
over his shoulder toward the beach house. “I wonder if they’re even
going to come out here.”

Just then, I hear the back door slam and
Landon’s insane laughter, with Amy barking at him to stop pulling
on her bikini strings. They stumble their way down the path to
us.

“
We’re gonna go skinny
dippin’” Amy says. Her bikini is totally messed up, but at least
it’s covering all the necessary parts.

“
In
our clothes,” Landon adds.

“
No, you’re gonna go chunky
dunkin’
in your
clothes.
” Amy corrects him. Landon looks
down at himself and nods in agreement.

“
Nobody’s going swimming
tonight,” Oscar says. Both friends stare at him, confused, and I
think they’re both trying to compute. Oscar adds, “There’s a shark
warning up.”

“
Sharks?” Amy asks, peering
out across the dark water. “I don’t see any sharks.”