I don’t even bother trying to tell him that if he didn’t have his keys when he left the club or wherever he ended up last night, it stands to reason they won’t be hibernating in my couch. I have other things on my mind at the moment though. I walk away from Drew and into the kitchen, making my way to my coat that's hanging on the back of one of the chairs. I reach into the inside pocket, pull out the small, black velvet box, and open the lid to look inside for the ten thousandth time since I picked it up last week.
The sight of the one and a half carat, platinum, diamond ring nestled in the white satin makes my heart pound with excitement. And I’m not going to lie; it also makes me want to throw up in my mouth. Just a little bit. I stare down at the precious metal that that took me eight days and six trips to the jewelry store to pick out. The main diamond is princess cut and framed by twelve, three-quarter carat round diamonds. The ring is complimented by lines of round diamonds along the band. It's elegant and beautiful.
Yes, I know I sound like a walking advertisement for a jewelry store and men everywhere are humming the tune of “Taps” right now and brain screaming, “MAN DOWN!” but I feel a little fist pump is in order due to the fact that Claire will be able to look over at her friends all smug-like and say, “He went to Jared!”
If she says yes. Which she totally will, ha ha! I’m not nervous at all. I don’t feel all itchy and ball-sweaty thinking about popping the question and the possibility that she just might laugh in my face and tell me I’m bat shit crazy. Who gets married after only being together a few months? Who has a one-night-stand in college and finds out five years later it resulted in a child? Who spends all those years turning into a creeper that stalks bath and body shops every time they get a new chocolate-scented lotion line and gets a hard-on at work when some guy, whose wife just had a baby girl, passed out Hershey bars with the cutesy little wrapper that says, “HERESHEIS!”
This guy right here. Don’t even ask how I explained away the boner and how I am NOT a child molester and that it’s totally natural to get turned on when a co-worker is talking about a baby.
That sentence sounded much better in my head, so let’s just pretend I never said it and move on.
The fact is, I spent years wishing I could see my one-night-stand again and find out if she was real, hoping I could one day meet her again and see if she could still make me laugh and turn me on with just a brush of her hand or the smell of her skin.
I had tried to fill the void with a woman whose mouth could hold more balls than a Hungry, Hungry Hippo, but walking in on her playing hide the salami with our neighbor made me realize two things. One, I should have never tried to blot out the memory of my dream girl with someone else. And by “someone else” I meant a whore. And two, our neighbor had Elephantitis of the ball and should seriously get that looked at by a medical professional of some sort. And no, that wasn’t a mistake. I really meant ball, as in singular. Dude only had one ball and it was the size of a coconut.
Seriously. Google a picture of a coconut. I’ll wait. Because you really need to get the full effect of what I saw dangling there for the twenty seconds it took for me to get my head out of my ass and scream insults at both of them.
All of this, while nightmare inducing, had made me realize that when I found Claire, I knew I would do whatever it took to never lose her again.
We may have done everything ass backwards, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Claire and Gavin are my whole world and I want to make it official. I want her to know that nothing could tear me away from them and that I am in it for the long haul. Pushing the nerves aside, I smile as I stare at my future and a big chunk of my savings account tucked into the small, velvet box. I close the lid with a snap just as Drew walks into the kitchen dangling his keys from the tip of his index finger, holding them out away from his body as far as possible.
“So you’re really going to do it, huh? You’re going to make an honest woman out of Claire?” he asks as he runs water in the sink, dumps in about a half a bottle of liquid soap, and throws his keys into the growing pile of bubbles. He shuts the water off and turns around to lean against the counter. I give him and the sink a questioning look and he just shrugs his shoulders.
“I found them in the tank of the toilet. Better to be safe than sorry.”
Gavin chooses that moment to run into the room and I lift him up into my arms before I can ask Drew why this is the second time in a month he’s lost his keys in my toilet.
“Why is Uncle Drew washing dishes?” Gavin asks as he wrapped his arms around my neck.
“I’m not washing dishes. I’m washing my keys,” Drew explains with his back to us as he splashes in the water trying to retrieve them. He flings them out of the sink as he turns back around, splattering Gavin and I with suds.
“You don’t wash keys. That’s dumb,” Gavin replies seriously.
“Um, hello? You do too wash keys. Especially if they have your poop on them because they were in your toilet,” Drew replies as he shakes the excess suds off of his key ring.
“I don’t poop on keys! YOU poop on keys!” Gavin yells angrily. “I’m going to stick your head in the toilet!”
I probably should have intervened by now, but sometimes this is the highlight of my day. I unwind Gavin’s arms from my neck and set him back down.
“Okay, that’s enough. Gavin, go in your room and get your baseball hat. It’s almost time to pick up mommy and go to the game.”
Gavin takes off running but not before giving Drew a dirty look.
“Dude, that kid has anger issues. I hope you sleep with one eye open at night,” Drew mutters as he watches Gavin run off. He turns back to face me and crosses his arms in front of him. “So, you took my suggestion and went with the baseball game proposal. Nice. Good work.”
“As much as it pains me to say this, it was a really good idea. A guy at work got a bunch of free tickets to the Indian’s game today because his daughter works for the concierge desk at Progressive Field. According to this guy, they don’t allow you to just pay for a proposal to be put up on the scoreboard anymore. He gave me his daughter’s work number and she told me about this whole proposal package they have. So, for three hundred dollars I am now the proud owner of a Cleveland Indian’s Proposal Package,” I explain proudly.
“Will those three hundred dollars assure that they might actually win a game this year?” Drew asks.
I shake my head. “Probably not. But, it does get us moved to VIP seating in a loge after I propose, a five-by-seven glossy photo of the proposal as it was seen on the scoreboard, a dozen red roses, and a gift certificate to the Terrace Club restaurant right at the park so we can have dinner to celebrate,” I say with a smile as I grab my non-toilet-infested car keys off of the counter along with my wallet.
“If she says yes, you mean. Otherwise that’s just going to be the most depressing photo you will ever have hanging on your wall and a really uncomfortable dinner,” Drew supplies with a sad shake of his head.
“Thank you so much for that vote of confidence,” I deadpan.
And now the nerves are back. But I won’t let them get to me. I’ve been wracking my brain for weeks trying to come up with a unique and special way to propose to Claire, and when she mentioned casually that she’d never taken Gavin to an Indian’s game, I knew it would be the perfect setting. It will be in front of thousands of people and our son will be there to witness it. What could be better than that? And really, what woman wouldn’t love it?
~
During the sixth inning is when everything went to shit. Aside from the Drew-induced nervous stomach I suffered from during the first five innings, we are having a great time. Gavin is amazed by the ballpark and the Indians were up by seven. As my knee bounces up and down, and I force myself not to buy another hot dog to give myself something to do because eight ballpark hot dogs is where I draw the line, I try not to think about the fact that I never asked Claire’s father for her hand in marriage. That is something people still did nowadays, isn’t it? Would George be mad at me that I didn’t have a formal sit-down with him to discuss our upcoming nuptials and whether or not he approved? And now that I have said the word, “sit-down,” I am having flashes of George wearing a three-piece suit and fedora staring at me across a plate of half-eaten linguini while he steeples his fingers under his chin and then excuses himself to go to the bathroom so he can get the gun he hid behind the toilet and shoot me in the head.
“Leave the gun. Take the cannoli!”
A few people in the row in front of us turn around to look at me quizzically and I just shrug. They won’t judge me if they know my future father-in-law is a mobster who wants me dead for not going through the proper channels to marry his one and only daughter.
Claire is too busy arguing with Gavin about how a third bag of cotton candy will not, in fact, give him superpowers no matter what he saw on television so she has no idea about the minor freak-out I had going on. Not that I would talk to her about it anyway. This is supposed to be a surprise—a huge, life-changing surprise that could make or break our future. Or my kneecaps if George decides he really does hate me.
I continue my manic foot tapping as Jose Cabrera goes up to the plate and repeat the words I plan to say to Claire in my head.
I never thought I’d find you again…you are my heart and soul and my reason for living…every moment I spend with you is like-
Claire’s laughter breaks my concentration, and I glance over to see her pointing to the outfield and snickering with a few people sitting around her.
“Oh my God, would you look at that!” she exclaims.
I glance out beyond third base to see what has caught her interest. When I see what everyone else is staring at, my stomach plummets all the way to my toes and the eight hotdogs I just consumed threaten to make a reappearance in a totally unflattering way that won’t be near as much fun as dancing meat singing the Oscar Mayer wiener song.
There, televised on the jumbotron for all of Progressive Field to see, is a guy down on one knee somewhere by the first base line holding up a ring box to a hysterically sobbing woman with her hands over her mouth in shock. In big, jumbotron-sized, blinking red letters below their picture are the words, “Crystal, will you marry me? Love Rob!”
Claire snorts and shakes her head. “What a tool that guy is. How cheesy can you be? Proposing at a baseball game in front of tens of thousands of strangers and putting it up on the scoreboard? That’s got to be the most clichéd thing ever.
“REALLY ORIGINAL THERE, MORON!” she yells as everyone around us claps and cheers when the woman on the screen nods her head up and down emphatically and the pair embrace.
Oh sweet Jesus. Sweet mother f**king fuckery of fucks.
I am going to win the 'Tool of the Year' award if my proposal shows up on that screen in the next five minutes like it’s scheduled to. I don’t even know if there is a 'Tool of the Year' award. There must be. It’s probably a huge, gold penis trophy with an arrow pointing to it that reads, “This is you! A giant dick! Congratulations.” There’s probably even a 'Tool of the Year' book they print every year like that 'Darwin Awards' book that really has nothing to do with winning an esteemed award and everything to do with the fact that people are pointing and laughing because you died from trying to slow dance with an ostrich that would rather peck out your eyes than learn the Cha Cha.
Claire is going to peck out my eyes if I propose to her right now!
“Carter, are you okay? You look like you’re going to throw up. I told you no one should ever eat more than six hotdogs. That’s just asking for pig snout disease or whatever the hell they make those things out of,” Claire scolds as she looked me over worriedly.
“I ate a pig snout?!” Gavin asks elatedly. “What’s a pig snout?
Claire turns to the other side of her to try and explain to Gavin that hotdogs are, in fact, not made out of dogs, and I take that moment to jump up from my seat, mumbling something about throwing up before I race up the stairs to the concierge desk to cancel my Cleveland Indian’s Proposal Package before I die a slow, horrible eye-pecking death.
4. He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not
“I think he’s going to break up with me.”
Liz’s sigh through the phone line is loud and clear. I know she's irritated with me. I am irritated with me. It's getting to the point where I can’t even stand the sound of my own voice and yet I can’t shut up about this.
“He’s been acting really weird ever since the Indian’s game last week,” I explain as I pull my car into the driveway and let the engine idle.
“Carter isn’t going to break up with you. Will you shut up about this already? Maybe he’s just stressed about work or the fact that his parents are finally coming for a visit. Did you try out that move on him I told you about the other night? The one where you take your fingers and put them in his-”
“LA-LA-LA, I’M NOT LISTENING TO YOU!” I yell over her voice and try to block out the words “prostate” and “gentle massage”.
“Fine, but I’m telling you – it will totally relax him,” she says matter-of-factly.
I turn off the ignition and rested my head against the steering wheel.
“Have you tried, oh I don’t know, asking him what’s wrong?” Liz continues.
“You’re rolling your eyes at me right now, aren’t you?” I reply. “No, I haven’t asked him. I’ve done what every other woman in a new relationship does when her boyfriend is acting all twitchy and nervous. I completely ignore the situation and pretend like it isn’t happening while making a list of possible responses and comebacks I can lob at him when he finally decides to give me the brush-off. I am NOT going to be one of those people who clam up when he tells me, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ and then six hours later when I’m sitting alone in the dark with a bottle of vodka scream, ‘OH IT’S TOTALLY YOU AND YOUR SMALL PENIS!’. I’m going to have viable retorts ready to go so I don’t come up with them later when I’m drunk and alone, and they do no one any good.”