I tidied the house, then settled in to wait. I couldn’t concentrate on my reading, so I watched some basketball on TV. For a period of time, up until my senior year in high school, I had hoped to play in the NBA. But six foot two isn’t tall enough for a power forward with average talent, so I chose sports medicine instead. Med school was grueling and felt never ending, but at thirty, I was finally a full-fledged doctor with clients ranging from ninety-pound ballerinas with snapping hip syndrome to two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linebackers with torn cartilage and chronic tendinitis. I loved helping athletes of all levels get back to the sports they loved, whether they were college superstars trying to go pro or white-haired tennis players trying to stay active and out of the morgue.
It was getting late, so I made myself some dinner—stir fry chicken with brown rice. I left out the garlic, because now was not the time for garlic breath, and as much as I wanted a beer, decided against it for the same reason. Besides, I had hoped the alcohol would come later, in the form of a toast to a beautiful future, and for that I had prosecco on ice.
It was seven o’clock when Ashley finally got home. The ring was in the pocket of my hoodie. I put a hand on it as I stood up to make sure it didn’t fall out. The flowers were on the table. I had left them wrapped but put the tips in a cup of water so they wouldn’t wilt. As I heard her coming up the front walk, I took them out and dried the stems so they wouldn’t be wet when I gave them to her.
The seconds felt like hours as I waited for my future wife to walk through the front door. My mouth was so dry I almost drank the flower water. As my pulse raced, I cursed myself for not having that beer.
I finally heard her key in the lock. I recentered the ring in my hoodie pocket, then tucked the flowers behind my back. The door opened. Ashley was smiling and as radiant as I had ever seen her. I felt more sure than ever about what I was about to do.
“Jordan!” she said when she saw me standing in the middle of the room staring at her all awkward and wide eyed. “Are you OK?”
I realized how ridiculous I must have looked, standing at attention like a one-armed marine. There was no turning back now. Not that I wanted to turn back—I was just nervous as hell.
“Ashley,” I started, then suddenly went blank. What had I decided? Flowers, kiss, ring? Or flowers, ring, kiss? The ring was a bowling ball in my pocket, and I was squeezing those flowers so tight I nearly snapped the stems in half. “I need to ask you something.”
I can’t remember what I did next—whip out the flowers or fall to one knee. But in a dizzying moment, she was holding that doomed bouquet of roses and I was kneeling in front of her with the ring box open and arm extended like I was feeding a giraffe at the zoo.
“Will you marry me?”
I expected her to be surprised. But the happy kind.
“Is that . . . real?” she asked, peering down at the ring.
“As real as my love for you,” I said, knowing it was probably the corniest thing I’d ever said in my whole life. My heart was a jackhammer in my chest. I flashed to the prosecco chilling in the fridge, how that ring would look on her finger, calling her mom to share the news. I was ready for this to be the happiest day of my life.
“Jordan, I . . .” She started to speak, but her words were cut off by a knock on the door. Who the hell is that? She bit her lip. An apologetic grimace flashed across her face.
“Are you . . . expecting someone?” And her answer gutted me like a fish.
“I’m on a date.”
We stood there looking at each other for an impossibly awkward beat. Well, she was standing, I was kneeling. I couldn’t move, even to retract my hand.
Knock, knock, knock.
“I . . . need to get that,” she said. And I must have nodded, because she nodded, too.
She turned her back to me. I closed the ring box and let my hand fall to my side. I didn’t want to stay half kneeling half standing in the middle of our living room, but I had no idea what to do next. Is she going to send him away? Let him in? Leave with him? What the hell am I supposed to do?
I heard the sound of the door opening, then closing, then silence. Eardrum-shattering, heartbreaking silence. Nope, not coming back.
The ring was like a live grenade in my hand. I almost hurled it at the wall. What a fucking idiot! Just last night she tried to tell me she’d been waiting for me. But I pushed her away. Because I wanted to do it my way, be the man. What a colossal fuckup. Of course there’d be someone else who wanted her. And I had pushed her right into his arms.