“Fine. This is me sticking my hand in your pocket.”
“Not that one. The other one.”
She gives me a sour look, then leans to my other side and pats around my hip until she finds the pocket of my slacks. Then she shoves her hand inside.
I can tell when she finds the box by the way her eyes widen.
“You said you were a size six in rings. I didn’t forget.”
Her hand shaking, she withdraws the little black box and stares at it. Her eyes fill with tears.
“I love you, Shay. I fell in love with you the first day we met when you sat down at my table and smiled at me. And I’ll love you until I take my last breath. Nobody else has ever been as good to me or for me as you’ve been, and I want to spend the rest of my life trying to be that good for you. So please do me the honor of marrying me, because without you, I’m nothing.”
Her face crumples. Tears slide down her cheeks. She throws her arms around my shoulders and starts sobbing.
Holding her, I start to laugh. “I take it that’s a yes?”
“It’s a yes, you impossible man! It’s a yes!”
“You didn’t even see the ring yet.”
She wails, “I don’t care about the ring!”
“You should probably look at it, though. Owls aren’t known for their great taste in jewelry.”
She buries her face in my chest and sobs. “When I stop crying, I’m going to kill you.”
I kiss her on the top of her head and blink away the water from my eyes. Grinning, I whisper, “I know, baby. I know.”
Acknowledgments
I read an article in TIME magazine in 2017 that stuck with me. It was about the companies in Japan that help people vanish, and the people called jouhatsu who disappeared without a trace, and I found the whole premise fascinating. So thank you, TIME, for that inspiration.
Thank you as always to my editor, Linda Ingmanson, for your invaluable expertise.
Thank you to my agent, Jenny Bent, for being awesome.
Big thanks to my reader group, Geissinger’s Gang, for always being there and supporting me.
Mitchell Wick, thank you for what you do, and thank you, Michelle Lancaster, for photographing him doing it.
To Nina, Kim, Sarah, and the entire team at Valentine PR, thank you so much for all your support!
Finally, thank you, Jay, for so many years of laughter.