the physical realm, perhaps. But in here,” he paused, tapping his skull. “We’ve been together always.”
Shayla shook her glossy blue bob, her Betty Page bangs sticking to her forehead above the slim silver hoop piercing her eyebrow. “You don’t want to marry me. You’re just trying to be all honorable and shit.”
“I don’t?” he asked, dropping to one knee. From the back pocket of his skinny jeans, he pulled out a velvet ring box.
Shayla looked at it goggle-eyed, disbelieving. “How did you—but you didn’t know—when did you—”
“I was gonna propose at the gallery show tonight, but, under the circumstances...” He snapped the box open, revealing a gleaming white gold band with diamonds winking around a sapphire bluer than the ocean’s depths.
“You planned this? Even before—” she glanced down at an abdomen that had not yet begun to swell.
“I’ve planned this since the moment you shoved a menu at me and told me I was wasting your best table,” Steve said.
My heart ached with the memory of our first meeting, ages ago, it seemed, on my first day as Mark’s assistant. Before she’d run the antiques shop, Shayla had been a waitress at The Dusty Dahlia, a nearby tearoom Mark and company frequented. Owing to her ass-grabbing letch of a boss, Shayla had marched into the gallery and informed Mark he’d be hiring her to run the shop. It hadn’t occurred to him to argue.
Now here she stood, my brother on one knee before her and a life changing proposition to consider.
“Okay,” she said.
“Really?” Steve asked, his eyes like sun-lit emeralds.
“Really.” Deep dimples appeared at the corners of Shayla’s mouth as she broke into a wide grin.
Steve slid the ring onto her finger and shot up from his knee, crushing her in a hug once more.
In my peripheral vision, I saw Joseph’s dark eyes scanning my face. “I’m not crying,” I said, dabbing my leaking nose with a wadded tissue. “You’re crying.”
Joseph began to applaud, and I joined him, feeling the heat as I slapped my palms together, clapping with all the excitement I couldn’t express.
“I’m going to regret this,” Shayla said.
“Not a day in your life.” Steve drew a cross over his heart and winked.
“Okay,” Shayla said, seriousness drawing her features tight. “If we’re going to do this, it’s going to be before I’m all fat and bloated.”
“Fine by me,” Steve said. “The sooner the better.”
“Where will you have the ceremony?” Joseph asked.
“I know you wouldn’t think it,” Steve said, glancing to his worn Chuck Taylors, inscribed in blue ink with his best ideas and favorite quotations. “But I’ve been saving for years. We can get married anywhere you want. Rome, Paris—”
“Here,” Shayla said. This unfailing practicality of hers was the perfect complement to Steve’s whimsical impulsiveness.
“I can take care of the food,” I said. “The caterers we use for the gallery shows would leap at the opportunity.”
“I’ll do the invitations,” Steve insisted. “I’ve had them drawn up for a while.”
“How long is a while?” Shayla asked, her artfully shaped eyebrow arching.
Steve shrugged. “A year or so?”
“Okay, you know that’s super creepy, right?” Shayla’s face flushed a sudden vibrant pink, the thin blood-red slits at the base of her jaw rising. “Did I even have a choice?”
“Of course you did,” Steve said. “But I didn’t. I’d met the girl of my dreams. I gave you my heart a long time ago. The rest,” he said, flexing one long noodle-like arm, “is just a bonus.”
There was more affection in Shayla’s eye roll than some people manage in a full body hug.
“Well, we have invitations and food sorted,” Joseph said. “What about the date?”
“That one is all yours, doll,” Steve said.
“March 21st,” Shayla said without hesitation. “Spring Equinox.”
“That’s less than two weeks away.” Joseph pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and opened the calendar app. Clearly, he had been a more eager adopter of technology than his son, who had been known to gnaw gadgets out of frustration. “We have a lot of work to do.”
“We?” I asked, surprised and pleased to have a willing accomplice.
“Call me a dyed-in-the-wool romantic, but I love a wedding,” Joseph said. “I hope you won’t object to my helping you plan. In addition to certain…contacts.”
“Oh,” I asked. “What kind of contacts might that be?”
“A decorator, for example.” He turned his eyes to the gallery’s void. “It’s raw, of course. But the gentleman I have in mind could do wonders with this space. If, of course, you are amenable to this suggestion?” Joseph looked from