Over Her Dead Body(24)

As I lathered up, I thought about the best way to ask her. Flowers, ring, kiss? Ring, kiss, flowers? Or maybe I should start with the kiss? “Ashley,” I could say, “there’s something I need to do right now.” Then lay it on her. Or is that too aggressive?

By the time I was toweling off, I had run a dozen different scenarios through my mind. I decided to go with (1) flowers, to get her attention, (2) kiss, to get her warmed up, then (3) ring, because best for last, right? What would happen after the ring I didn’t dare guess, just hoped for the best.

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.

I’d experienced mortifying humiliation before—striking out with the bases loaded in a must-win game, getting chewed out by my chief resident after misdiagnosing a patient—but this was an order of magnitude more disastrous.

I finally found the strength to stand up. Ashley’s purse was on the hall table, which meant she hadn’t gone far—she was probably right outside the front door, telling her date that her roommate was mentally unstable and could he come back tomorrow?