The Unhoneymooners(85)

And it’s fitting that this time Olive and I are headed to Maui, I’ve got a real ring in my pocket.

? ? ?

DAY TWO AND IT TOOK some convincing to get Ami to agree to go zip-lining. For one, it wasn’t free. And also, zip-lining essentially requires jumping from a platform, trusting the harness, and flying through the air while hoping there really is a platform on the other side. For a woman like Ami, who relishes keeping a stranglehold on all of the variables possible at any given moment, zip-lining isn’t ideal.

But it’s one of the few things Olive and I didn’t get to do on our first trip, and my girlfriend would hear no dissent. She did the research for the best location, bought the tickets, and now ushers us up to the platform for our first jump with a no-nonsense wave of her hand.

“Step right up,” she says.

Ami peers over the edge of the platform and then immediately takes a step back. “Wow. It’s high.”

“That’s a good thing,” Olive reassures her. “It would be way less fun to do this from the ground.”

Ami stares flatly at her.

“Look at Lucas,” Olive says. “Lucas isn’t scared.”

He finds himself the object of all of our attention right as he’s adjusting himself in the harness.

Lucas gives her a little salute but I tilt my head. “Lucas probably isn’t scared because Lucas regularly goes skydiving.”

“You’re supposed to be on my team,” Olive growls. “Team Listen-to-Olive-Because-This-Will-Be-Fun-Damn-It.”

“I’m always on that team.” I pause and give her a winning smile. “But is it a good time to suggest a better team name? Or no.”

She stares me down, and I fight a smile because if I told her right now that with her blue shorts and white tank top, and the blue harness and yellow helmet they’ve given her, she looks like Bob the Builder, she would murder me with her bare hands and feed me to the creatures on the forest floor.

“Look, Ami,” she says, and her mouth curls into a delighted grin, “I’ll go first.”

The first drop is 50 feet above a ravine with a platform 150 feet away. Two years ago, Olive would have waited until everyone was safely on the other side before taking her turn, certain her bad luck would snap the cord or break the platform and end with us all crumpled on the forest floor. But now I watch as she stands behind the gate, following instructions to wait until her lead is strapped to the pulleys, and then steps out onto the platform. She hesitates for only a moment before taking off in a running leap and sailing (screaming) through the tops of the trees.

Ami watches her go. “She’s so brave.”

She doesn’t say it like it’s an epiphany; she just says it like it’s a fact, something we’ve all always known about Olive, a core quality. And it’s true, of course, but these little truths, finally being spoken aloud, are tiny, perfect revelations, dropped like jewels in Olive’s palm.

So even though Olive didn’t hear this, it’s still awesome to see Ami looking after her twin in wonder like this, like she’s still figuring things out about this person she knows as well as she knows her own heart.

? ? ?

THE LAST LINE OF THE day is one of the biggest in Hawaii—nearly 2800 feet from platform to platform. The best part is there are two parallel lines; we can ride it in tandem. As we make our way to the top, I remind her where to keep her hands and to angle her wrists the opposite direction that she wants to turn.

“And remember, even though we’re starting side by side, I’ll probably make it there faster because I weigh more.”

She stops, looking up at me. “Okay, Sir Isaac Newton, I don’t need a lesson.”

“A what? I wasn’t giving one.”

“You were mansplaining how gravity works.”

I go to argue but her brows go up as in Think before you speak, and it makes me laugh. She’s not wrong.

Leaning in, I press a kiss to the top of her yellow helmet. “I’m sorry.”

She scrunches her nose and my eyes follow the movement. Her freckles were the first thing I noticed about her. Ami has a few, but Olive has twelve, scattered just across the bridge of her nose and over her cheeks. I had an idea of what she looked like before we met—obviously I knew she was Dane’s girlfriend’s twin—but I wasn’t prepared for the freckles and how they moved with her smile, or the way adrenaline dumped into my veins when she pointed that smile at me and introduced herself.

She didn’t smile like that at me again for years.

Her hair is curly from the humidity and coming loose from her ponytail and even dressed like Bob the Builder, she’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Beautiful, but also very suspicious. “That apology was easier to extract than I expected.”

I run my thumb over a strand of her rebellious hair and push it back from her face. She has no idea how good my mood is right now. I’m struggling to find the right moment to propose, but I’m enjoying every second more than the one that came before it; it makes it hard to choose how and when to do this. “Sorry to disappoint,” I say. “You and your arguing kink.”

With a blushing eye roll, she turns back toward the group. “Shut up.”

I bite back my smile.

“Stop making that face.”