Marrying Ember

Marrying Ember by Andrea Randall




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The swooniest, sexiest, smartest women (and men) around.





“It was never a question of if I was going to marry Ember, it was the matter of when. Five minutes after I met her may have been a bit hasty, but I swear to you that’s how I felt. Like I wanted to sew her to my side and keep her there forever. We just … went together.” I took a deep breath, smiling at my words. Not because they were well-crafted, but because they were real. They were us.

I continued, reading from my composition notebook. “Then … some stuff happened. The kind of stuff that had the back of my mind questioning if we could really have a forever kind of life together. If we could really carry on an eternal relationship if the minutia of everyday life was bogging us down.”

“Eeeerr!” Georgia made a very realistic—and very loud—buzzer sound with her voice. “Christ, Cavanaugh, are you trying to propose to her or serve her with divorce papers?”

We were in her bakery, she could talk to me however she wanted.

I looked to Regan, who covered his mouth, hiding a smile.

“Et tu, Regan?” I held out my arms, teasing him. “Shit, who am I kidding? That sucked.”

I crumpled up the useless piece of paper and sat in the booth across from Regan and Georgia. We had one weekend off in between the two parts of our summer tour with The Six, and these precious minutes were few that I was able to steal away from Ember. We’d been on tour for weeks in the southern part of California, and after this weekend we’d be heading north. Wine country, Ember touted any time it was brought up.

Regan cleared his throat. “Let’s, uh, take a look at what worked. That if and when statement? Perfection.”

“Yeah, if he was proposing to every other girl on Youtube that got engaged this year. They all say that, Regan. Every single one of them. Shit, my Facebook feed blows up a few days a week with oh so sweet! Look how much he loves her! And, you know what? They all say ‘I knew the second I met her,’ or ‘It was just a matter of time before I knew …’ Tell me, were you going to have Michael Bublé playing in the background?” She dramatically leaned her head back, pointing her index finger at her temple and pulling the imaginary trigger as her eyes rolled to the sky.

“I get it, I get it.” Regan held up his hands. “Don’t propose to Georgia on Youtube. Or with Michael Bublé playing in the background.”

She shot up in her seat. “I didn’t say that. Get your act together, Kane. Every girl wants to feel like a celebrity for five minutes of her life.”

Regan held out his hands. “You’re not making sense!”

“You act surprised!” she shot back, cracking into laughter right along side him.

Even though they’d only been together for a few months, Regan and Georgia had an easy banter between them. It was light and sarcastic and just what they both seemed to need.

I whistled and pointed to myself. “Help!” I pleaded. “I need to get this right.”

“Right for who?” Georgia turned serious.

“Huh?” Regan and I said in unison.

Georgia leaned forward, placing her elbows on the table, and sliding a plate of cookies to the side. “Who do you want it to be right for? I mean, this is you two, right? I’ve only seen you guys in action for a couple of months, but you do things your own way. As it should be, don’t get me wrong, but what’s right?”

I leaned back with a heavy sigh. “I just want to marry her.”

“So f*ckin’ marry her. She knows all of the shit you went through. God, even I know more than I need to about all of the shit you went through. She doesn’t need to be reminded of that. She doesn’t need to know what happened, she just needs to know why you want more. What you have planned for your future. Together. Just marry the girl and get on with it.”

Unplanned and definitely uncool, Regan and I sniffed at the same time. Georgia rolled her eyes.

“God, let me out of this booth. I’ll leave you ladies to it. Does anyone need a tampon while I’m up?” Georgia nudged Regan so she could get out.

She didn’t wait for our response, instead making a beeline for the supplies in her kitchen. She started whipping up a batch of who-knows-what, though I knew it would be delicious. I watched Regan for a few moments as he stared at her.

“It’s nice to see that look on your face, bro.” I realized that adding “bro” to the end of the sentence didn’t really beef it up any, but I let it hang there in the air.

He turned back to me, half grinning, half grey-looking. “It’s not … weird for you?”

I shook my head. It wasn’t that I’d seen sparks between Georgia and Regan from the first minute. In fact, they’d both seemed to be doing their damnedest to stay away from each other. The more time they had spent together, though, it became clearer that he found peace with her.

As we sat in Sweet Forty-Two, in La Jolla, California, I found myself smiling. And not just from the permanent sugar high Georgia had me on.

“It’s really not. It would be weird to me if you wallowed around all pale and mopey. Rae would think Georgia was a riot, which she is.”

Regan swallowed hard. “It’s been almost a year. Sometimes it feels like years ago, and sometimes it feels like we’re still sitting on the floor of that hospital, doesn’t it?”