Proposal (The Mediator, #6.5)(12)
And now he was offering me his mother’s ring, and I was offering him attitude.
What was wrong with me?
“Not now, all right?” I said, breaking free of his embrace. “Right now we have more important things to do. We have to go keep one ghost from turning a kid into another ghost, remember? And possibly me, too. So let’s go do it, and talk about this later.”
He frowned as I began to buzz around the room, gathering my ghost--busting material. “Susannah, did I do something wrong?”
“You? What could you possibly have done wrong?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. Querida, are you blushing?”
“Of course not.” My cheeks were hot as fire. But I couldn’t tell him why, because I didn’t know why. “Well, okay, maybe I am. I just can’t deal with this right now.”
“Can’t deal with what right now? The man who loves you asking you to spend the rest of your life with him?”
“Not that. That part’s a given. I mean, I’d kill you if you didn’t.”
“Is this about your mother?” he asked, flipping the ring box closed as I shoved my cell phone into a bowl of uncooked rice I keep on my bookshelf for just such emergencies. “Is this about how she wanted us to date other -people while we were at different schools? Are you regretting that you didn’t take her advice? Or—-” His voice grew oddly still. “Did you take her advice? Is that where you really were tonight?”
“God, Jesse, of course not!” I exploded. “What do you think, that I made up this elaborate story about the kid in the cemetery so you wouldn’t find out I’m cheating on you with some dumb frat boy? Are you kidding me?”
Jesse looked thoughtful. “I was thinking of a teaching assistant. I couldn’t see you with a fraternity boy. You’d probably only scare them.”
I grabbed my messenger bag. “Thanks for the compliment. Now we should probably go. Is your phone charged? I need you to check and see if there’s a local address listed for a family under the name of Farhat. Please, God, there can’t be more than one.”
“Or do you think I’m trying to trap you the way the dead boy did his girlfriend because I don’t know where I’m going to be for my residency next year?” he mused. “We could be even farther apart than we are now. But I swear that’s not what this is about. I’m confident that wherever I end up, we’ll work it out.”
“Oh, my God, Jesse, I know.” I reached for the vodka and cranberry Lauren had given me. Now that Jesse was here, he could drive. He’s a better driver than I am—-which is disturbing, considering I’ve had a license longer than he had—-and I needed the liquid courage. For what we were about to do, and, well, for other things.
“Then is it nerves about telling your mother and stepfather our plans?” he asked. “If this was the 1850s—-and I’m glad it’s not, because I’m grateful for vaccines and antibiotics—-I’d be asking Andy’s permission to marry you.” He ignored the choking sound I made, which had nothing to do with the drink I was chugging. “I’m not going to, not only because I understand that would be—-what did it you call it again? Oh, yes—- ridiculously chauvinistic, but because you obviously seem to have some kind of issue about the idea of our getting engaged right now. That’s fine. I can wait. But I do think we should consider telling your parents the truth about how we met and who I really am and how you can actually see the undead. It’s a bad idea to start a marriage with a lie —-”
“Oh, my God, no!” I burst out—-though not loudly enough to draw the attention of my suite mates, who for all I knew were listening at the door. I wouldn’t put it past them. Some of them had never been on dates before, and so were extremely curious about them. “Are you insane? I can’t tell my mom any of that stuff, let alone Andy. It would blow their tiny little minds. They’ll think we were in a cult, or something.”
“Having the gift of second sight is hardly the same as being in a cult, Susannah.”
“You know my mother. She’s a reporter. And now she’s the executive producer of Andy’s show. She only believes in facts she can see.”
Jesse thrust out a hand, the one holding the ring box. “Does this look factual enough to you, Susannah?”
I knew he was talking about the ring, but it was difficult not to notice how hard and muscular his hand looked, especially attached to that long, equally muscular arm. That was a fact my mother wouldn’t be able to ignore, either. It was hard to believe that such a vibrantly masculine, stunningly attractive person, whose dark eyes practically flashed with intelligence and life, had ever been dead. Any residency program that didn’t take him was insane. I was probably a fool not to have said, Yes, Jesse, I will be Mrs. de Silva, and slid that ring on my finger the moment I found it, so tantalizingly warm from the heat of his body.
But something still didn’t feel right. Probably it was me. I didn’t feel right.
“Um, yes,” I said, swallowing. “But that isn’t the point. My mom and Andy have enough to worry about with Brad and the babies and now Jake starting his own, ahem, business.”
My oldest stepbrother, Jake—-whose only career aspiration upon high school graduation appeared to be a full--time pizza delivery position—-had surprised us all by parlaying his pizza delivery earnings not into the Camaro of which he’d always dreamed, but into the purchase of a plot of land in Salinas.