The Proposal(41)

Nik narrowed her eyes at Dana.

“Wait, you can’t mean all celebrity relationships. Even I know in my heart that John and Chrissy—”

“Back to Carlos,” Courtney said. “I knew he was worthy. You told me how much he liked the spicy cupcake. And I believe we all remember that Fisher did not.”

All three of them nodded.

“Excellent point.” Nik waved at Pete and pointed at their drinks to request another round. “I feel like, in the future, all you need to say is ‘Fisher liked that’ to steer me away from someone, or ‘Fisher didn’t like that’ to steer me toward them.”

Pete put their drinks down on the table to a flurry of thank-yous.

“However.” Nik took a sip of her gin and tonic and smiled. “I do have to thank Fisher for one thing: if he hadn’t proposed to me at Dodger Stadium, I never would have met Carlos. And after last night, well, that would have been a real shame.”

The three of them clinked glasses.



* * *



? ? ?

Carlos walked into his apartment on Thursday night with an enormous grin on his face. He should be exhausted, after getting barely any sleep at Nik’s place last night, then racing home just to shower and change and head to an extra-long work day, but he didn’t remember when he’d felt less tired. He was ready to go back to Nik’s tonight to keep going. If only.

He was very glad he’d texted her this morning about Friday night. He’d almost waited, in the interest of being chill about everything, but then he remembered how much he’d hesitated to ask her out for drinks in the first place, and how ridiculous that felt now.

He walked into his kitchen to see what he could scrounge up for dinner. When his phone rang, he was certain for about a second it was Nik calling him. He glanced at the screen and shook his head at himself.

“Hey, Angie.”

“I heard you talked to Jessie last night.”

“I did.” He’d almost forgotten about that. It had happened right before he realized he had run out of gas. “She sounded good, but bored. She said I have to get her more books. I’m going to try to do that tomorrow or Saturday.”

When he’d suggested Friday night to Nik, he’d had no real plan in mind other than to see her again. But then she’d texted him back asking him what he was in the mood to do, and he felt like the answer she was looking for was not “sex on your couch, then pizza, then more sex was pretty great last night— we could do that again?” The guys she tended to go out with were probably “fancy pizza place in Silver Lake where you had to stand in a long line” kinds of guys, and nothing against guys like that, but that wasn’t him.

“Jessie told me you yelled at her. You have to stop doing that! It’s going to make her blood pressure worse, I already told you that. And I looked up preeclampsia, and—”

“Angela. Are you really trying to tell me something about medicine you found on the Internet right now? Seriously?”

But also, he had to come up with an idea for something to do with Nik—before they got to the good part—that made it clear this thing wasn’t on a path to a proposal. He liked her a lot, and the sex had been great, but he was not on the hunt for a girlfriend, let alone a wife. All he wanted from Nik was to have someone to blow off steam with every once in a while, whether that was more great sex or more great sex plus a few drinks or more great sex plus some joking around, et cetera.

“I’m just saying, if you want Jessie to relax, you’re going about it the wrong way. The books were great and so were the cupcakes. Keep doing things like that. Stop hounding her about her blood pressure.”

Why did his family always say things like this to him? He wasn’t “hounding” Jessie; he was just trying to make sure she was taking care of herself. He wished he had some of Nik’s rosé right now. Hell, he wished he had Nik with him right now.

“Fine. I just wanted to make sure that she’s taking this seriously. I don’t want anything to happen to Jessie or the baby.”

He walked over to his pantry, his favorite room in this house. He hadn’t had time to cook for a few weeks, and he’d missed it. All of the chopping and stirring and puttering around relaxed him after a long day. He put a big pot of water on to boil.

“I know,” she said. “She knows that, too. Just try to be more gentle about it with her, okay?”

“Okay, okay, I promise. Satisfied?” he said to his sister. Nothing else would get her off the phone.

He hoped Nik understood that he wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. He thought so. Because after everything that had happened with Fisher, both at the Dodgers game and afterward, he was pretty sure Nik was in no mood to get back into a relationship. But was there a way to make that clear to her without acting like he assumed she’d fallen in love with him or something?

Oooh. Here was an idea. He put his phone on speaker so he could text and keep talking to Angela.

What’s your feeling on Mexican food? Any interest in checking out my favorite taqueria?

There. A date at a taqueria should say “fun, but not serious” right on the label.

“Hey, speaking of medical stuff.” Angie’s voice got really casual. Too casual. “Have you thought any more about making that doctor’s appointment? Just you know, with Jessie having these issues, and our family history and all, it’s good to . . .”