Masked Innocence

Forty-Five

Brad sat across from the two girls, his expression pained.

“Let me get this right,” the brunette said, her intelligent eyes peering at him with distrust. “You are proposing to Julia tonight. You haven’t bought a ring, you don’t have anything romantic planned and you have dated her for a grand total of, what, three weeks?”

“It’s been almost two months—”

“No, no, no,” she interrupted him, waving her hand. “I’m not counting all the time where you were chasing her, and you were both single, and you were probably fucking half the town at the same time. I’m talking about committed relationship time.”

Three weeks was probably overstating that qualifier, but Brad wasn’t going to bother pointing that out.

The other one, a petite beauty with breast implants, a nose job and, in Brad’s opinion, entirely too much makeup, slapped the girl’s arm, interjecting herself into the conversation. “Well, I think this is the most romantic thing ever! Do you have any friends—single friends? I need to find a guy like you, one who is ready to settle down.”

“Becca, he is not ready to settle down. That’s the whole problem!” The aggressive one, who he thought was named Olivia, whipped out a finger, pointing it at Brad. “Why? Why propose now? Why not wait, get to know her a bit?”

He wanted to leave, to say “screw this” to the two spoiled brats in front of him, get up and continue on his way. But these were Julia’s friends, her best friends, and he needed to stack the deck with every card he had if he wanted Julia to accept. He weighed how to communicate his intentions without bringing up the predicament they had found themselves in. The attorney in him looked at the angles available, the weaknesses of the jury. Reason might work with the pit bull; emotion would win the Barbie’s heart. The problem was, all he had was emotion. A foreign tool in his belt. He spread his hands in a helpless gesture and tried his best pitiful look. “Because I love her. And I don’t want to wait. I know, unequivocally, that she is the one for me.” The word love rolled off his tongue, convincing and believable, so smoothly that he almost missed its significance and weight. Love. A concept he had avoided for so long, and which now felt so right in his heart. Expanding, pushy, it took up unnecessary space, crowding out so many hostile emotions—anger at his mother’s abandonment, at his family’s business, at his own stubborn independence—he had harbored for so long.

The tiny one practically came in her seat, dissolving into a sea of emotion and grabbing his arm in support. The brunette simply snorted, the word bullshit stamped clearly across her features.

It took fifteen minutes, every iota of debate experience he possessed, Becca chiming in her support at every opportunity, but Olivia finally cracked. And, after their crab cakes, fruit plates and a bottle of champagne were finished, the two girls and Brad walked across the street and entered the jewel-encrusted, chandelier-lit elegance of Lorenzi Jewelers, in search of the perfect ring.