Page 18 of Avenged

“Marry me,” I blurted out.

Her eyes stretched wide, mouth falling open in disbelief. And I realized I’d completely botched the one job I’d come to do.

Jersey

ON A DAY LIKE TODAY

“On a day like today,

The whole world could change.

The sun’s gonna shine,

Shine thru the rain.”

Performed by Bryan Adams

Written by Jon Mark Nite

I’d finally hit send on the job application I’d been working on for the women’s shelter. They were looking for part-time help at night, which meant I could keep my bookstore job during the days. It would probably be difficult on my body, having both day and night jobs, but I figured I could swing it. I was going to have to swing it to pay for the emergency room bill when it came in.

I hadn’t heard Travis come in, and although his sudden appearance had scared me, it wasn’t nearly as scary as his two little words. Two little words I wasn’t really sure he’d uttered. Two little words that seemed ludicrous in the scope of our barely-having-spoken-to-each-other relationship.

“Excuse me?” I asked, because I was sure I’d heard him wrong.

He dragged a hand over his face. “Sorry. Screwed that up. Let me try again.”

Try again? He was going to ask me to marry him in a different way? I looked around, expecting Violet to be filming this as some weird prank to post on her social media accounts, but she was at the bookstore, covering my shift, and wouldn’t have come home without telling me.

“I was thinking,” he started, and this time, I could tell he was nervous.

“Stop. Don’t. Whatever you’re going to say, just don’t. You don’t even know me, Travis.”

This seemed to knock him out of whatever apprehensive state he was in, because he chuckled. A slow rumble that bubbled its way across my frame and made me want to lean into it and taste it. Taste him and his joy. But it certainly didn’t make me want to marry him.

“Jesus. I really am doing this all wrong. Can we sit down?”

I stared at him for a moment. “Have you been drinking?”

Our dad used to say some really bizarre things when he was drunk. Tony Stark had done some pretty stupid things when he’d been drunk. Drunk and men were a series of bad choices and decisions. Like getting behind the wheel of a car with a ten-year-old girl who was old enough to stay home on her own, but who ended up with four broken ribs and a lost spleen as a result.

Travis smiled, and it lit up his face and his eyes like Captain Marvel lit up the sky. “No, but I think I could use one,” he said and headed toward the kitchen.

I didn’t know if I should follow or call Dawson to come get him. But I didn’t have Dawson’s number. If Mandy or Leena were in cell phone range, I could have called them. In the end, I followed, because there had to be a story behind his random proposal, and I was a pushover for a good story.

When I got to the kitchen, he had taken Leena’s hidden brandy bottle down and poured two shots into regular drinking glasses. He downed one, poured more in, and then downed that one as well. Then, he turned and handed me the other glass.

I shook my head in the negative. I had enough pain meds in me to put down a horse; I wasn’t going to mess with the alcohol as well. Travis drank that glass in addition to the others he’d swallowed and then sat down at the table with the glass and the brandy bottle.

“Travis, what the heck?” I asked, sitting across from him. No way could I sit next to him when he was clearly tormented, and my fingers ached to touch him. To reassure him in some way that everything was going to be okay.

“Look. Dawson said this stupid thing earlier, and I was like, ‘That’s stupid,’ but then the more I thought about it, the more I realized it really isn’t stupid. It’s actually pretty smart.”

I crossed my arms over my chest because I wasn’t sure anything Dawson said would ever be smart. He didn’t seem like the kind to talk through anything. He was all impulse and no control.

“Go on,” I said, because I wasn’t sure what else to say.

“He said I should marry you so you could get the medical benefits. That way, you could see the specialist and not have to pay.”

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