Page 95 of Eden's Joker

I should tell him my news now. Maybe he only seems nervous because I am.

He takes another bite then puts his plastic fork down and clears his throat. We’re sitting under a majestic willow tree, atop our blanket in the grass—a blanket that we’ve made love on too many times to count. It’s adorned with a lion’s head, which is staring me right in the eyes as he takes the pie box from my hands and stands up, guiding me up too.

“What’s going on, Tyler?” I ask. “We still have the whole pie left.”

He clears his throat again and this time I’m sure my nervousness has nothing to do with his.

“This is where I first fell in love with you,” he says. “Or possibly back at the pie shop, after you made us get all the pie just because I said I never had much pie growing up. It seemed cheesy as hell at the time, but it grew on me.”

He pauses to take a breath after all that talking as I cringe.

“Not romantic enough?” he asks, smiling at me.

“Oh, it’s just fine,” I say and smile too. “I just didn’t want it to come across as cheesy at the time. But I guess it kinda was. Sorry about that.”

He clears his throat. “No, you wanted to do a nice thing for me. And you did. So how’s this for romantic…”

He goes down on one knee and pulls a little purplebox from his pocket. My heart is doing cartwheels in my chest, sending tiny bubbles of joy everywhere. Especially my cheeks, which must be cherry red right now. But I don’t care. I don’t care about anything but waiting for the next words out of his mouth.

“Eden, I know we didn’t come together in the best possible way, but I don’t ever want to lose you,” he says. “Will you be my wife?”

“Yes!” The answer bursts from my mouth because it’s been so hard keeping it in to let him ask the question first. The question I knew the answer to a very long time before he asked it. Maybe even as early as the first time we were here.

“Yeah?” he says.

“Obviously,” I say. “What did you think?”

“I don’t know… that you wouldn’t think it’s such a good idea,” he mutters.

I guess I now know why he was so nervous. He stands up and offers me the ring. It’s a large diamond flanked by rubies that shine like ripe cherries as he slides it on my fingers.

“I thought the rubies could remind us of the cherry pie, you know… “

“And you say you don’t know how to be romantic,” I say and kiss him.

He tastes of cherries, and summer, and everything good that is yet to come. All of it, right here in this kiss. And this one is even better than the kind we’re used to sharing. It’s the kind that makes the rest of the worldfade away until we’re all alone in the world, and nothing but our love matters.

But that might not last very much longer…

“Good thing you proposed,” I say once we’re sitting on our blanket again, finishing the pie.

“Yeah? Did I take too long?”

“It’s not that,” I say and rest my hand on my belly. “It’s just that now, no one can say it was a shotgun wedding.”

He’s confused for a moment, but then he connects the hand on my belly and the smile on my face. His eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them and my heart’s racing again. Not quite as happily as before.

“You’re pregnant? We’re gonna have a child?” he says breathlessly, and I nod. “I’m gonna be a dad?”

I nod again.

“In how long?”

“About nine months, give or take,” I say and laugh because he sounds like such a young boy right now. “Are you happy?”

His lips stretch into the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, and his eyes are no longer wide, but soft, content, sunny.

“I am,” he says. “More than I know how to say.”

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