Page 38 of Scoring with my Bestie's Ex

“You heard from Bella lately?” Mike asks, overly casually.

I smirk. “We message each other. Her boss is throwing a show for her to debut her designs and she’s excited.”

“Right, right. Ellen said something about her maybe not being at the Castleton charity ball.” Mike gives me a sideways glance.

He’s hinting around at something. Fishing.

“It’s a big break for her.” I might be a little disappointed that it was scheduled for the same night.

Okay, a lot disappointed.

But she made it clear to me that she wants to progress with her career.

Besides that, she already sent me money to help set up the charity dance in the first place.

I can’t ask for her time when she has so much on her plate already.

I get into the car.

Mike is a little slower, but as he puts on his seatbelt, he says, “Would it be in bad taste for me to publicly propose to Ellen at your charity dance?”’

“What?”

Mike holds up his hands. “Okay, I won’t.”

“No, that’s—” I splutter. He grins.

“You’re going to propose to Ellen?” I finally manage to ask. “So soon? You two only met a few weeks ago!”

Mike laughs aloud. “I know. And if it was anyone else saying this to me, I’d think they were crazy. But I love her. She loves me.”

How could they know it is actual love so quickly, though?

“We’ve talked about it, and we want to be engaged. Ellen wants a big public proposal,” he adds. “If you’re okay with it, we thought it might be some nice drama for the dance.”

“I don’t think an event like that needs drama,” I say, still struggling to understand what’s happening.

I turn on the car and start driving.

Mike nods. “I’ll organize something else, then. I thought it might be .”

“I’m sorry, I just don’t understand this at all,” I finally say. “You two don’t even live together, and you want to jump into marriage?”

Mike shakes his head. “No. We’re jumping to the engagement. We plan to be engaged for four or five years. We’ve looked at a few venues, and the wait times for the ones we want are astronomical.”

My mind reels over this as I merge into traffic. “I mean, if that’s what you both want, I’m happy for you.”

“It is. I know it’s a damn short time. Sometimes you just know, though.” He shrugs. “It wouldn’t have been that short two hundred years ago.”

“Two hundred years ago you could be arrested for kissing someone you weren’t married to, too,” I retort.

Mike shrugs. “Honestly, we didn’t really want to get engaged at the event. Mostly I just wanted to let you know.”

I nod in answer. While the timeframe is shocking, I can’t really say that I didn’t see it coming.

My thoughts turn to Bella again. When I think about how it would be if I showed up and proposed to her, I wince.

Yeah, the timeframe might work for Mike and Ellen. It won’t work for most people.

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