Page 76 of Lucky Star

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Cameron

“What would you say is the craziest thing I’ve ever done?” I asked when Mike answered his phone, the sounds of the gym fading into the background as he made his way to his private office at the back of the warehouse.

“You mean except for the time we moved to New York, convinced you were the next Marcus Schenkenberg? Or, maybe it was the time we moved to L.A. convinced you were the next Mark Wahlberg?”

I could practically see the smirk on his face coming through the phone line.

“Yes, aside from those things,” I answered, not at all offended.

I didn’t think he’d ever quit giving me shit about us coming out to Hollywood all those years ago, even though he could have left L.A. long ago but had chosen to stay. Up until a couple of months ago, that move had worked out better for him than it had for me.

“And I’d like to point out the Wahlberg thing isn’t completely off the table,” I added, since there was a chance I was about to catapult into that stratosphere.

“You keep telling yourself that.” I could always count on Mike to remind me where I’d come from. Not that I anticipated letting stardom go to my head, but it was good having people you trusted to help keep you grounded.

“Back to your original question,” he mused, “there was the time you took ballet because you thought it would make you more agile, which was supposed to help you get cast in a superhero movie.”

I groaned at the memory of those six weeks of torture. Say what you would about dancing as a sport, but I’d never been as sore or as worn out as I’d been when I got home from those lessons—and that included all the years I’d played baseball and football growing up.

“That was misguided, not crazy,” I pointed out, wondering how many of my follies he was going to bring up before answering correctly.

“And I suppose the time you filled in for your friend at that drag queen bar doesn’t count either?”

“That was crazy,” I said laughing, “But no, not the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

“You’re an ugly fucking woman, my friend.”

“Fuck you. I was majestic.”

“You were majestically something all right,” he laughed. “But since it’s none of those, I’m guessing you’re actually talking about the time you asked Sarah to marry you, approximately seventy-two hours after first telling her you’d been in love with her for years.”

“Took you long enough.”

“We’ve done a lot of crazy shit together over the years. How was I supposed to know which particular crazy thing you were talking about?” I heard him down several swallows of water and I wondered if I’d interrupted his workout. “Look, not that I haven’t enjoyed this trip down memory lane, but I’ve got a couple of guys sparring out there, and one of them has terrible form. I should probably go make sure he doesn’t hurt himself, so unless you called for something other than this lovely trip down memory lane, I’m gonna need you to get to the point.”

“I’ve got one more thing to add to the list of crazy shit I’ve done over the years, and I need your help making sure that I don’t fuck it up.”

“Sounds ominous.”

“I’m going to ask Sarah to marry me.”

“I’m pretty sure you already did, dude.”

“I mean like now.”

“What?” Mike sputtered. “Like, drive on down to the Justice of the Peace tomorrow and get hitched?”

“Not exactly,” I answered, and then filled him in on my grand plan. When I finished, I asked if I could count on his help.

“I should punch you in the nuts the next time I see you for even asking,” he responded, completely on board with yet another one of my insane ideas.

“You’ve been threatening to punch me in the nuts since we were fourteen and you haven’t landed a blow yet.”

“There’s always tomorrow,” he muttered with hope. And then, “You sure you want to do this?”

“Absolutely.” There was no doubt in my mind this was what I wanted.

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