Page 120 of Unspoken Promises

“Wait. What does he mean, it’s all ours?” The excitement on her face tells me she knows exactly what it means.

“I wanted to be alone with you under the stars.”

She throws a hand to her cheek. “That’s so romantic. Thank you, Zo.”

It is romantic. But I have ulterior motives.

We hardly make it to two end seats when the lights dim, darkness descends upon us, and the dome illuminates into a beautiful night sky. Constellations appear.

Here I am, loving every minute of the asteroids above us breaking into millions of pieces and the narrator explaining why there must be life forms somewhere else out there.

Ava is in awe. She leans over and whispers, “It’s amazing to think that somewhere, among all those crumbles in the universe, there’s life.”

Her words make me smile. I stare at her beauty and watch her react to the voice-over:

“Almost all stars have a planet or even entire solar systems associated with them. There definitely should be other beings, other consciousness out there…”

She takes a sip of her drink and lays her head on my shoulder, her hair smelling of strawberries and the new perfume I got her, drifting sensually through my senses.

“See?” she whispers. “It makes perfect sense. It makes less sense that thereisn’tlife out there…”

Before Ava, I wasn’t so sure about life out there because I was a hopeless man. Now, I couldn’t believe it more. Of course there’s life out there. It might be too far to ever come here, but then, I used to think the same thing about love finding me.

“New stars are forming all the time… The Milky Way produces three to four new stars per year on average…”

Excitement pours off her skin. “I can’t believe you rented this whole place out.”

“Well, the thing is, I need to talk to you about something.”

I’ve seen that look on her face before. “Are you going to kill my vibe?”

“It depends.”

“Do we have to talk now?”

“I wanted to do it here. It’s about your name change. There might be a little delay.”

Just then, a shooting star zooms over the constellation above us.

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“I just thought maybe you’d want to be sure about the name you’ve chosen.”

“As if I’d change it now.” She points up. “That’s Orion.” She glances at me briefly. “Everyone knows me by Ava.”

“I was thinking more about Scott.”

She sips her drink, mesmerized by the light show above. “You don’t like it?”

“I’d like anything you choose. But Ava Mendez sounds a lot better.”

Her whole body stops. She pulls the straw away from her puffy lips and turns a stunned smile on me. “What…? What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t actually care what you’re called as long as it’s my wife. I’m saying my heart stopped searching. You’re it for me, Scottie.”

She’s so overwhelmed she throws her face into her hands.

I peel them away and get down on one knee. I pull out the ring box with stars twinkling above us and supernovas bursting in the nighttime above. There’s no more magical place for me to ask this one-in-a-universe woman to marry me.

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