Limits (14 page)

“I see
you
. And that makes me very happy.” She winks. “Use that wisely. It’s supposed to be a strong aphrodisiac. Try it out and come tell me if it helped you do the feather-bed jig. I’m always looking for good customer reviews of new products!”

“Uh, sure.” I rush out of the store, feeling a little shell-shocked. Did that sweet woman seriously just ask me to test out some sexual lubricant and report back to her with the results?

I make it back to my dorm in time to shower and change, and I check the box a thousand times, just to make sure it’s really there. I really bought a ring. I’m really asking Genevieve to marry me. Tonight.

By the time I pick her up from class, I feel buzzed and edgy. I had wanted to go to dinner first, but it was impossible to get a reservation until later on such short notice. Now I’m relieved. There’s no way I would have been able to eat with the ring burning a damn hole in my pocket. I drive straight to where I want to go, and she stops her monologue about the girl sitting across from her in British lit who was painting her toenails during lecture and looks around.

“Are we at the Getty?” she asks.

I jog to her car door and pull it open, offering her my hand so she can step out.

“Yes.” I pull her towards the elevators, paying for parking before we get on one.

“Adam, what are we doing here? Why are we going to the Getty? I thought we were going to grab dinner?” She tilts her head and looks at me, her brows pressed low. “You’re wearing a tie. You didn’t have class this afternoon. You’re wearing a tie for
me
.”

Her eyes flutter down and she shakes her head, like she’s putting puzzle pieces together, one by one. She snaps her neck up and her mouth hangs open, about to say...something that will ruin the (admittedly lame) plans I tried to make. I shake my head, wanting to say something, anything. Maybe it’s the look on my face, but she puts on a neutral expression, and we walk to the little tram in silence.

“It’s gorgeous here.” She squints out the window into the sunset. “The last time I was here, Cece took me. She was coming to hear some architect who was speaking, and I just wandered the grounds forever. It’s one of those afternoons I remember with all this very specific detail.”

“Are you and Cece close?” I ask to make conversation. Sometimes this all feels so rushed, I’m afraid to ask anything because I can barely keep the bare bones of the facts straight. But I do want to know everything about her eventually.

“She and I are really close, but I think that may be a Cece thing, you know?” She tilts her head and smiles, and I nod at her, even though siblings are something I have less than zero knowledge about. I don’t even have any close cousins or really tight friends. I’ve been a loner my entire life. “Cece is that sibling who’s so laid back, so funny and sweet and comforting. She’s one of those people that, when you spend time with them, they make you feel like you’re the most important person in their life. But, she has that knack with everyone. I think all four of us might love her best. Even Lydia!”

“Lydia seems wound pretty tightly,” I observe.

Genevieve’s mouth pulls into a frown. “She’s under a lot of pressure at work,” she defends. “I know she can come off as harsh, but she puts so much on herself, and it makes her keyed up. I swear, she’s got a really good heart.”

“Of course.”

I realize that I probably shouldn’t talk about Genevieve’s family unless I have something neutral or nice to say. As chaotic as the Rodriguez family seems, I get that they’re fiercely loyal to each other. I admire that. It’s an entirely alien concept to me, but I still recognize that it’s an incredible thing.

The train ascends the hill, then stops smoothly. The doors open and Genevieve steps out like she has a destination in mind. Which is fine by me. I figured I’d just pick a pretty spot, get my courage up, and ask. But I’m happy to follow Genevieve’s lead. We walk down the gravel path, leaving the colossal white travertine museum behind us and entering the sprawling gardens.

“It always makes me think of a place Lewis Carroll would have designed.” I brush the back of my palm against the back of hers, and tug her hand into mine.

She stops on a little bridge that overlooks a koi pond. “I agree. It’s like a place that makes believing in magic seem totally logical.”

I don’t say anything, because it’s disconcerting to have someone take the words directly from my brain and speak them out loud a few seconds before I was going to.

We keep walking, admiring the grasses and sculpted topiaries, the flowers and trees, the fountains and the formations. We finally come to a small arbor with sweet, white blossoms all over it. “I love this place,” she says. “It seems like the perfect place to—”

And I think I might be taking the words directly from her brain in that moment.

Which is why I slide my hand along her cheek and kiss her, mid-sentence.

My lips meet hers, and there’s a blip of a second where she goes stiff and doesn’t kiss me back right away. But I’m nothing if not determined. I press my mouth against hers with more pressure, moving my other hand up along her jaw. I rub my thumbs along her cheekbones and knot my fingers in her silky hair.

She whimpers and wraps her arms around my neck, her mouth parting slowly. My tongue traces the seam of her lips, and when she opens wider, I lick against her mouth. My brain, so often compartmentalized and controlled, short circuits at the taste of her. The way she tastes makes me think of the way the air smells before a thunderstorm. It’s exciting, and I want to keep tasting further, see if I can pick up traces of it on her skin. Every inch of her skin.

“Adam,” she sighs when she pulls away.

There are people milling around, but no one on this length of path. I don’t know how long that will last, and I don’t want to waste the coiled energy that’s unfurling through me after that kiss. So I drop to one knee.

Maybe she knew. Maybe she figured it out the same second she noticed my tie in the parking garage. But she presses her fingers to her lips like she’s completely shocked. Whether or not she’s faking it, I appreciate that look. It gives me the loophole I need to push my courage through and take the box out.

“Genevieve. I don’t deserve someone as smart and funny and beautiful as you are. I know that. I also know that I’ll devote my life to living up to the honor of being your husband if you’ll agree to have me. Will you marry me?”

I open the box and she gasps, her eyes so wide, I can see the spike of every eyelash.

“Is that for me?” she gasps from behind her hand.

I shift on my knee, pretty sure a piece of gravel is dislocating my knee cap. I don’t give a damn. I just want to hear her answer. “Yes. Whether you say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to me, it’s yours. But it would make me so damn happy if you’d say ‘yes.’”

“Yes. Yes, of course, yes!” Her voice jumps on the back of  shaky laugh.

I stand and pull her left hand to me. I feel like Marigold is leaned over some herbs in her store right now, chuckling like a white witch, because the ring slides on and fits Genevieve’s finger perfectly, like it was made for her exactly.

I’m tempted to ask if she’s seen this ring before, but she holds her hand out in front of her and squeals. “Adam! It’s gorgeous! This ring is absolutely perfect. Where did you find it?” Before I can answer, she takes a picture of it, and then pulls me over, kisses me hard on the mouth, and positions her camera out for a shot. “It’s not official til it’s online, right?”

“Yes,” I agree, because she’s happy and smiling, and she said ‘yes’ when I was so damn scared she’d come to her senses and say ‘hell no.’ No reason to tell her I don’t do social media or that I think it’s a stupid waste of time. If it’s important to her, I’ll white lie my way to happiness tonight. “Do you want to walk around some more? We have reservations tonight, but they’re not for a while yet. I hope you like steak?”

“Who doesn’t like steak?” She takes my hand and threads our fingers together. The ring turns on her finger and digs sharply into mine, but she’s so happy, I keep my mouth shut.

I realize there are a lot things I never would have seen myself doing before, but I’m more than happy to do them for Genevieve now.

Like ignoring minor pain on my end to enjoy major happiness on hers.

Or splitting a huge order of mashed potatoes—which I think are bland and have the consistency of wallpaper paste—just so I can watch her enjoy them.

Or getting up in front of a restaurant full of people and slow dancing to Ray Charles’s “Come Rain or Come Shine” because it was her parents’ wedding song.

Or making out for an incredible half an hour in the car while she straddles my lap, runs her hands through my hair, and loosens my necktie. But then stopping before things go too far because I respect the hell out of her and want to wait for our wedding night.  

Genevieve Rodriguez is making me a better person. It’s exciting and completely, and utterly terrifying.

“Still time to back out,” Lydia sing-songs in my ear as she sprays the tiny flyaways around my face into place.

She grips the sides of her strapless black gown and tugs up slightly. We didn’t have time to choose official bridesmaids’ dresses, so I just asked my sisters and Maren to wear black, since I thought it was a color everyone would have in her closet already, and it would make a nice, crisp-looking lineup.

I realize now it looks like they’re in mourning. Also, Lydia’s juice cleanse has made her so thin, she’s almost gaunt. The dress barely stays on her now-nonexistent boobs.

“I don’t want to back out,” I say through tight lips, looking at my reflection in the long mirror propped against a work table.

My simple white dress has great lines and a clean, fresh look. It’s airy and understated and...nothing at all like what I wanted.

I
wanted
to wear a corseted, beaded, extravagant number, and Adam said to do it. He even gave me his credit card—the one he uses only after carefully deliberating every purchase—and named a jaw-dropping budget.

I went to the bridal shop, his credit card tight in my hand, and I found The Dress.

The One.

It fit like a glove, and looked like the designer had crawled into my head and took notes on every detail I’d ever longed for in a wedding dress. It was also just under Adam’s extremely generous number. The sales girls all sighed and gasped and told me it was made for me and I better not even
think
about walking away without it, because it was clearly fate that led me to That Dress.

I twirled around in it, eyed it from the front and back, fell in torrid, head-over-heels love with it, imagined Adam’s face when he saw me walk down the aisle in it...and then I thought about the very practical fact that I’d wear it exactly once. I thought about all the extra hours Adam would have to work to pay it off. And then I marched right to the winter sales rack—blinking back tears as I left my corseted, mermaid-style, perfect gown hanging, dejected, in the tiny fitting room—and I chose a different dress.

Lydia drapes the lacy veil, passed down from my mother, over my hair and slides the bobby pins in. “Okay, but if you did, no one would care. I mean, you hardly know this—”

“Stop, Lydia. Please, today of all days, just stop,” I plead. I’m stressed enough, I don’t need my sister badgering me on top of everything else.

“Your dress is so lovely, Genevieve,” Maren sighs as she comes into the room. She looks gorgeous in her black dress, accented with splashes of pink to match my accessories. I manage to quirk a nervous half-smile at my brother’s sweet fiancée, who—I know for sure—will make him beyond happy. “And Adam sent you this.”

“Me?” I ask, as she hands me a white box with a pale pink ribbon tied around it.

“We’ll give you a few minutes,” Cece says, squeezing my shoulders and kissing my cheek. She takes Maren and Lydia by the arms and leads them out of the tiny room cluttered with surf boards and sand.

Regret claws at my insides. I didn’t send Adam anything. Even though I’m sure this is something silly and more of a gift for him than me—I’m going to guess it’s the Darth Vader alarm clock he joked about seeing online when we went out for dinner the night before—but, still, I didn’t think to send him
anything.
Even if this is a total gag gift, he set up an entire, gorgeous engagement scene and slid the most amazing ring on my finger. I’m still shocked by how perfectly me it is every time I look down at my left hand. I didn’t do a thing for him.

I’m failing at being a thoughtful wife, and I’m not even officially a wife yet.

I pull on the end of the silky ribbon and it slinks off of the box and onto the floor with a soft hiss. When I lift the lid, I see a white note card with Adam’s narrow, precise scrawl and, underneath, a small bouquet of peonies.

My breath catches in my throat, and I put my hand out to touch the petals, but pull back just before I do. I kind of wish it was just some silly gift, because I’d roll my eyes and laugh. But I have no idea how to react to this, because it’s so not what I was expecting.

I’m a little annoyed with myself that my first instinct was to underestimate Adam, especially because it feels like he’s in the habit of overestimating me lately.