Marrying Ember (2 page)

“A
nd how’s my favorite socialite-at-large?” Monica chirped playfully into the phone.

“Oh, 
God,
” I groaned.

Sometime shortly after Ember and I got together—the first time—Monica’s background check led her to stumble upon an article in 
The New Yorker
 discussing my family’s estate. The article was 
supposed
 to be about DROP, and it was—to some extent—but they seemed to err on the side of “Wealthy Eligible Bachelor Quietly Carries Out Family’s Mission.” She promised she’d never let me hear the end of it.

“Just kidding, don’t get your money in a bunch. Anyway, it’s about damn time you called me,” she snapped. “This whole year I’ve heard 
about
 you from Ember and have seen texts you’ve sent Josh but … me? Just forget about me, I guess.”

“Sorry, Mon,” I played along remorsefully.

“Oh no you don’t, mister. You don’t get to call me 
Mon
 until you grovel.”

“I want to marry Ember.” The words tumbled out like Yahtzee dice.

Silence.

“Groveling over,” Monica said flatly. “Tell me everything.”

“That … is everything.” I looked around the beach that called itself my back yard. “You can’t tell her, Monica. I’m serious. Regan and Georgia said I had to call—”

“Regan and who did what? Others know?”

Shit.
 I’d been instructed—by Georgia nonetheless—not to say anything to Monica about her knowledge. Fail.

“I … I was just talking to them about the speech …” I trailed off.

Monica snorted into the phone. “With any luck they told you to ditch the speech all together. You know better, Cavanaugh. Come on, where’s your A-game?” She sounded like my high school football coach.

“I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t want it to be cliché, but I want it to be special. Ember’s—”

“Stop,” she cut me off again. “Slow your roll and just breathe.”

I took a deep breath, chuckling a little at the end of it.

“Something funny?” Monica questioned.

“So you, Regan, and Georgia all know that I want to propose to her and no one has batted an eyelash about the fact that we’ve only been together for just over a year, and that includes a long … break.” I winced as I said it. Ember and I rarely, if ever, discussed the time we’d spent 
not
 together. It was a hiccup. That’s how we referred to it.

“No one’s batted an eyelash because even relative strangers can tell how in love you ar. Remember, you yourself said 
a thousand lifetimes.
”

 For as long as she lived, Monica would never let me—or Josh—forget  what she called the most romantic words she’d ever heard uttered from another human’s mouth. Sometimes she’d tease Josh for not saying them himself to her, and he’d call me an asshole for saying it at all.

She was right, though. I hadn’t worried much about the actual time we’d been together, because it was like our souls were joined long before our bodies ever met.

“I want you to be there,” I said. “While it’ll be about me and Ember, I want all the people she loves there. I want the whole thing to be about love.”

“Of course you do!” Josh shouted from somewhere in the background.

“Am I on speakerphone?” I nearly shouted.

“Uh …” Monica stammered.

I laughed. “You guys are a piece of work.”

“Do you think you’ll be ready by the last week in August? We just booked our tickets to come out while you guys are playing in Napa.”

My palms started to sweat, but my words highlighted the truth. “I’ve been ready since I first kissed her, Monica.”

“I know you have, Bo. Just keep your cool until then. Whatever you do, do 
not
 ask her dad for permission until, like, right before you do it.”

Her suggestion took me by surprise. “Seriously?”

“My God,” she said, sounding frustrated, “the man can 
not
 keep a secret to save his life.  That info will serve you well around her birthday, too. He totally blew the surprise twenty-first I’d spent a semester planning. He’s just so 
enthusiastic
 about life that he can’t contain his little self.”

I laughed at full-volume. Ember’s dad was the full-on embodiment of a peaceful, hippie dad. He was super involved, über sensitive, and I could almost picture him helping Ember get ready for prom.

“Thanks for the heads up.” That was precisely why Georgia said to call the best friend, I realized.

“Just keep your hat on for another five weeks. Do you think you can do that?” Monica’s tone was calm, which I apparently needed as my palms continued to sweat.

“Will do.”

I hung up with Monica, tossed my phone on the bed, and wiped my hands on my jeans.

“Who were you on the phone with?” Ember slowly opened the bedroom door and my stomach dropped, wondering both when she’d gotten home and how much she’d heard.

“Josh,” I said causally. It was the closest thing to a non-lie I could come up with. If I’d said 
Monica
 she would have known something was up.

“Oh! Did he tell you they’re able to come out for the Napa show?” Ember’s eyes lit up like they hadn’t in a long time. I hadn’t been conscious of how long it had been since I’d seen her so lively until she smiled like that.

I held out my hands, leading her to me. “He did. You seem really happy.”

Ember folded herself perfectly into my embrace as she sighed into my chest. “I haven’t seen her since January. It’s the longest we’ve ever gone without seeing each other since college, for God’s sake.”

I rested my chin on the top of her head, rubbing her back. “I know Regan and I are certainly no substitute for Monica.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Ember shook her head as she pulled back.

“Oh, neither did I. I was serious. Sometimes I have no idea what the hell to say to you, and I wish I could have a hotline to Monica to ask. Really. I’m glad she’s coming.”

Ember rested her head on my shoulder. “Everything with Willow … and now she’s coming with us on tour …”

While Willow was an integral part of the recording of our album, her skills were studio based and not needed on the tour. The first half of the tour had given Ember a lot of breathing room from Willow and the dark cloud she carried around with her. Willow herself was always in a good mood, but that seemed to be at the expense of others, and, frankly, I was glad to have her out of my hair for a while, too.

Despite the fact that I shook off her advances a few months ago, Willow kept an uncomfortable eye on me. She made sure Ember never saw it, and I’d certainly never draw Ember’s attention to it, but I wasn’t looking forward to dodging those glances again.

“Why is she coming?” I finally asked.

“To ruin my life.” Ember tucked a heavy blanket of sarcasm around her words. “She wants to 
see Napa
,” she cooed like a child, mocking the light and airy way Willow produced her words. “As if she hasn’t spent 
significant
 amounts of time there since she turned twenty-one. God, she’s annoying.”

“We won’t let her ruin it.” I tried to sound encouraging, but my nerves surrounding my own plans for Napa were getting in the way.

Ember looked up at me with her gorgeous jade-colored eyes. “You’re right. The more I let her get to me, the more she’ll try.”

I laughed. “You know what? Do you want to get away for the weekend?”

“Away? That’s where we’ve been all summer. 
Away
. Where do you propose we go?”

I snatched my cell from the bed, and led Ember by the hand through our beachfront condo. When I reached the counter in the kitchen, I picked up Ember’s phone, too.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

I continued leading her around as I formulated the plan in my head. I reached the front door and let go of Ember’s hand as I locked the dead bolt. Though I was no longer holding her hand, she continued to follow my path. Walking to the sliding glass doors, I locked those and pulled the blinds, turning them so they blocked out all sunlight. I did that with each window I passed, too. Finally, I made sure to lock the back door by the garage. Once we finished the circle around the house, I led us back into our bedroom, where I removed the batteries from our phones, and tucked them into the top drawer of the dresser.

“Here.” I shut the bedroom door and locked it, pulling Ember into a kiss.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked when she pulled away.

“Let’s hide out here all weekend. We know when we have to leave on Monday, and everyone told everyone else to leave them alone all weekend. You know Georgia and Regan will be unavailable, and everyone else is catching up on sleep. Stay here with me for the whole weekend, Ember.”

The corners of her mouth lifted slowly into a smile. “Bo, I’ll stay anywhere you want me to, and for a hell of a lot longer than a weekend.”

As she pressed her lips into mine, sliding her hands up the back of my shirt, I hoped that in a few weeks she’d say 
yes
 to forever.

“Forever?” I led her toward the bed, pulling my shirt over my head as she leaned back on the mattress. The word came out at the end of my thought, but we’d toyed with the word so often since we’d been together it wasn’t out of place.

“Longer,” she whispered back, pulling me down on top of her.

It was all I could do to stop myself from proposing to her right there. Asking her to be my wife, my partner for as long as eternity lasted. I took a breath and realized that a proposal was far below what I was planning for us.

For us, it really was forever. And it needed to start at the exact moment we were both ready. I’d make sure that moment was under starlight in Napa.

“D
o you think anyone will get worried?” Ember rolled over, her soft skin brushing against mine as she set her chin on my chest. “I mean, we’ve all been up each other’s asses all summer …”

I laughed, running my fingers through her hair and down her back to her waist. “They know where to find us if there’s an emergency, Em. Your parents live two houses down.”

That was a thought I tried to keep buried deep in the back of my brain whenever I made love to their daughter.

Ember sat up and straddled my waist, anchoring one knee on each side of my hips. “It hadn’t really occurred to me before the start of the tour how little privacy we’d have.” She leaned forward and kissed my nose, then my mouth, then worked her lips down my jaw and neck.

“True. Two RVs don’t really scream romance, do they?” My voice had stayed steady until Ember’s mouth touched down on my chest, and she started moving her hips.

“And the day after tomorrow, we’ll have to be around all of those old hippies who have 
zero
 problem with romance in an RV.”

I laughed even though it was the last thing I wanted to do as Ember shifted down my body, her mouth working lower down my torso. “Well, maybe we’ll have to give those old married hippies a run for their money.”

“Ew, Bo!” Ember sat up and slapped my chest. “My 
parents
 
are
 those people!”

“Don’t remind me!” I laughed, sitting up and rolling her over. When she was beneath me, I brushed her wild auburn waves from her face. “We’ll be there someday, too, you know.”

“Where?” She started moving those mouth watering hips under me.

“Old. Married. Maybe not hippies. Well, I’ll save that title for you,” I teased.

“Well, my parents aren’t 
actually
 married, I don’t think. Unless they did that sometime when I wasn’t looking.” She shrugged and leaned up to kiss me, but I pulled back.

“What?”

Her eyes moved from side to side. “What?”

“Your parents aren’t married?”

“Why are you acting so surprised?”

I opened and closed my mouth several times, but nothing worth saying came out.

“What’s the big deal?” She asked, sitting up against the headboard as I stared into space.

“Isn’t … marriage a big deal? Didn’t it ever bother you when you were little?”

She grinned and moved to cross her legs. I sat back. “I didn’t know it wasn’t normal, Bo. Sure, I attended lots of commitment ceremonies and things like that when I was little, but …” she trailed off and shrugged. “It just wasn’t a 
thing.
 Some people were married, some weren’t, but most were committed, you know? I knew my parents were together, and in it forever, so 
married
 didn’t hold any significance.”