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Kie leans against the wall next to the screen door that leads to the outside of the small shack they call home.
‘I swear to god Maybank. Hurry your shit up!’
She’s been waiting for JJ for what seems like forever, but I reality is probably only been a couple minutes, while he dicks around doing something in their bedroom down the other end of the house.
Typically it’s the other way around, JJ being the morning person, he’s so full of energy in the morning that whenever they plan on going surfing, which is most mornings, he’s usually half way to the beach before she’s even out of bed.
Unsurprising she has more patience than him and decides to actually wait instead of just taking off and expecting him to catch up.
Finally she sees him exit the room and head up the hall towards her, shoving something in his pocket as he does.
‘Calm down,’ he strides past her stoping for a second to place a hand on her hip and a kiss to her lips before continuing on and bound out the door and down the steps, ‘you have no patience, you know that?’
Kie just rolls her eyes at the comment, knowing she is not the one is this relationship without patience, and follows him down.
They walk side by side along the road down to the beach, when they first started looking for a place to live together they decided they didn’t care what it’s was like but walking distance to the beach was a must.
JJ seems to bounce in his steps as they walk, like he was overflowing with energy and he needed to do something to burn it. Kie couldn’t quite decide if it was just the typical levels of JJ energy or if she was picking up on the aura of nervousness correctly.
They walk along in silence, surf boards in hand, and Kie tries her best to ignore JJ’s weird vibe, if something was really bothering him he’d tell her. She looks over to him from the corner of her eye because she can’t help herself and sees his brow pulled tight in confusion, or was it concentration, either way she knew his mind was hard at work trying to figure something out.
He’s mouthing words to himself, if any sound came out as he did it was nothing more than a whisper and far to low for her to hear. His lips move with whatever words he’s thinking and then every now and then they clamp shut, his face scrunches up and he shakes his head before starting again.
She lets it go on for a moment longer before she can’t handle it any more and turns in front of him stopping him in his tracks.
Placing her hand on his chest to reassure him she soften her eyes as she watches him.
‘Are you okay?’
He raises a brow at her when he looks down, ‘yeah, of course.’
‘You sure?’ she rubs her hand along his chest a couple times before settling it on his shoulder, ‘you seem... stressed.’
‘Nope,’ he moves his head back and forth, ‘I’m fine.’
Kie narrows her eyes at his denial. She’s sure somethings off with him, although they’ve been together for 7 years, friends for almost as long before that, and he still manages to confuse her with the things he does.
‘I’m great, baby,’ he laughs out.
A nervous laugh? She speculates.
‘Really.’
He seems sure of his words and Kie knows better than to push him if he doesn’t want to divulge anything.
‘Okay.’
Her hand moves to the back of his neck to pull him down slightly as she presses up on her tip toes to kiss him.
When they pull away she moves back to his side and they carry on their journey only this time Kie reaches out her hand and intertwines it in his, hoping to bring him some comfort in case he does actually need it. He doesn’t say anything, but he seems to be less jittery so she thinks it helps.
The beach is still pretty deserted when they get there so they only trudge through the sand a couple 100 metres before dumping their things to the ground. Kie sticks her board into the sand and shucks her shirt dropping it onto her bag.
‘Hey Kie,’ JJ speaks from behind her, ‘I think you dropped something.’
As she turns to him she starts collecting her hair onto the top of her head to put it up, her forehead scrunching wondering if something fell out of her bag. She looks down to JJ who’s knelt down and picked something up out of the sand and is holding it up to her.
Her heart stops. Her hair falls back down her shoulders as her arms fall to her sides and she stares at the object in his hand. It’s a ring. A ring she had never seen before and definitely did not drop. Her eyes flick over JJ and yup, he is on one knee.
‘JJ, what the fuck,’ she breathes out, her brain trying to catch up.
His eyes twitch to squint at her and he flashes her a lopsided uneasy grin.
‘Is that a good what the fuck or a bad one?’
It’s not like they never talked about it. You can’t be together as long as they had and not talk about it. Every time they did they always came to the same conclusion. Yes, they want to get married one day but they weren’t in a rush. Just because they knew they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together didn’t mean they had to jump through all the steps as quickly as possible. They liked how things were and they can take their time and when the time comes they’ll know.
Evidently JJ thinks that time is now. And Kie, well she hadn’t really thought about it, but she’s guessing by the way her heart is doing flips she agrees.
‘A good what the fuck,’ she laughs at him, shaking a little.
JJ beams up at her, ‘so is that a yes?’
‘What? No. You have to actually ask me.’
JJ shrugs, ‘isn’t that what I’m doing?’
‘You have to say the words JJ.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes!’
‘Oop! I heard a yes that’s good enough for me.’
JJ reaches for her hand and brings the ring toward it. She pulls her arm out of his grip and swats him away playfully, she’s gonna make him do this properly.
‘Okay fine,’ he sighs.
He looks down at the ground for a moment taking in a few deep breaths before looking up at her again. He licks his lips nervously before starting.
‘You know I’m not the best with words okay. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with the right thing to say.’
She had noticed.
‘And basically all it is is that I love you. I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And if I get to spend the rest of my life just doing this I will be happy. Just you and me and our shitty house near the beach, and going fishing in the marsh, and you trying and failing at teaching me to cook, and watching those god awful movies that make you cry, and lazy fucks on a Sunday morning and going surfing together. All those things, if that’s what the rest of my life is I will die happy knowing I got everything I could ask for.’
Kie can feel tears brimming in her eyes and her cheeks are starting to hurt by how wide she’s smiling.
‘So,’ JJ speaks with a pointed look at her, ‘Kiara Carrera. Will you marry me?’
‘I-‘ she starts and then a giggle builds inside her because even in this moment she can’t help but tease him, ‘can I have some time to think about it?’
JJ sighs dramatically at her joke and shakes his head as he starts standing up and putting the ring back in his pocket.
There’s humour in his voice as he speaks, ‘you know what? I take it back, I don’t want to marry you.’
Kie ignores his comment knowing it’s all in jest, because that’s what they do, and surges forward wrapping her arms around his neck and keeping there faces mere inches apart.
‘Yes.’ She tells him completely serious now, ‘of course.’
Beaming at her JJ repeats her answer, ‘yes?’
‘Yes!’ Kie yells before JJ moves to capture her lips in his.
Lifts her off the ground slightly as they kiss, his arms tightly secured around her waists.
After a while they pull apart and he drops her back down.
‘Oh, hey,’ he stuffs his hand in his pocket and fumbles around before pulling out the ring again.
Kie shoots out her hand and watches as his calloused fingers push the ring onto her finger. She adjusts it as she takes a proper look at it for the first time.
‘I know it’s not much but-‘
‘No, JJ,’ she cuts him off, ‘it’s perfect.’
It’s simple but still beautiful, and just her style and she’s glad to know he knows her well enough to have picked it out.
When she looks up at him again he’s scratching behind his ear nervously.
‘I thought you might break up with me if I got you a diamond, with human rights, and the environment and all that’ he points to the ring and she looks back down to it, ‘but it’s... ah- it’s from like repurposed jewellery from before conflict mining and it’s- you know, recycled gold. All socially conscious and eco-friendly and what not.’
As he awkwardly stumbles through the explanation Kie watches him in awe of how much thought he’d put into it. And she swears to god if he hadn’t just proposed she would have done it on the spot.
She moves to him, her hands coming up to the side of his face and kissing him, soft and sweet.
‘I love you,’ she whispers against his lips when she pulls back.
He smiles back at her a uses a finger to tuck her hair behind her ear.
‘Good.’
Pushing him away and playfully rolling her eyes at his response she turns and pulls her board out of the sand.
‘You ready?’
‘Let’s do it.’
And they run off side by side into the waves, boards in hand.