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"Okay, ready to see it? I hope you don’t mind, I took a peek and it's absolutely gorgeous!" The chatty saleslady is practically bouncing on her feet. Katy, says the name tag pinned on her starchy grey uniform. She's holding a small velvet box, dark blue and inky against her pale skin.
There's something bright and shiny about this jewelry boutique. It's small, nestled in LA's older neighborhoods, but it's warm and inviting, the smell of sandalwood and cinnamon drawing you in. It's a few blocks away from our apartment, which is perfect, because Chloe might be coming back home any second now.
"But of course, you know that,” she continues, chuckling to herself. “You chose it and ordered it online."
“That I did.” I ordered the thing two weeks ago, waiting for Chloe to leave for work so I can finish designing the custom ring on the boutique's website. There I was, huddled on the toilet seat in case Chloe comes back home all of a sudden, work laptop in hand so the website doesn't show up on my personal laptop, and on incognito, in case she somehow gets a hold of aforementioned work laptop and snoops around my browsing history. Which she never does. But you know, better safe than sorry.
Katy carefully lifts the lid off the box to reveal the ring, two delicate intertwined strands of shiny, polished silver, curling like delicate tendrils around a dazzling centre gemstone, a two-carat lab-grown diamond secured in place by four tiny metal prongs. It's so small, but so bright and unbelievably sparkly. Chloe is totally going to lose her damn mind.
I can't wait!
I can see it in my mind's eye, this shiny little thing hugging the contours of Chloe's finger when I slip it on her. She's totally going to cry, I can tell. The blubbering, shaky kind of cry she does when she's really happy, like the happiness can't be contained in her body anymore, usually when a dog who spent years in the shelter finally gets adopted, or whenever the Bellas are reunited again.
"It's perfect," I tell Katy and she gives me a pleased nod.
"So how are you going do it?" Katy grins at me, leaning forward like we're old friends and she's waiting for me to spill some juicy gossip. "Is it going to be just the two of you? Or are you going to throw some big party?"
Right, there's that. I was so caught up with getting the perfect ring, I haven't even thought of how I'm going to propose. My mind starts to race with all the possibilities. Maybe I could get the Bellas in on it? Propose in Chloe's hometown in Florida? Or I could just slip the ring on Chloe's finger while she's asleep and see how long it takes before she figures it out?
"Oh! You can rent out one of those little planes that do skywriting! Imagine, 'will you marry me' in giant cloud writing in the sky! Those things can be seen from thirty miles away, you know."
Katy's excitement is infectious and I feel my feet bouncing around on the tiles. “I don’t really know what I'm going to do yet, but I'm really excited. She'll love this ring."
The diamond glints under the warm light and I see Chloe's smile, bright and breathtaking.
“Don't sweat it. I'm sure she'll love it, whatever you do." Katy hands me a small, velvet bag, weirdly heavy with the ring box now inside. "I hope it goes well!"
"I hope so too."
***
"Chlo?"
I wait for a beat or two. Nothing. Okay, the coast is clear. She's not home yet. I quickly slip off my shoes and take out the ring before it burns a hole at the bottom of my bag.
Now what? I need a hiding place while I figure out the whole proposal thing. I look around our living room. It's open and cozy, with Chloe's funky abstract paintings littering the walls and the large bubblegum pink sofa she picked up from a thrift store sitting pretty in the middle. The glass TV stand by the wall is sleek and modern, so are the little side tables and the shelves, not much in the way of hiding a secret stash.
The kitchen isn't any better, since Chloe loves to cook. There isn't much of a hiding space in our bedroom, either. I could hide it in the drawer of my night stand? But Chloe puts some of her stuff in there too, so maybe not.
The wheels of my suitcase peeking out from the closet catches my eye. It's the one I usually use when I'm traveling long distance and have to check in luggage. It's large and rather beat-up, with questionable stains all over the soft brown polyester, but this could work perfectly as a hiding spot. I won't be traveling anytime soon and Chloe has no reason to snoop around my old suitcase.
As my fingers fumble for the code of the lock, I hear keys jingling on the other side of the front door.
Oh shit.
I manage to whip open the suitcase just as keys slide into the lock. I stuff the ring box into the zippered mesh pocket inside the front panel, zip the suitcase back closed, and cram the whole thing as far back into the closet as I could. That'll do it.
“Babe?" Chloe calls out from the kitchen. I hear her taking off her shoes, the soft thud of it against the rug.
“Here! Hi!" I blurt out, skidding across the hardwood floors and into the living room, my voice a little higher than the usual octave.
Chloe stares at me, her favourite old coat halfway off her arms. “You okay? Why are you sweating?"
“Oh. I just…um..."
"What? What were you doing?" Chloe squints at me in that adorable smirky way that she does, an amused smile playing at her lips. If I don't say anything, I'll look even more suspicious.
"I just pooped!" The words tumble out of my mouth before it could run through the filter. "Yeah. Had a...big lunch."
She barks out a laugh, hues of red on the tip of her ears. "Good for you, baby!"
Well, okay. That worked. I grab the bags of takeout she set down in the hallway. Chinese food from our usual place.
“Oh, I got your favourite!" she says, all shiny teeth and windswept hair. "The pineapple sweet-n-sour pork and the wonton soup. I got some of that chili oil, too."
I busy myself with taking out the food, all the while stealing glances at her as she goes through the mail, her fingers quickly flicking through the envelopes as she talks about a litter of golden retriever puppies that came in for a check-up at the clinic today. Chloe doesn't wear much jewelry, save for a plain golden band on her thumb she's had since college.
A wave of panic hits me and I nearly squish open the container of chili oil. What if she doesn't like the ring? What if it's too much? What if she doesn't wear it?
"You know what their names are, babe?" she says, her face flushed and brilliant and happy. "Peanut, Pumpkin, Peaches, and Pancake! Isn't that just the cutest?"
I smile at her. "That is pretty cute. Also makes me hungry."
She laughs and gives me an easy kiss, then steals a piece of my sweet-n-sour pork. She does a little dance while she chews, shimmying her shoulders as she grabs drinks from the refrigerator.
Her back is turned to me, so she doesn't see what is probably my biggest, dorkiest smile. What am I even worried about? This is Chloe. My Chloe.
I listen to her talk about puppies and rabies vaccinations while I set the table, the feel of inky blue velvet still on my fingertips.
***
Three Months Later
It's busy in the Beale-Mitchell household tonight. Chloe has a trip to Nevada this weekend for a veterinary conference, and she's done approximately seventeen loads of laundry in preparation. Our room looks like a bombshell exploded on it, half-folded shirts and rolled up underwear littering the bed, tiny travel bottles on the nightstand, a duffel bag open and already filled to the brim with her shoes.
Meanwhile, I've been glued to my desk all day, headphones on in one ear, mixing this EDM/pop piece that will be a single in Bebe Rexha's new album. There's something off about the hook that I can't place, the synth and the piano textures are all out of balance, and the bass isn't completely in tune to the key of the track.
It doesn't help that Chloe is pacing back and forth around the apartment, this time hauling a mountain of clean laundry to our room.
“Need help, baby?"
“No, I got it. Thanks, baby," she chirps. A navy blue sweater hangs off from the precarious pile of clothes in her arms. "Oh, by the way, can I borrow your suitcase? The brown one? Mine broke, remember?"
A little tweak on the synthesizer, add some oomph to that kick drum. The beat filters in on my headphones, sounding much better than that caterwauling I came up with a while ago.
"Oh yeah," I tell Chloe. "When you went to that conference."
During Chloe's last trip to San Diego a few months ago, her bag came back with two of the wheels broken off, plus a good chunk of the hard outer shell cracked like a walnut.
"They really throw those bags around, don't they?"
"Yeah. Yours is a soft shell so hopefully, they don't crack that open." Her voice is muffled by the pile of clothes making its way around her mouth. "I can't make any promises about the wheels being chopped off, though."
"It's in the closet, baby." Maybe if I adjusted the reverb and compressed the snare drum, too?
In one ear, I hear the bass of the song perfectly thudding into my skull. In the other, I hear the soft creak of the wheels as she brings out the suitcase, a gentle thud as she lays it on the floor.
Suitcase. Suitcase. There's a nagging itch in my brain I can't quite place. Suitcase. Did I forget something?
Maybe not. I pause the song, take a few deep breaths.
Producing this album has really been kicking my ass lately. I guess this is what happens when you work on three big albums back to back: your brain turns to mush. Maybe this is burnout. Chloe and I should take a quick little vacation somewhere, to Greece or Bora Bora.
In the other room, I hear the faint click of the suitcase zippers.
Suitcase?
Oh shit.
SUITCASE.
“No, no, no, Chloe!” I whip my headphones off and jump to the bedroom, nearly tripping from the cords. “Chloe, do NOT open that bag!"
"Don’t!"
Too late. Chloe is sitting criss cross on the floor, studying the opened suitcase with an unreadable expression. The little blue box is sticking out like a sore thumb inside the empty mesh panel.
“Did you…” I clear my throat, suddenly feeling very parched at the moment. “Did you open the box?”
“No, I didn’t…I…" She looks up at me with those big, blue eyes. We've been together for so long now that I'm always able to read her face, know what's going on in her head. But now, my mind's blank. Shit. She doesn't like it, does she? Okay, this is fine. This is fine. I'll just...I don't know, throw myself off a cliff, I guess.
"Bec?"
“Okay, lemme just…" I tiptoe towards the bag and retrieve the little velvet box, as carefully as I would diffuse a bomb. Chloe still hasn't moved.
“Bec…”
I can feel my heartbeat all the way to my skull. Is it just me or did the box get heavier? “Can you…pretend that you didn’t see it?"
Chloe’s eyes are glassy, tears forming at the corners. Oh no. Are those good tears or bad? I'm totally out of my depth here. “Is that a…" She shakes her head. "Is it for me?"
Are you kidding me? She's seriously going to ask me that? I roll my eyes at her. “No, Chloe. It’s for my other girlfriend living across the street."
“Bec!"
“Of course it’s for you!" I take a seat on the floor in front of her and take her hand, so warm against mine. "I mean, we’ve talked about it, right? Is it still…something you want?"
We have talked about it before, it's not like I would just buy an engagement ring at random. It all started when we just moved into the apartment and our neighbour, a lovely woman in her 80s, said how lovely it was that we were married. When we told her we weren't, she looked at us with innocent eyes, simply said, "Well, why not?"
That started a few conversations here and there, small talk evolving into deeper discussions. In those moments, though, I was never scared. I never wanted to run away.
“Yes! Of course it's still something I want!" Chloe says, gripping my hand like she's scared I'll just get up and leave. "And it’s still something you want, right?"
I shoot her a stare that could level all of Los Angeles. She catches herself and chuckles. "I mean, duh. You did buy a ring."
"It is a ring, right?" she says, narrowing her eyes at me. "If what's inside that box is just some little knickknack and you're just messing with me, Beca, I swear to..."
I lurch forward and shut her up with a kiss. "It is a ring, baby."
"Okay, good," she whispers into my mouth. Chloe's eyes are twinkling. Actually twinkling. Eventually, her gaze falls to the box clutched in my hand.
I click my tongue at Chloe. The audacity of her to find her own poorly-hidden engagement ring. “Right. So I’m just gonna look for another hiding spot, I guess."
“Bec!" Chloe is starting to laugh now, wild and amused like she can’t help it. "Of all the places! Why'd you hide it in your suitcase? And why did you let me borrow your suitcase?"
I don't even have an answer for that one. That settles it. After this album is all wrapped up, Chloe and I are definitely taking a vacation. “And you didn’t open it?" I ask her again. Because better safe than sorry or whatever.
“I didn’t."
“You swear?" I get up to my feet, hauling Chloe up too.
“I swear, Rebecca." She rolls her eyes and smiles, loops her hands behind my neck. It doesn't take long before we start swaying to some invisible tune, right there in our bedroom doorway. I can do a whole lifetime of this.
"I love you," she tells me, beaming with a small tilt of her head, bright and lovely.
“I love you too, weirdo."