Part IV: Chapter 12 / Brian

7/3/13

Maui

The sky was a deep, velvety blue-gray, lightening in the east, by the time I parked the rented Jeep at the lookout point at Haleakala National Park. There were a couple of other cars in the lot, and people in colorful parkas were climbing the stairs. I opened the door to a downright wintry blast and regretted my hoodie right away.

Meg jerked awake – she’d been sleeping the whole way here from the hotel – and hissed through her teeth. “Oh my Gooooooooood, it’s cold,” she muttered, pulling her sweater tighter around her.

I nodded. “We’re getting back in here and turning the heat on when this is over.”

The last day of shooting on the “Make Believe” video would start on this mountain, at a spot just up the road, in a couple of hours. I knew the sun would warm the vivid, desert-like rocks, but it was still a mountain. We were going to freeze our asses off. Who knew Hawaii could be cold?

From the backseat, I grabbed a thermos of hot chocolate, hastily made in the hotel room’s coffeemaker, and the comforter from the hotel bed. A car door snapped closed, and Meg walked around the car to meet me. She had her camera slung over one shoulder. With her unruly high ponytail and her shoulders hunched against the cold, she reminded me of a little bird fluffed up against the cold. She was ridiculously, breathtakingly adorable, and I put my arms around her, surrounding her with the comforter, and bent my head to kiss her gently.

“Just remember this was your idea,” I whispered against her lips.

She inched closer to me. “Shut up, Littrell.”

The stars overhead had all but faded as we climbed the stairs to the lookout. I wished we’d gotten here in time to stargaze a little bit, but I knew there’d have been no getting this woman out of bed early enough. The earlier wakeup would have made absolutely no difference to me. I had barely slept anyway, and it wasn’t the jet lag. My heart was pounding so hard that I was amazed she hadn’t noticed just now.

I spread out the bottom half of the comforter on the rock wall surrounding the lookout, facing the direction of the sun. We sat on the wall, carefully, and I pulled the blanket up around our shoulders, wrapping an arm around Meg. An older couple stood a few yards away, cameras at the ready, and Meg took the lens cap off hers and started to play with the settings. After a moment, she gave up, stilled her hands, and smiled sheepishly at me.

“I couldn’t do it justice anyway,” she whispered reverently. “It’s like another planet up here.”

I busied myself with unscrewing the top of the thermos. I wasn’t totally convinced I wasn’t having a heart attack. “That’s kind of what we’re going for,” I finally said, handing her the thermos so she could take a long drink. I tried to keep my voice nonchalant. She could always chalk the shaking up to the cold.

She laid her head on my shoulder as I gathered her closer. “Thanks for coming up here early. Really.” She reached over and squeezed my knee. “You’re good to me.”

I turned my head to press my lips soundlessly against her hair. “You’re a good woman,” I said, with as much meaning as my nerves would let me inject into the words. She wasn’t a good woman. She was the best. And God had led us here, after all that.

It was all perfect. The once-in-a-lifetime sunrise, the blanket, the cuddling, the…

Shit.

A jolt ran through me. I patted my pocket, the pocket I’d been so sure the ring was in. It was empty, except for my phone. I couldn’t very well reach for the pocket Meg was leaning on, but I couldn’t feel anything there.

Shit! I cursed soundlessly, through my teeth. After all that, after dragging our sorry carcasses up here in the cold, the damn ring wasn’t even here. And now I could picture it, as clear as day, in its box in a sock in my suitcase on the other side of the damn island.

“What’s wrong?” Meg looked up at me, frowning.

“Nothing! Nothing,” I said, too quickly. My face was already burning, showing my hand. “I, uh, I think I left my phone in the car.”

She raised an eyebrow, then laid her head back on my shoulder. “You’re a shitty liar.” But her voice sounded fond and not really willing to push it.

The sky was turning gold and orange in the east, and then the sun was there, bursting over the horizon in a riot of blinding gold. We both just stared. Meg’s camera sat untouched in her lap. There was no use trying to capture that sun. It was…glory. It was creation itself. It was God at work. No one would ever tell me otherwise.

“Wow,” we both whispered, almost in unison.

Meg wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and I realized my own were stinging with the effort to drink it all in. She half-giggled. “I don’t even wanna blink.”

I turned my head to kiss her forehead. I hadn’t intended to look away from the sunrise, but I couldn’t help but steal a glance at her face. Her eyes were full of wonder, shining brightly, her eyes very gray in the light. I could have watched her watch the sunrise all day. I pressed my lips to her forehead again, at a loss for words.

“I love you,” she whispered, reaching over to squeeze my knee.

Yep, this would have been the perfect moment to whip out that ring. I cursed silently again.

“I love you, too, sweet girl,” I mumbled into her hair.

When the sun was up and the hot chocolate was gone, we folded down the back seats in the Jeep, threw the comforter into the back and crawled in for a well-earned nap. Meg dozed off right away, and I laid my hand along her waist, in that dip that seemed made for my hand, and watched the sky lighten until her breathing lulled me to sleep.

Two hours later, we drove down the road to meet the rest of the gang in the parking lot of the Haleakala visitors’ center. The spot A.J., in his directorial debut, and the producers had scoped out for filming was just over the ridge, a short hike from the visitors’ center. A few hikers eyed us from the other side of the parking lot as we gathered, cars and cameras and hair and makeup and chairs and clothes and all the trappings. It was a pretty low-key shoot, but we were still going to be on camera.

The rest of the guys climbed out of a couple of rental cars as we walked across the parking lot. Nick stretched, arms to the sky. He glanced next to me, and I knew he saw Meg’s bare hand as she waggled her fingers at the guys in a wave. I just shook my head at him, and he mouthed, “Pussy.” Meg was mid-yawn, and I hoped she hadn’t noticed.

“You know what’s really fuckin’ great, guys?” A.J. emphasized each word. “Sleep.”

“We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” Meg said. Her yawn was contagious, and one escaped me before I could stop it. “That sunrise was amazing.”

“Sleep is amazing,” Howie replied.

“The hell you have to say about it?” A.J. retorted. “You were probably up as early as those two to do your hair.”

Howie took a long drink of coffee, and I thought I heard him mutter, “Bitch, bitch, bitch…” into his cup.

Just like old times. I couldn’t stifle a grin.

Now, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Making a video’s really not so bad, I don’t think. Sure, you have to hear the song over and over and over again, and it’s a lot of hurry-up-and-wait, but we have fun.

I had to admit, though, that A.J. as slave driver was a little surreal. Someone had actually gotten him a beret and a megaphone and a tall director’s chair. Nick and Howie fought intermittently over who’d get to wear the beret when A.J. was on camera. Kevin and I exchanged a long-suffering look every time.

Just like old times.

Soon enough, it was my turn to sing my solo lines. I balanced precariously on the loose rocks as we shot take after take. The sun was high above the otherworldly landscape, and it was hard not to squint.

Know what else didn’t help? Meg, who was sitting on the bumper of the wardrobe van and had had her nose buried all morning in a David Sedaris book with a skull on the front – after all, her ride back to the hotel was a little indisposed – had set her book down and was watching with some interest. Focusing on the camera didn’t appeal much to me in that moment.

A.J. signaled for the camera to roll again. The music started up. I leaned forward on one leg, as if appealing to the camera itself, and started to sing.

Catch another breath, I’ve got nothin’ left

This love I have is pulling me to death

My eyes shifted toward Meg. She pressed her lips together against a smile, but her pleasure and pride showed in her eyes. I felt my next words down in the marrow of my bones.

Waiting for the night I can feel alive with you

“Cut.” A.J. sighed heavily as the music stopped. “B, I’m not asking you to cure fuckin’ cancer, I’m just asking you to look at the camera.”

We rolled again. And I did the same damn thing.

A.J. looked back over his shoulder, following my eyes. He harrumphed as, with two fingers, he gestured between his eyes and Meg’s. “You, missy.”

Meg smirked and held up a middle finger in A.J.’s direction. “Just sitting here, McLean.”

Another take. And I fucked it up again.

“Look, I have an idea.” A.J. hopped down from his chair, walked over to Meg, and all but dragged her to the camera by the sleeve of her sweater. Holding her by the shoulders, he positioned her right behind the camera. Then he pointed at me. “Now, Brian, look at the damn camera.”

The music rolled again. I started to sing again. Things seemed to be really good. This could have been the final take. And then…

Waiting for the night I can—

Meg popped up from behind the camera, thumbs in her ears, sticking her tongue out at me. I was so startled, I completely lost my crap laughing.

“Cut!” A.J. hurled his megaphone to the ground. He turned to Meg and placed his hands on her shoulders again. “Miz Michaels, you’re a sister to me, and I love you.” He pecked her on the forehead.

I smirked. One of the approximately eight billion things I loved about Meg was her bond with my brothers, but every now and then, I needed to give them shit about it. “Check yourself with my girl there, McLean,” I interjected.

A.J. spun her around and shoved her away from the camera. “But your ass is going back to the hotel, Yoko,” he finished.

“Fine.” She stuck her nose in the air, with an indignation I could tell she didn’t mean, and marched toward me. “I like this song and all, but if I have to hear the same three lines another 40 times, I might throw myself into the volcano. Now, where are your keys?” she asked me as she reached me.

“In my other pants.” I pointed back toward the wardrobe van. I couldn’t resist adding, “And don’t jump in the volcano. You’re plenty hot without lava.”

“Booooooo,” said everyone else within earshot.

Meg rolled her eyes, but she was grinning. “You’re a pain in the ass, Littrell.” She squeezed my arm and kissed me quickly.

“You love it.” I smiled down at her. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

As Meg walked away, Nick sidled up to me. We watched her disappear into the wardrobe trailer.

“So, you chicken out?” Nick teased me.

I sighed. “I forgot the ring in the room.”

Nick snickered. “You really are a dumb-ass sometimes, B.”

Meg climbed out of the van, and I watched her disappear over the ridge. I shook my head. “Yeah, I know.”

Later, near the end of the long drive back across the island in Nick’s rented Mustang, he said, “Has it occurred to you that she might say no?”

I glared at him. “Nice positive attitude there, broseph.”

He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

I watched the craggy brown cliffs roll by on my side of the car. “That was different,” I said. “We were both kinda drunk, and we had issues.”

“I’m not saying she’d say it to be serious,” Nick said. “She’d do it just to bust your balls, ‘cause that’s just how she is.” I heard the smile in his voice. “I like that about her.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m never telling you anything again. I’m surprised you haven’t told her yet. Big-mouthed son of a bitch.”

Nick grinned. “Big-nosed nostril-ass motherfucker.”

“Big…” I grasped for words. “Big, creepy, three-nipple freakazoid.”

“That was a wad of gum.” Nick started laughing hysterically. “Like the topless psychic in Mallrats. Speaking of the mid-‘90s with your freakazoid.”

“Dude, I didn’t watch Mallrats.” I smirked. “I was too busy actually getting laid.”

Nick was still laughing. “Man, fuck off.”

We were silent for a long moment. Now, I realized, was probably as good a time as any for the second most important question I had left to ask.

“Dude, you wanna be my best man if she says yes?” I blurted out.

Nick glanced sidelong at me. “You have an actual biological brother and a son, and you’re asking me?”

I waved a hand. “Hal got to do it last time, while you were sitting around navel-gazing. Baylee’s a little young to sign a marriage license. I…” Wow, what was this tightness in my chest? “I need Frack up there with me, man. Come on. What do you say?”

Nick was looking at the road again, but he was grinning from ear to ear. “Yeah. OK. I can sign on to that.”

I grinned out the window at the cliffs. “Thanks, broseph.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I reached across the car and clapped him on the shoulder.

“You know she’ll say yes, dude,” Nick said. “Everything else is just me giving you shit.”

I blew out a long breath. “I sure hope so.”

We were all staying at a sprawling resort in a place called Kaanapali, in the northwest corner of the island. The property seemed to go on forever, to bleed into other hotels along the coast, all sharing the same long, spectacular beach. We still had a few hours, but it would be a hell of a sunset, I reflected as we pulled into the parking lot.

I grabbed a bottle of water from the room and ditched my shoes. As an afterthought, I dug into my suitcase and pulled out the ring, taking it out of its box and shoving it into my pocket. She wasn’t stupid. She’d root me out in a heartbeat if I had the box. I didn’t know if I’d do it now, but I wasn’t about to be caught unprepared again.

Down on the beach, Meg and Lindie, Nick’s girlfriend, were sprawled on adjacent lounge chairs under a palm tree, just beyond where the pavement ended and the sand began. There had probably been some great shade earlier in the day, but now they were directly in the sun. Lindie had an arm flung across her eyes, and I couldn’t wait to see the tan line that created.

As for Meg, she was stretched out with her arms over her head, sunglasses on her face, book discarded next to her. She had earbuds in, as usual. I craned my neck and saw that her eyes were closed under the shades, so I took a moment to ogle her in her old-school pinup-looking polka-dot suit. She had absolutely no idea how sexy she was. I saw my own shitty grin reflected in her sunglasses. I rubbed the sweat from my water bottle and was just about to press a cold, wet hand to her bare stomach when she said, without moving, “Try it, Littrell. I dare you.”

I grinned down at her. “Darn the luck.” I wiped my hand on my shorts and sat down on the end of her lounge chair as she drew her legs up and sat up. I watched as she checked her phone and took out her earbuds.

“I’ve been down here a long time, huh?” She stretched her arms over her head as she glanced down at her phone. She looked up at me and smiled. “Did the rest of the shoot go OK once A.J. kicked me out?”

I returned her smile. “Nope. Complete anarchy. We threw him in the volcano half an hour later. Nick and I have been driving around all afternoon trying to figure out how we’re gonna hide out.” I reached out and half-pinched, half-tickled her. “How do you feel about going to live with the lepers on Molokai?”

“You and I both know there aren’t any lepers there anymore.” She swatted at my hand, but she was grinning. “Maybe Dave’ll let me start LEO’s first Molokai bureau. It’d make a great blog.”

“Worker bee over here.” I took a drink of water. “You wanna get cleaned up and get dinner?”

“Sure.” She threw her book and stuff into a bag I hadn’t noticed before, next to her chair, and pulled out a short, sheer blue thing like a dress and a pair of flip-flops. She stood up, stretching again, and kicked Lindie’s chair. “I’m going upstairs,” she said to Nick’s girlfriend, who acknowledged her in a mumble and shifted on the chair.

I followed Meg to the elevator. It wasn’t a bad view, and I couldn’t hide another shitty grin as she looked at me over her shoulder. She winked at me as she pressed the up button. “Take a picture. It’ll last longer.”

“Are you sure?” I said, keeping my voice down. It came out huskier than I’d intended. “It might end up on the Internet.”

She turned and looped her arms around my neck. In a voice just for me, she said, “I was thinking since I have to take my clothes off anyway…”

The elevator dinged and opened next to us. I couldn’t stop grinning down at her as I pulled her in after me.

Shut up. I have no shame.

That night, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The beach was crowded, everyone taking in the spectacular show of pink and gold and orange. Glory. There was no other word for it. We had welcomed this day in together, and we would see it off together.

Meg and I walked down the beach together, fingers entwined. The breeze ruffled her wild curls and the skirt of her red, ruffled dress. I remembered that dress well. She’d worn it the first time I’d kissed her, in Nashville, a million years ago. It seemed pretty appropriate tonight.

My heart was pounding. I was sure this kind of stress wasn’t good for it. The stress would pay off, of course, but I lived in mortal fear of screwing this up. For as far as we’d come since then, I’d never forgotten when she had turned me down. And damn him, now Nick had me scared that she’d say no just to bust my ass.

The ring was burning a hole in my pocket. I had to do this soon, or I was going to pass out.

I stopped walking and squeezed Meg’s hand. “Hey.”

She turned to me. I caught my breath. The sun had turned her gold, caught the little streaks of silver in her hair that she didn’t think I saw and gilded them. Her eyes were sparkling, very gray and very intrigued. I didn’t know if I could do this. I didn’t know if there was ever going to be a more perfect moment.

“Hey, what?” she said.

“Hey, you’re really beautiful,” I blurted out, when I finally found my voice again. It sounded dumb, but I didn’t know what else to say. I took her other hand in mine, hoping she didn’t notice how badly they were shaking. “Let me ask you something,” I said.

She took a deep breath, and I wondered if she was on to me. The corners of her mouth turned up. I could barely hear her say, “What is it?”

I opened my mouth to speak. I hadn’t exactly rehearsed anything, but my heart was brimming with words. My knee was already starting to bend. I dropped her hand and was just about to reach into my pocket when…

Nick’s voice cut through the moment. “Heeeeeey!”

I closed my eyes. That little SOB. So he had ruined my great proposal after all.

Nick and Lindie walked up to us, arm in arm. “Beautiful night, y’all,” Lindie said. She, surprisingly, did not have a band of bright white across her face, though she did have shades on.

Meg grinned teasingly up at her, the moment seemingly forgotten. “Well, look who’s rejoined the land of the living.”

“No, you’d be amazed what a cold shower will do.” Lindie pushed her shades up into her hair and inhaled deeply. “This is incredible.”

“Cold shower bullshit…” Nick muttered.

I grabbed him by the arm. “Gals, if you’ll excuse us for a second, I need to have a word with Nick,” I grumbled, yanking him 20 paces or so down the beach, away from the girls.

“So, you do it yet?” Nick grinned down at me as we walked.

“You cockblockin’ son of a bitch,” I said to him through my teeth. “You can go straight to hell and fuck the fuck off.”

Nick snorted with laughter. “Temper, temper, temper. I’ll take that as a no.”

I stopped and glared up at him. “It’s sunset. In Hawaii. I was standing there, holding my girlfriend’s hand, about two shakes of a lamb’s ass from taking a knee. What’d you think I was about to do? Tie my shoe?”

Nick looked down at my bare feet. “That wouldn’t work.”

I reached up and popped him in the side of the head with the heel of my hand. “Nick, you’re my brother, but you really are a dumb-ass sometimes.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Nick was grinning unrepentantly. “But you’re so nervous, I had to give you some shit.”

I closed my eyes. The space behind my eyelids was bright yellow-orange with the sun, and it was starting to pulse. “Nick, when you have proposed to the love of your life, especially if you shit all over yourself and have to do it more than once, you come back and tell me if you were nervous.”

With that, I walked back over to the girls. Nick followed me.

“How’s your head there, Carter?” Meg grinned up at him. “I saw my boyfriend ring your chimes.”

Nick rubbed his head theatrically. “Dude’s been working out.” He slung an arm around Meg’s shoulder and gestured out at the ocean, where a few surfers bobbed in the water, hanging onto their boards as they watched the sunset. “So, when we gonna get you out there on a board?”

Meg shook her head. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say never. You have to engage the core for that crap.” She pinched her stomach. “The only core I’m thinking about this week is the core of that pineapple up in our room.”

She had a point. Room service had left us an entire pineapple and nothing to cut it up with. I wondered if jamming it up Nick’s ass at this moment would get him to leave us alone.

Lindie was still looking out at the ocean. “Well, this double date is swell, but, uh, nothing personal.” She popped her sunglasses back down onto her face, and the sunset reflected back at us as she reached for Nick’s hand.

“Later, losers.” Nick waggled his fingers at us. Behind Meg’s head, he mouthed at me, “Close the deal.” I only just resisted the urge to fly both birds at him.

Meg reached out and took my hand. “Now what were you gonna ask me?”

I watched Nick and Lindie leave. Suddenly, what I had to do crystallized in my head.

I looked back at Meg. “You wanna get out of here tomorrow?”

We did a little research and made a few calls that night, and we found a great hotel an hour down the coast, in Wailea. While Meg was in the bathroom, I cupped my hand around the phone and whispered, “Do you guys have anything going on for the 4th?”

“Sure,” the woman at the front desk chirped. “It’s Thursday, so we have our sunset luau, and we do still have tickets available for that. Do you want me to reserve you some?”

“Yeah, do that.”

I heard typing on the other end. “All right, we’ll charge those to your room. Oh, and after that, we’ll have a fireworks display out on the beach for the 4th.”

I grinned. Fireworks. I couldn’t have planned it better myself.

A.J. was standing outside, smoking a cigarette, when I walked away from the front desk the next morning. He eyed my suitcase. “The hell are you going?”

“Somewhere where I won’t keep getting cockblocked.” My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out to see a text from Meg that she’d be around in a minute with the car.

He took a long drag on his cigarette. “Yeah, we probably aren’t making it that easy to close the deal, huh?”

I nodded, then stopped myself. “Wait, what do you mean by that?”

A.J. grinned at me. “Let’s just say you told the wrong damn person about popping the question.”

I was going to kill Nick. Literally kill him. I kicked my suitcase, but didn’t say anything.

“Hey, you picked a good place to do it. And a good girl to do it to.” A.J. lowered his shades and waggled his eyebrows at me. “Not that I have any doubt you’re already doin’ it to her.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re all assholes.”

A.J. stubbed out his cigarette on the side of a planter. “She’ll say yes, dude. Don’t be nervous. She’d have jumped in the volcano yesterday if you’d asked her to.”

The rented Jeep pulled up, with Meg behind the wheel. A.J. bumped fists with me, then hugged me. “Catch up soon, dude.”

He walked over to the window and tapped on it, and it rolled down. “You keep my boy out of trouble, Miz Michaels.” He must have blown her a kiss, because she just grinned behind her sunglasses, reached up with one hand and pretended to catch something.

A.J. turned back to me. “Close the deal,” he mouthed, and walked away.

Tonight’s hotel was doing us no favors with the check-in time, so we took our time heading down the coast. We lingered in the next little town down the road, which had a boardwalk overlooking the next island and little shops that sold things like shark’s teeth and goofy sunglasses and soft-serve ice cream, as if we were in a Jersey Shore town and not the exotic South Pacific. We tried to stop for lunch, but the little sandwich place we picked was overflowing with people who kept giving me second and third glances, so we just grabbed our sandwiches to go and hightailed it out of town.

We stopped at a little roadside park, just wide enough for a couple of picnic tables and a few parking spaces. The tree trunks were curved and gnarling, bending low to the ground like benches, and we walked straight past the picnic tables and sat on one of the tree trunks instead. We could sit at a picnic table anywhere.

The sandwiches were ridiculously good, thick slices of ham and pineapple and lots of bacon. These people could definitely handle their pig products. We didn’t even look at each other, barely remembering even to look out at the ocean, as we devoured our sandwiches.

“This was a really good idea.” Meg wiped her mouth.

“You say bacon, I come running,” I said through my last mouthful of pig.

“Well, yeah, but I mean…the whole thing.” She balled up her sandwich wrapper and stared past the trees, past the dark sand, out at the water. The tone of her voice made it sound like she wanted to say more, but instead, she just reached over and patted my leg.

I swallowed hard and turned to look at her. The breeze off the water caught her hair and played with it, caught her long skirt where her legs were dangling off the tree, not quite touching the ground. She looked as content as I had ever seen her. And damn it, she looked beautiful. This place was very kind to her.

She turned and caught my eye just as I realized I’d been staring too long. I didn’t look away. She was my girl, after all. If anyone got to stare at her, it was me. She opened her mouth, looking like she wanted to ask me something, but then closed it again. She just smiled at me, then reached over and took my hand, lacing her fingers through mine. She scooted closer and laid her head on my shoulder.

A million happy words hung in the air between us. I didn’t want to speak any of them. I didn’t think she did, either. We had traveled what seemed like a million miles to be here, sitting by the sea in peaceful silence. Two years ago, I hadn’t even known who she was. Six months ago, she hadn’t even wanted anything to do with me. And now, here we were. What a long journey it had been. What a long journey lay ahead, God willing.

The ring was in my pocket, and yet somehow, pulling it out right now didn’t feel quite right. This wasn’t the moment for that. This was a moment to be still and be together. So instead, I tried to ignore the ring, kissed her forehead, and sat with her in this frozen moment.

The luau was pretty much everything a white tourist in Hawaii could imagine a luau being: gorgeous hula dancers with grass skirts swishing as if they had a mind of their own, fat guys playing ukuleles, cut young dudes dancing with torches, a whole pig on a spit with an apple shoved in its mouth, fresh fruit and bright flowers everywhere you looked. We wore purple leis around our necks – the real thing, with the best floral scent hovering right under our noses – and drank silly umbrella drinks right out of coconuts.

At one point, the hula dancers invited us up to learn a dance. Meg, of all people, shoved her drink into my hand and walked up to the front. Her face was flushed, but she was grinning from ear to ear as she gamely wiggled her hips and her arms. She was wearing a long, breezy white dress that made her look as tan as if she’d lived here all her life, and one of the torch dudes had stuck a yellow flower in her loose hair, and now another one twirled her around. She caught my eye and winked at me.

I’d never seen her look happier or have more fun, and I thought my heart might explode with love for her. Yes. This was definitely the night.

I had an overwhelming urge to run up to the front, grab the mic, and start singing “Hawaiian Wedding Song.” I was sure the fat ukulele guys knew it. I was also sure they’d think I was the corniest and whitest white dude on Earth. And she deserved romantic, not corny. I was willing to go for fireworks, but Elvis might cross the line.

Yeah, I know. As you may have heard, that didn’t stop me on Valentine’s Day. But this was different.

The luau was still going strong as 9:00 approached. My nerves finally got the better of me, and I grabbed Meg’s hand and inclined my head toward the beach. “Let’s get out of here,” I whispered.

Her fingers laced through mine. “I was hoping you’d say that eventually,” she whispered back.

We picked up our coconut drinks and snuck out while the dancers were onstage. Down on the beach, people were already gathering for the fireworks. We took off our shoes and picked our way along the sand. I found a rock off to the side, a corner all to ourselves, where we could sit with our feet in the water or the sand and look out and see everything.

Meg tucked her legs up under her, feet disappearing under her skirt, and took a sip of her coconut drink. “What are we doing?”

I stretched out my legs so my toes were in the damp sand and placed a hand on the small of her back, tracing little circles through her dress. My voice was already shaking with nerves, and I hoped she didn’t notice. “Well, what day is it?”

She grinned at me. “They’re going to do fireworks out here, aren’t they?” She laid her head on my shoulder and took another long pull from her coconut drink. “You’re good to me.”

I turned my head and pressed my lips to the top of her head, inhaling the sweet, fruity scent of her hair. “I didn’t have a whole lot to do with this. We’d have had fireworks in Kaanapali, too, I bet.”

I heard the smirk in her voice. “We’d also have had all the guys annoying us.”

I sipped my coconut drink. “I bet Kevin wouldn’t have annoyed us. He’s an actual adult who understands relationships.”

Meg slipped her arm around my waist and pinched my side. “Y’all could learn something from him.”

“Ouch.” I blew a loud raspberry into her hair. “You and your smart mouth.”

Her smart mouth was a pretty welcome distraction, though, from figuring out how exactly I was going to do this. The ring weighed a million pounds in the pocket of my khaki shorts, and it seemed to be yelling at me, challenging me to do something. I wondered if this was how Frodo Baggins had felt.

I still hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to what I was going to say. Obviously blurting out “Marry me” had been the wrong play, all the crap we’d apparently had to work out notwithstanding. That wasn’t much of an opening anyway. I didn’t know what my opening would be, though. How’d you like to wear white again soon? No, that was stupid. You wanna see some real fireworks? No, that was stupid and corny. I wondered if one of our lyrics would make sense. She’d shame me off the beach for that one for sure.

Weren’t we both supposed to be writers? Weren’t we both supposed to have a way with words? But then again, weren’t these some of the most important words I’d ever say to her?

A boom down the beach interrupted my reverie. A white arc over the water from behind the rocks, and then a shower of gold sparks over the water, reflecting in the waves. A chorus of oohs and aahs sounded across the beach as more fireworks followed, all in double, their light and colors glinting off the water.

“Oh my God.” Meg’s voice was muffled by a hand over her mouth. “That’s incredible.”

I tried to watch the fireworks. I didn’t want to do it too soon. But finally, when I tore my eyes away from the fireworks, I knew I wouldn’t look back at them. The light and colors played across a face full of girlish wonder, the sparks reflecting in those eyes I loved. If I’d thought she was stunning by the sunset, I hadn’t seen anything yet. She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.

And I couldn’t wait any longer to ask her to be mine.

I belted back the rest of my coconut drink and threw the shell down into the sand, where I was sure the water would pick it up in a few minutes. I hopped down from the rock on legs I didn’t really trust. My heart was pounding as I stood in front of her and reached into my pocket, my fingers closing around the ring.

At the movement, Meg looked away from the fireworks. “What are…”

I took a deep breath and planted one knee in the damp sand.

Her eyes got as big and round as the moon. “…you…” She trailed off, and her hands covered her mouth again.

I took another deep breath, and then the words spilled out, bypassing my brain and coming straight from my heart. “I love you. You’re my best friend. You’re the air I breathe. I don’t remember how I lived without you, and I don’t ever want to live without you again.”

“I love you, too,” came the shaky reply from behind her hands, barely audible. The fireworks reflected in her huge, shining gray eyes, and the breeze caught her hair and ruffled it.

“So can we love each other forever? Please?” I held up the ring, letting her see it, letting her see how the fireworks reflected off it. “Will you marry me, Meg?”

She finally blinked, as if waking up, and I saw a tear slide down her cheek toward her hands. She nodded furiously and tore her hands away from her mouth. “Yes,” she whispered. Then, more loudly, on a half-sob, half-laugh, “Yes!”

“Yes?” I echoed, my giddy heart in my throat.

“Yes!” she shouted, her voice breaking, her smile enormous.

I almost collapsed in the sand with relief and euphoria. All the breath rushed out of me, and tears pricked my own eyes. I only just managed to grab her hand and slide the ring onto her finger. She looked down at her hand and gasped, and I saw her lips form a soundless “Holy shit.”

I climbed to my feet and reached for her at the exact moment that she slid off the rock. She practically jumped into my arms and kissed me. I wrapped my arms tight around her waist and lifted her off the ground, pulling her close, claiming her mouth with mine. It was the sweetest, most passionate kiss of my life, a kiss to seal promises, a kiss to start a new chapter, a kiss to punctuate this love that had snuck up on us and changed us both forever. A kiss for the woman who would be my wife.

I thought I heard a few cheers, but really, all I heard were the booms of the fireworks, fireworks that felt as though they were just for us. We were the only people on the beach. This moment would be ours forever.

And she’d be mine forever.