Jasmine Guillory - The Proposal

He put his glass down.

“Hey, I’m sorry. Of course you aren’t. I didn’t mean to suggest that.” He looked at her, then looked away. “I’m used to taking care of all of the women in my family, so I have the tendency to go overboard sometimes. I didn’t mean to tell you what to do.”

She picked up his wineglass and handed it to him.

“It’s okay, really. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” She closed her eyes. “I don’t usually give in to fits of paranoia like this, and I hate it. Sorry for taking it out on you.”

He smiled at her and patted her thigh. She hated herself for wanting his hand to linger there a lot longer than it did.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Every woman needs a big strong man to come and protect her; that’s not your fault. It’s just because you’re naturally weak and helpless, just by virtue of, you know, being a woman and all. You needed a man like me to do the hard work of looking under your bed. I understand that you aren’t capable of stuff like that.”

She smacked his arm.

“You asshole.” She was laughing so hard she had to put her wineglass down. “You had me going for at least five or six seconds there! You were so close to me throwing this wine in your face and literally kicking you out of my apartment.”

• • •

Carlos laughed and relaxed against the couch cushions. He’d been a little worried that she’d get furious at him for that, but he also thought it might break some of the tension. One of the things that he already liked so much about Nik was how independent she was; he should have known that telling her what to do would piss her off. Angela had gotten mad at him just a few weeks ago for taking her car in to get serviced; she’d said she was fully capable of doing it for herself. He’d told her it wasn’t that he didn’t think she was capable of it, it’s just that he’d felt like it was his job to do it. That hadn’t made her less mad.

She waved at his wineglass.

“Drink, drink, I promise I won’t knock the glass all over you.”

He took another sip. He usually made fun of Angela for drinking rosé. She could definitely never find out that he drank it with Nik and liked it.

“But really, don’t feel bad,” he said. “It’s totally normal to freak out about stuff like this. And my stint in the ER during my residency really opened my eyes to how often this stuff happens to women. I mean, fine, he wasn’t here and you felt silly that you had me come up, no big deal. But too many women ignore those feelings or don’t want to feel silly, and I’ve seen some of the aftermaths. Feeling silly is definitely better.”

She took another sip of her wine and leaned back. When she’d sat down on the couch, she’d sat down right in the middle, so he’d had no choice but to sit right next to her. They were so close they were almost touching.

“I almost called you on the way here and told you I didn’t need you, but I knew my friends would have yelled at me and told me not to be a fool.” She paused. “I think I’ve given other people similar advice, now that I think about it. It’s always easier to give people advice than it is to take it yourself.”

Should he put his arm around her? He really wanted to, but she’d just had a dramatic breakup a few days ago, and she might smack him and order him out of her house. But she was curled up on the couch next to him like that, all cozy with her wine; this seemed like a prime situation for making a move, right?

“Speaking of giving advice,” she said, “you said that you spend a lot of time giving advice to teenagers, and I’m totally curious about your job. What does it mean, to be the assistant director of a teen clinic?”

Okay, it seemed like she just wanted to talk, as they sat here shoulder to shoulder in the dim lighting on her couch while holding glasses of wine. Great.

“Excellent question, and one that I’m still kind of figuring out the answer to. I’ve only been doing it for about six months, but I love it so far. Basically, all of the health care of the kids that the medical center serves—who are in the twelve to nineteen age group—is routed through our clinic. The goal is to recognize that teens are in a special place, both mentally and physically, and to serve their needs as best as we can.”

“I wish my doctor’s office had had a teen clinic when I was a kid,” she said. “I always remember feeling so grumpy about still going to a pediatrician when I was a teenager, surrounded by babies and toddlers.”

She took another sip of wine and picked a piece of lint off of his shoulder. He felt lulled by her touch, the warm night air, by her presence.

And also probably the wine.

She stood up to get the bottle of wine from the fridge and brought it back over to the couch.

“You said you’d only been there for six months—where were you before that?”

She tipped the wine bottle toward his glass and raised her eyebrows at him. He nodded. Was she trying to get him to linger? Had the whole “I’m afraid of my ex” thing just been bullshit to get him to come up to her apartment? Would he care if that was the case? He grinned to himself. Would he care if a hot girl made up a story about being scared of her ex-boyfriend to get him up to her apartment? Hell no, he would not care.

“I was at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital on the Westside. I liked working there a lot, but this job is different from what I’d been doing there, and it’s a lot of fun. Plus, it was great to come back to the Eastside and be closer to my family.”

But wait. He didn’t know this girl that well, but from his few interactions with her, she seemed pretty forthright and honest, almost to a fault. He didn’t really think she’d make up a story if she wanted him in her apartment. She would just ask him if he wanted to come upstairs.

Plus, if someone was pretending to be scared, they would have acted much more scared than she did when they walked in. She hadn’t been clingy or crying or any of that stuff. She’d just looked tense and angry. And she even hadn’t hinted for him to come over; he’d been the one to offer.

“I spend so much time with L.A. people who are from somewhere else; it’s always fun to meet a real local,” she said. “Do you have a big family?”

He rested his hand on the couch, right by, but not on, her knee.

“Yes and no—it’s a big extended family, but Angie’s my only sibling. But we grew up right around the corner from my mom’s sister, Tia Eva, and her daughter, my cousin Jessica, who is basically like a sister to me. She’s the one I told you about at the bar who I got the ‘Is that you?’ idea from.” He smiled. “That’s another reason why this was a good time to move back to the Eastside; Jessie’s pregnant now with her first kid, and my whole family is over the moon.”

She tucked her hair behind her ears and looked up at him. He liked the way she concentrated on him when he was talking, like she was really listening to what he had to say.

He also liked the way the neckline of her shirt kept dipping lower and lower. He had to force himself to not let his eyes linger for too long on her cleavage.

“Are you over the moon about the baby, too?”

Her shirt dipped off one shoulder. He really wanted to reach over and push it off all the way. It took him a minute to remember what she’d asked him. Right, right, Jessie’s baby.

“Oh yeah, definitely. You’d think that after being a pediatrician for years now I’d think babies are a dime a dozen, but I can’t wait until Jessie has hers. Not that I’m ready in the least to have one of my own, but that’s what’s going to make Jessie’s so fun. Being an uncle is going to be great. All of the fun and none of the responsibility.” He laughed. “Plus, this way, my mom will get off my ass about giving her grandbabies because she’ll have Jessie’s baby to hang out with.”