His green eyes seem to flit across my blue ones.

My smile softens and I say, “It’s a perfect wedding dress.”

“Then it’s settled,” he says, taking my hand. “Whenever we get married, at least you have the dress taken care of.”

“That’s all we need, really,” I say, walking with him out of the booth with the dress draped over my forearm.

He glances over at me. “Rings,” he says with a curious look hidden within his eyes.

“I have a ring,” I say, holding out my hand in case he somehow forgot about the one he bought me in Texas.

“That’s an engagement ring.”

“Yeah, but it’s enough.”

“Well, I need one, too,” he says. “Or did you forget about me? It takes two, y’know.”

I chuckle lightly as we make it to the short line at the register. “OK, you’re right, but I’m fine with the ring I have. Besides, I know you spent a lot of money on this necklace. You can’t be doing that.”

“Are we back to that already?” he asks playfully, pulling his wallet from his pocket. “I didn’t lie to you about what I paid for the necklace.”

Maybe he really is telling the truth.

“I believe you,” I finally say.

He smiles and leaves it at that.

Andrew

20

Yes, I’m a damn liar. That necklace cost a little over six hundred bucks, but I know better than to tell her that. She thinks that expensive things are always all about how many zeroes are behind the decimal, but it’s not always about that. Really, I think it’s usually the girl that makes it all about the price. Shit, I’ve seen chicks bitch and moan about how their guy didn’t spend enough. I wonder if they even realize that they make it hard on us when they get together with their friends and compare rocks like we might compare inches. We don’t really do that, by the way. At least, I’ve never known a guy who wanted to whip his shit out and compete with me.

I wanted to buy something really nice for Camryn for her birthday. It just so happens that the one thing I liked out of everything I looked at happened to be expensive.

Deal with it, baby.

She might faint if she ever finds out how much I spent on our wedding rings, which I bought while we were in Chicago. It’s been hard keeping Camryn from seeing them. But I managed to tuck the little box I keep them in, safely into a hidden compartment in my duffel bag.

We spend the entire day doing what we always do, hanging out together and making the most of the cold weather. When we arrive back at our hotel, I grab my guitar and play for her a song I wrote and have been working on for a week. I hoped to have it done by her birthday because it is part of her birthday present. I wrote it just for her. I call it “The Tulip on the Hill,” a song inspired by the first day we spent together when I got out of the hospital after my surgery:

“I just think you should take it easy,” Camryn said that day. “No burying your head underneath Billy Frank’s hoods for a while, or bungee jumping or drag-racing.”

I laughed lightly, letting my head fall to the side to see her. I was laying longways across the top of a stone picnic table. Camryn sat on the bench near my head.

“So your definition of taking it easy is to do absolutely nothing?” I asked, smiling at her with my head propped in my hands behind me.

“What’s wrong with a quiet day in the park?” she asked and reached out to trace my brow with her fingertips.

“Nothing,” I said and kissed her fingers when her hand made it to my mouth. “I like being alone with you.”

She tilted her head gently to one side and her expression softened. Then she looked out at the park. The trees were full, and the grass was thick and green. It really was a nice day. I wondered why we seemed like the only two outside enjoying it.

“I think tulips are pretty,” she said distantly, staring toward the small, grassy hill on the other side of me.

I looked, too, and saw a single tulip perched on the top of that hill, all alone. I’m not sure why, but ever since that day, whenever I see a tulip anywhere, I think of her.

I’ll never forget the smile on her face as I play and sing the song to her. It’s so warm and bright and endearing, the kind of smile that says I Love You More Than Anything In This World without having to say the words.

21

January 21—my twenty-sixth birthday

I’m having a sweet dream that involves me skydiving (for some odd reason, with actor Christopher Lee) and the sky is as blue as… well, the sky. Christopher Lee, with red goggles plastered over his eyes, gives me a thumbs-up just before the wind whisks him away into the blue ether. Then suddenly my heart stops, and I suck in a sharp, frigid breath. My eyes pop open to the real world. My body jerks upward from the bed so fast that my arm swings out beside me, and I hit the lamp mounted on the wall.

“Ho-ly-shit!” I yell out.

It takes me a second to realize what happened. Between seeing Camryn at the foot of the bed holding an ice bucket and me frantically tossing the cold, wet sheets to the side, I’m still trying to catch my breath.

Camryn cackles loudly. “Happy birthday, baby! Get up!”

I guess I deserved that after what I did to her on the morning of her birthday last month. But the devious little shit really got me good, much worse than I did her. I guess paybacks really are a bitch.

Unable to keep from smiling, I just go with it and slowly ease my naked ass off the bed. Already she’s got that uh-oh look on her face as she begins to back away from me and move toward the door. Knowing it’s her only way out, I watch as she gauges the situation.

“I’m sorry!” she says with a terrified smile, her hand bent behind her feeling her way for the door.

“Uh-huh, I’m sure you are, babe.”

I walk very slowly toward her, my hooded eyes watching her as if I’m a predator toying with its prey.

She cackles again. “Andrew! You better not!” She’s just two feet from the door now. But I take my time, letting her think she might actually make it that far, my grin deepening to the point that I know I must look like a sadistic madman by now.

Suddenly, Camryn squeals, unable to contain it any longer and dashes to the door thrusting it open. “Nooo! Please!” she yells and laughs at the same time as the door swings wide open, smashing into the wall. She runs out into the hallway.

When I come running out after her, the shocked look on her face and the hilarious fact that she actually stopped, is a dead giveaway that she didn’t expect me to go this far with no clothes.

“Oh my God! Andrew, no!” she screams out as she starts running full throttle down the length of the brightly lit hall.

I just keep on running after her, everything I have hanging in the breeze. That girl has a lot to learn if she actually thought I’d be too embarrassed to run out after her, butt naked and with shrinkage. I don’t care. She’s going to regret that bucket of ice.

We run past room 321 just as an elderly couple is stepping out. The man pulls his wide-eyed wife back as the crazy naked man zooms past.

“Oh dear God…,” I hear a voice far behind me say.

Finally, when Camryn makes it to the very end of the long hallway, she stops and faces me, her back arched over, both hands out in front of her as if to put up a shield. Tears are streaming from her eyes from laughing so hard.