One Hundred Proposals (31 page)

She was actually sobbing.

Worst proposal ever.

When I managed to get her to calm down, I picked up the fake spider and showed her the proposal underneath.

She didn’t speak to me for the rest of the night and she’s still not speaking to me this morning.

Proposer’s Blog

Day 97: The Firefly Proposal. Location: Springbrook National Park, Australia.

I was worried about this proposal probably more so than any of the others. Although most of the proposals have relied on outside help, relying on animals is something completely different.

We had gone to a cave, underneath the plunge pool of a waterfall. The waterfall had eroded the land underneath and formed a cave with a hole in the roof where the water tumbled through. It was here that the fireflies lived

I was told this special fruit juice was something the fireflies loved
–
but what if they weren’t hungry, what if they were too tired, what if the moon wasn’t in the right place in the sky? Never work with children and animals they say. So this was either going to work or it wasn’t.

I squirted the juice onto the walls in the shape of the words ‘Marry Me’, then asked Suzie to open her eyes. Nothing happened. Long seconds stretched on. Still. Nothing. Then a few of them obviously caught a whiff of the juice and flew over to it, then a few more. Slowly, slowly, as they feasted on the juice, the words ‘Marry Me’ were clearly seen on the cave walls.

Suzie was stunned and she was clearly thrilled by the beauty of it. I do love surprising her with something beyond the normal proposals.

She said there was still something missing. I’m running out of time and I don’t know what else I can do to get the answer I want. Three more proposals and it’s over.

I read the blog and smiled. The followers of our blog adored the loving comments Harry made about me, they lapped it up and Harry’s blog posts had become more and more loved up as the weeks went by. They were all big romantics and wanted to see me and Harry married off with a whole football team of babies by the end of this trip.

I didn’t know what we were going to tell the bloggers when it was all over, but they would be desperate for some satisfying conclusion and it was never going to end in the way they hoped it would.

I scrolled through some of the older blog entries while we waited for the boat to leave.

It had been one hell of a ride over the last three months. Initially, I’d had reservations about how I was going to protect my heart. A hundred proposals from a man who didn’t love me was a cruel and unwanted punishment but I had become adept at shrugging them off now. And a lot of the proposals had been fun. In trying to find the ultimate proposal, Harry had taken me to the most amazing places and we had done some incredible things. We had stood on top of the world’s tallest buildings, seen the most beautiful beaches and forests, swam in the bluest oceans and eaten the strangest food.

But now there were just three proposals left and my torment would be over.

Harry slid his arm around my shoulders as he sat down next to me in the booth.

‘I’m so hungry I could eat a moose,’ he said, nibbling my shoulder playfully.

‘We may have to go back to Canada for that, not too many moosies round here.’ I deliberately got the word wrong so he would focus on that and not how my whole body had just erupted in goose bumps at his touch. Even now after so long, he still affected me in ways which were mostly X-rated.

Harry laughed, ‘Moosies?’

‘Moosi?’

He scrunched up his nose, knowing I was teasing him.

‘Moss? Mosses? Moses?’

For a split second his eyes scanned down to my lips before he looked away. What was that? He had become a lot more tactile over the last month or so and, coupled with the looks I sometimes caught him giving me, I often convinced myself on an almost daily basis that he returned the feelings for me. But the holiday, our trip together had almost put a block on me telling him how I felt. How awkward would it be to throw myself into his arms after one of his proposals, for him to turn me down? I’d then have to spend every day with him with that horrid awkwardness hanging over us. Plus I kept on waiting for him to utter the words himself. Harry pouring out his heart about his past had been a small but vital turning point in our relationship. Harry had told me everything, he trusted me completely and I loved him all the more for taking that risk and telling me. Surely now he trusted me he could trust me with his heart too. If he felt that way. But there had been nothing from him, no words of encouragement at all.

Part of me was really looking forward to the conversation I’d promised Harry we would have at the end of the trip. Finally I would find out once and for all whether he returned the feelings for me, though part of me was dreading it with an all-encompassing fear.

‘Come on, the boat is leaving, we should go out on the deck.’ Harry stood up and pulled me to my feet. I closed the laptop, slipped it into my bag and followed him out.

We were heading out to spend a few days at the beach resort of Tangalooma on Moreton Island. It was a convoluted boat trip, not taking the most direct route but the one most likely to encounter whales and dolphins.

‘So three more proposals,’ Harry said.

I stared out at the waves, hoping to see some kind of whale, tail, or dark shape. ‘Yep.’

‘We need to do something big for the last one, a spectacular finale. The followers of our blog will be expecting it.’

‘You know I like the small gestures as well as the big ones. What are you suggesting?’

‘Well a wedding would be a good ending, they’d like to see that.’

I saw the humour in his eyes. ‘I should marry you to keep our followers happy?’

‘Just imagine it. The vicar waiting at the end of a candlelit aisle, you walk up and I ask you one final time, “do you want to marry me?” and you say “I do”. That’s pure gold right there. The followers would love that.’

‘And then?’

He was teasing me, I could tell that. ‘We get married, then we have amazing honeymoon sex.’ He waggled his eyebrows, saucily. ‘That’s the law.’

‘And we’d put that in the blog too, all the ins and outs.’

‘Well we want to give our followers a complete picture.’

‘Ewww.’ I swiped him and he laughed. ‘It seems a bit… far-fetched to go to those lengths just to give our followers what they want.’

‘We need to give them something, it can’t just be another no like all the others.’

‘I’ve never said no.’

He looked at me. ‘You’ve never said yes.’

‘Maybe you’re just not asking the right question.’

‘It’s ‘Marry Me’ Suzie, it’s pretty black and white, yes or no.’

‘It’s not how you say it, with all the bells and whistles, it’s what you say that’s important.’

‘So you want a huge declaration of love for the last one? Then I’ll get a yes? The followers will just go mad for that.’ He grinned at me. He wasn’t taking any of this remotely seriously. ‘We could invite all the followers there to see the last one. Then there can be a big kiss, and you can lean in on one foot like they do in the movies.’

A flash suddenly went off in our face and we both turned to see a Japanese man we had spoken to briefly as we were getting on the boat. He was waving a camera in our direction.

I looked back at Harry in confusion. ‘Did he just take our picture?’

‘Probably not, he must be taking it of the view.’ Harry guided me out of the man’s shot but weirdly the man took another photo of us before he disappeared through the crowds of people.

A shout rang out on the other side of the boat. En masse, a whole boatload of people ran to where the shout came from. I could feel the boat tipping under the weight of such a force. Harry grabbed my hand and ran to the other side too.

We stared at the waves, some of the tourists taking pictures of water swells, but if there was a whale there it was concealing itself well.

Another shout rang out from the other side and the boat almost groaned in protest at the mass exodus as we ran to the opposite rail. In a minute the boat would pitch us all into the sea in revenge. There was a definite dark patch this time but it could just have been a patch of seaweed. The beauty of the sea was incredible. The turquoise waters, the sun glinting off its surface. In some parts you could see right down to the sea bed.

A message was announced over the loud speakers.

‘We have a sighting out the rear of the boat, it seems like a humpback is following us.’

I felt the boat pitch as everyone ran towards the rear. Harry nudged me in front of him and with his hand at my back he guided me through the throngs.

People were laughing and clapping and I hurried to see the great humpback myself. As I fought my way through the crowd, I saw what it was that everyone was laughing at. The humpback sighting was in fact a large inflatable whale being towed by the boat. Out of the top was a blue ribbon, supposedly representing a spray of water, and emblazoned onto the material were the words ‘Suzie, Marry Me.’

I smiled. The whale was cute and dorky with googly eyes that rolled in its head as it bounced along in our wake. I quickly pulled my camera out and started firing off shots.

Just as people were turning away to head back to the front, a huge real life humpback whale breached the surface as it leapt out the wake, twisted in the air and flopped back into the waves – sending a deluge of water over the deck of the boat.

There were shouts of excitement as everyone rushed to the barrier to take pictures. But although the whale followed us for a while, giving the passengers ample time to take some shots through the waves, he didn’t breach again.

A quick check on my camera revealed I had taken two winning shots. My proposal endorsed by a real humpback whale.

I turned to go back inside but Harry was there smiling at me.

‘You really do pull out all the stops, don’t you?’

‘You wait till the last one, I have big plans.’

*

Tangalooma was like stepping into a Bounty advert. The long strip of golden sand nestled into the sea of emerald palm trees was a tropical paradise. The only thing missing was the beautiful girl shipwrecked on the island with her incredible non-melting bar of chocolate. If that had been me, the chocolate would have melted all over me before I’d managed to take the first bite.

Our hotel room looked straight out onto the beach. From the open window I could see the fat pelicans waddling up the shore, flapping their great wings as the sun set into the rosy waters beyond.

We had missed most of the beauty arriving on the island after dark the day before, and today we had left early to tour the area and go sand tobogganing – which was easily one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. Though I had brought most of the dunes back with me. It was in my clothes, my hair, my shoes. I managed to clean most of it off me in the shower.

I nibbled on a piece of pineapple but the fruit lodged in my throat as Harry stepped out the bathroom, soaking wet with only a towel wrapped round his hips. Harry had no problem with his nudity or with me seeing him practically naked. I had seen his fine, beautiful bottom many times and I knew I would never tire of seeing his half naked body. It was a glorious daily treat now. Yes it was wrong to perv over my best friend like that but nothing was ever going to happen between us so the odd appreciative glance didn’t do anyone any harm.

As Harry dressed, I quickly diverted my attention to the spectacular view but his reflection was very clearly displayed in the glass in front of me. I tried to focus on the sea and the sky rather than the vision of naked loveliness that was parading around the room behind me.

In the glass, I saw the towel drop as he pulled on a pair of boxer shorts, the tight black kind, that left very little to the imagination. A white shirt was next, covering that beautiful tanned body of his.

I focused on the sea.

I’d not had a proposal today, so I presumed Harry was going to whip one out of his pocket tonight when we went for our meal.

We weren’t going anywhere fancy tonight, just some beach bar that was having a barbeque and served the best burgers and cocktails for miles around. At least that’s what the posters advertising the place said.

I’d worn a sea green floaty sundress, it was one of Harry’s favourites. I loved the way he looked at me in it.

Seeing he was dressed, I turned around and saw that his eyes were already on me. I smoothed out my dress then met his gaze, arching an eyebrow at the way he was unashamedly admiring me.

He smiled. ‘I do love that dress.’

‘It’s a pity they don’t come in your size.’

He laughed as he scooped up my pashmina and carefully wrapped it round my shoulders. ‘Let’s be very clear. I love
you
in that dress.’

I looked up at him as he arranged the pashmina, unsure what to say to that. He offered me his arm and I took it.

‘Come on then Suzie, let’s see what all the fuss is about with these amazing cocktails.’

‘I want Sex on the Beach.’

Harry cleared his throat. ‘That can be arranged.’

My stomach clenched unnecessarily. It was ridiculous to be excited by the dark implied threat in his voice but for a few seconds I let myself enjoy the fantasy – the waves crashing on the beach, the incredible passionate sex – until I realised Harry was speaking.

‘Sorry, what did you say?’

‘I said I prefer the Sloe Comfortable Screw up Against the Wall.’

I laughed. ‘So that’s your plan, get me drunk and take advantage of me?’

‘I was talking about the cocktails, what were you talking about?’ Harry looked at me innocently and I laughed again.

*

‘You know your trouble,’ I waved my hand theatrically through the air to make my point as Harry steered me along the beach back towards the hotel. I was very drunk, I knew that, and my mouth had somehow disengaged itself from my brain and was talking without any consent from me. ‘You don’t realise how bloody amazing you are. How lovely, how kind, how scrumptious, how sweet you are. You just don’t get it. You are just gorgeous. And not in a fit way, inside you are gorgeous. I mean you are fit, very fit, freaking sexy hot fit. But that’s not what makes you beautiful – you are beautiful Harry, inside and out. Where are we going?’