Oops, Wrong Bride? Fine. No Wedding. novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: On the Creek

On Sunday at dusk I walked down the dock in my flour-dusted jeans, because nobody had told me to change.

Emmy had told me not to change. Twice. Very loudly.

That should have tipped me off.

The boat was tied at the end of the dock with the sails down.

Somebody had wound white string lights all the way up the mast and along the rail.

Hayes stood on the deck in a clean white shirt with the sleeves rolled. Not his work shirt. A real one, ironed.

His hair was wet. He'd shaved the edges of his beard.

"You ironed," I said.

"The crew ironed. I supervised."

"Hayes. What's going on?"

He held out his hand and helped me over the rail.

On the little cockpit table sat a lemon square on a paper napkin. One. From Sweetgrass.

"Did you steal that from my case?"

"I paid for it. Two dollars. The register girl made me."

I laughed and sat down.

He didn't sit.

He stood in front of me with the creek turning orange behind him, and the shrimp boats coming home, and gulls going over.

His hands were shaking.

I'd never once seen Hayes Mattox's hands shake. Not with a mallet, not with a crowbar, not with his mother.

"I'm going to say this badly," he said.

"Okay."

"I've been trying to say it all week and I keep dropping things."

"I noticed the mug."

"Everybody noticed the mug." He took a breath. "Liza, I sat at the far end of my mother's table for three years and watched you be kind to people who didn't deserve it. Then I watched you pick seventy-nine pearls out of the dirt and stand up taller than anybody on that street."

My throat went tight.

"I don't want to watch anymore," he said. "I want to be in it. Every day. The four a.m. ovens and the lemon squares and your terrible jokes."

"My jokes are great."

"Your jokes are terrible, and I want every one of them."

He went down on one knee on the deck of the boat he'd never let anybody else on.

He opened his hand.

There was no box. Just a ring sitting in his palm.

A plain gold band. No diamond. No solitaire his mother had picked out.

He turned it so the last of the light caught the inside.

A tiny bee was engraved there.

My bee. The one from the sign.

"That's what you were doing Tuesday," I said. My voice cracked straight down the middle.

"A man on King Street did the bee. I drew it for him four times. Emmy got me your size off your piping rings."

"Emmy knew?"

"Emmy's known since Wednesday. It's been killing her."

From somewhere up the yard, very faintly, someone screamed into a dish towel.

I laughed, and then I was crying, and then both at once.

"Will you marry me, Liza Gatling?"

I didn't make him wait.

"Yes," I said. "Yes. Obviously yes."

He slid the band onto my finger.

It fit.

The whole yard erupted.

The crew had been hiding behind the travel lift.

Emmy came running down the dock screaming, with Biscuit hopping behind her.

The man with the gray ponytail blew an air horn.

A shrimp boat out on the creek blew its horn back.

Then another.

Hayes pulled me up off the bench and kissed me while the whole creek honked at us.

Much later, when the crew had gone home and Emmy had hugged me nine separate times, we sat on the deck in the dark.

I turned the ring on my finger.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"What kind of wedding do you want?"

He didn't even think about it.

"Whatever kind you'll show up to," he said.

I laughed so hard I had to put my forehead on his shoulder.

Then I stood up and held out my hand.

"Take me home," I said. "Your home. The one on stilts."

He was on his feet before I finished.

I didn't make it two steps inside before I had him against the door.

My hands went to the first button of his shirt.

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