Dean isn’t speaking to me. It’s been two days since the non-proposal, and he’s officially giving me the silent treatment. To make matters worse, we had early morning shoots at work these past couple of days, which meant waking up at four a.m. to make it to the studio for my five o’clock call times. Since Dean doesn’t leave for school until eight, he was sound asleep both mornings when I left. And both afternoons when he got home from work, he refused to talk to me.
He’s acting like a child. He won’t even try to understand my reasoning, or acknowledge that maybe I’m not ready for marriage and engagements and all that grown-up stuff.
So after forty-eight hours of living in a mausoleum, when Trevor texts to invite me to a club that night with some of our costars, I’m grateful for the distraction. I tell him I’m in, and we arrange for his ride share to grab me on the way to the club in Soho.
Of course, the moment Dean finds me in our bedroom slipping into a sparkly dress is the moment he suddenly decides he’s speaking to me again.
“Where are you going?” he mutters, leaning in the doorway of our walk-in closet.
“To a club. With Trevor, Seraphina, and Malcolm. And maybe Evie. Do you want to come?”
“No.” His stony gaze tracks me as I slide into a pair of silver heels.
“You sure?” I push.
“Yes.”
I’m going to rip my hair out if he keeps this up. Gritting my teeth, I try to broach the subject for the fifty billionth time. “Can we please talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about.” Dean shrugs and walks off.
“There’s a ton to talk about!” I chase after him as he leaves the bedroom.
He stops, sparing me a cursory glance over his shoulder. “I proposed and you said no,” he says flatly.
“No, I didn’t even let you propose. I told you not to.”
“That’s even worse, Allie!” he growls. “Like, I went to your dad and everything! Do you realize what a fucking chump I feel like?” He scrapes both hands through his hair.
My jaw drops. This is the first I’m hearing of it. He hadn’t mentioned the “going to my dad” part the night he tried to propose. “You asked my dad for his blessing?”
“Of course! That’s how serious I am about this relationship!” He glares at me. “Apparently I’m the only one.”
“Oh, that is not fair. You know I’m serious about this relationship. I love you. I’m in it for the long haul. I just don’t want to deal with—”
“Deal with?”
“That came out wrong.” I take a breath. “Look, we just got back from someone else’s wedding weekend and that was chaotic and stressful. I don’t want that for myself right now. I don’t want to plan a wedding or—”
“We don’t have to get married right away,” he angrily interjects.
“Then what’s the point of getting engaged? I don’t get why you—” I stop. “You know what, I’m not having this argument again.”
“Fine. You don’t want to get married. Whatever. Have fun tonight.”
With that, he stalks toward the front hall of our apartment, where he grabs a sky-blue windbreaker from the hook on the wall.
“Where are you going?” I call after him.
“Out.”
“Oh, that’s mature.” I clench my fists against my sides. “You’re acting like a jerk, you know.”
“I don’t care.”
Then he’s out the door.
At the club, in the VIP lounge amidst strobe lights and deafening dance music, I spend more time texting Hannah than I do paying attention to the members of my group. And I can’t even claim it’s a helpful conversation. None of my chats with Hannah since the wedding have been too productive.
Every time I’ve asked her if she’s taken the test yet, she says no.
Every time I ask if she’s told Garrett, she also says no.
Every time she asks if Dean and I have made up, I say no.
It’s been an alarming amount of monosyllabic answers to some monumental questions.
Tonight, though, Hannah seems to have plenty to say to me. After telling her about Dean storming out, I’m startled to discover she’s not on my side.
HANNAH: I mean…can you blame the guy? He planned a whole proposal and you just…you know…
I glower at my phone.
ME: No, I don’t know.
HER: You hurt him.
HER: And embarrassed him.
HER: (Don’t shoot the messenger.)
ME: He could have spared himself that embarrassment if he’d just listened to me during the DOZENS of talks we had about this very subject. I told him I’m not ready.
HER: Yeah, but it’s Dean. You know Dean. Mr. Impulsive. When he’s in, he’s all in.
She’s right. When Dean decided he was into me, he kicked into full pursuit. And after I broke up with him at the end of senior year, he went above and beyond to prove to me he was growing up and changing. He’s been an incredible partner ever since. I love him with every fiber of my soul.
So why can’t you get engaged to him? a voice pushes.
“Allie! Enough! Am I going to have to throw your phone in this huge bucket of champagne?” Trevor says impatiently.
He’s not joking. We have an actual bucket at our booth, filled with four expensive bottles of bubbly. It cost an obscene amount, but Trevor insisted on treating. He likes to spend money.
“Seriously, what’s going on with you?” Seraphina’s dark eyes sweep over me in concern. She plays my older sister on the show, but despite three seasons of working closely together, we never became close in real life. Sera’s very serious, and our senses of humor don’t particularly mesh.
With that said, I realize she might be the best person to seek advice from. The thing about Seraphina is, she’s been married since she was sixteen years old. Yep. Sixteen. She had to get special permission from her parents to marry her high school boyfriend, but they’ve been together for fifteen years now.
“I’m in a fight with my boyfriend,” I reveal.
“Nooo! The Golden God?” Malcolm gasps. His character on The Delaneys, our youngest brother, is dark and edgy. A heroin-addict turned mob enforcer who broods his way through every scene. In real life, Malcolm couldn’t be more different.
“What did you do?” he accuses me.
“Why do you assume it’s my fault?”
“Because a man like that does not err.”
“That’s not true,” Trevor argues. “What’s the thing they always say? To err is human.”
“He’s not human!” Malcolm retorts, before hopping on the plush semicircle bench of our booth. He proceeds to channel Oprah-era Tom Cruise and jump up and down like a maniac. “He’s a beautiful god sent from above to dazzle us mortals with his sheer masculine beauty!”
I mean, I can’t argue with that. Dean is quite dazzling.
“What happened?” Seraphina rises from her spot, moving away from Malcolm’s bouncing legs to sit beside me.
“He tried to set up a whole romantic proposal, and I wouldn’t let him go through with it,” I confess.
Then I swallow a groan, because saying it out loud sounds ludicrous.
Their expression confirms my suspicion. I ignore Malcolm’s, because he would look just as horrified if I turned down Dean’s offer to buy me a Subway sandwich. But Trevor and Seraphina are both eyeing me like I’d gone insane.
“Aren’t you madly in love with him?” Trevor asks blankly.
“Yes.”
“Then why wouldn’t you let him propose?” demands Sera.
After failing to successfully explain it to Dean, I attempt to do a better job at laying out my feelings to my costars. “I’ve always been a planner,” I tell them. “And I’m definitely a relationship girl. But I see relationships as…I don’t know, picture a ladder. The relationship is a ladder and the rungs are all the steps.” My tone turns a bit grumbly. “First comes love. Then comes engagement. Then comes marriage, and then the stupid baby in the dumb baby carriage.”
Trevor bursts out laughing. “Your opinion of children is inspiring.”
“Sorry. I’m just cranky because Dean’s not speaking to me. But you know what I mean.”
Sera’s answering smile is kind. “Well, sure. But here’s the thing. Yes, those are natural steps in most relationships—”
“Not in mine. I’m polyamorous,” Trevor interjects. “Our steps are wild.”
She ignores him. “But you get to decide how big the ladder is. How much space there is between the rungs.”
“That would be a poorly constructed ladder if the rungs weren’t equally spaced,” I point out, furrowing my brow. “How would you be able to climb it properly?”
“Oh my God, it’s just an analogy,” she says, laughing. “All I’m saying is, you don’t have to look at it as rung one equals engagement and rung two equals marriage. Maybe the first rung is the engagement, but then you climb for a bit and marriage comes on rung five. It’s not set in stone. And just because you had this plan for yourself…” Her gaze softens, while her tone becomes firm but still compassionate. “You’re not the only person on the ladder, Allie. Clearly, he doesn’t view the rungs the same way you do. You’re on the same ladder, climbing to the same place, but Dean’s rungs are in different positions and he’s on shaky ground. You feel secure on the ladder, but he doesn’t. He needs you guys to be on the same rung.”
Malcolm, who’s seated again, stares at her in awe. “Whoa. That is deep.”
“Like the ocean.” Trevor nods.
Oh God, is she right? Is this about more than Dean being his usual impulsive self? I assumed he was proposing because he’s spontaneous and was simply jumping on the wedding bandwagon. But what if this is about Dean needing a stronger commitment, needing to know we’re moving forward together?
“Gang!”
Jarred from my thoughts, I glance over at Elijah’s approach. He’s a friend of Malcolm’s who tagged along with us tonight and has spent most of the night bragging how his father owns a chain of upscale hotels up and down the Atlantic seaboard. For fifteen full minutes after we’d been introduced, he’d talked my ear off about the Azure Hotel Group until Trevor finally rescued me.
Luckily, Elijah is incapable of sitting still for long. The guy keeps darting off to the bathroom to do lines of cocaine. I’m not just guessing either. Every time he’d left the booth, he winked and said, “Gonna powder my nose. Literally!”
“Why sssso sssserious?” Elijah says in a bad impression of the Joker. “We’re at the club!”
Trevor fills him in. “We’re giving Allie relationship advice.”
Elijah pushes past the guys to plant himself on my other side. When his jean-clad thigh presses against my bare one, I very obviously shift closer to Sera. He’s been flirting with me all night and doesn’t seem to notice I’m not transmitting a single come-hither vibe.
“Here’s my advice: dump the loser and go home with me tonight.” He flashes a slimy smile.
“No, but thank you for the offer,” I answer politely.
“Aw come on, don’t be like that.” His hand creeps toward my knee.
Malcolm does me a solid by leaning over and smacking it away. “Elijah,” he chastises. “Behave!”
“Do I ever?” he drawls before giving me another lewd smile, this one involving his tongue poking out the side of his mouth.
And that’s when I realize something.
What if I was sharing a ladder with this guy?
What if, in some horrible alternate universe, there’s an Allie Hayes dating a creepy cokehead who’s more likely to sell the ladder for drugs than want to climb it together?
Meanwhile, this Allie Hayes is moping because her boyfriend isn’t following the specific steps of her plan?
If a proposal makes Dean feel more secure on our relationship ladder, and if I already know I’m going to marry that man one day, then what the hell is wrong with me?
A lightbulb goes off above my head, flashing the words: I’m such a fucking idiot.
“I need to text Dean.” I sigh, reaching for my phone again. This time, none of my friends threaten to drown the phone in the champagne bucket. Sera’s faint smile tells me she knows I’ve seen the error of my ways.
ME: Where are you?
Then, realizing he might ignore the text, I add two words I’m certain he won’t ignore.
ME: I’m worried.
DEAN: All good here.
I know him well. No matter how pissed he might be at me, Dean would never allow me to worry.
ME: Where’s here?
HIM: Newark.
ME: ?
There’s a short delay, as if he’s debating whether I deserve his precious explanation. I’m not annoyed, though. The guilt in my stomach churns harder the more I picture my amazing, sexy Dean alone on his wobbly ladder.
HIM: G & Logan played the NJ Devils tonight. We’re in Logan’s room raiding the minibar now.
ME: Oh nice. What hotel?
HIM: Azure Tower near the Prudential Center.
ME: Any idea when you’ll be home?
HIM: Not late. They have an early flight in the morning.
HIM: We done with 20 questions?
Ouch. But I deserve it.
Since I don’t want to start any important conversations via text, I guess I have to wait until I see him at home later. He’s with his friends, anyway, and—
I gasp.
“Elijah!” I half-shout.
The smarmy, drowning-in-cologne guy beside me looks thrilled to be acknowledged. “What is it, gorgeous?”
“You said your family owns the Azure Group? Does that include Azure Tower in Newark?”
“Damn straight it does.”
Oh my God. It’s serendipity.
He waggles his eyebrows. “Why? You want a private tour?”
Gag. “No, but…” Excitement tickles my spine. “I need to ask a huge favor.”
