Chapter 1 - If you don't have a plan, nothing can go wrong

"This is starting to feel a lot like our first date," I grunt, tilting my head back to look at the clouds caking together in a spitefully threatening way above the beach. Fat raindrops splash into my face, making me regret the decision to move out of our cover and look up.

I have Willow cornered against a wall under the canopy of a closed ice cream booth. Well, cornered is probably not the right word since I'm trying to protect her from the rain, not eat her alive. She does smell good enough to eat, though. Vanilla and something reminding me of dusky roses.

She always has the best aromas.

"Why?" she asks, frowning up at me when I gaze down at her, following the delicate curve of her nose and her slightly pouty lips, which I know by now are the most amazing things to kiss.

"The rain..."

"It wasn't raining on our first date," she says. "You gave me a ride on your motorcycle. It was my first time, and I was truly terrified, despite the fact that holding onto you felt rather good," she smiles, blushing. Her smile fades, a frown creeping across her brow when she sees the look, I'm giving her.

"That was not a date, Missy! That was the day after we met, and I was giving you a ride to school."

"Hmm," she says, smiling. "You're right; our first date was a couple of days later when we got tangled up together and rolled around on the beach, and your dude started to act up and-"

"Missy, that was not a date either! That was... an accident..."

She's grinning at me now, and I finally realise that she's messing with me.

"Of course, I remember our first date, Hunter," she sighs dreamily, reaching up to touch my cheek.

"I swear, if you now tell me it's that time when you accidentally ate drugged cookies, called me Hun-Hun and had a weird taste test of almost all our male friends, I'm dumping you in the rain."

She giggles, wrapping her arms around my waist and nestling into my chest.

"Every moment with you feels like a date," she murmurs.

Great, now is the right time!

I have my grandmother's ring in the pocket of my light jacket; the beach is deserted... for now... and the rain is easing up to a gentle drizzle. Perfect! Willow doesn't like big productions or drawing too much attention to herself. We're barely visible here in the shelter of the ice cream booth, and yet the setting is completely romantic with seagulls, misty skies, and fresh air; the works.

When she slips her arms from around me, I wrestle the small jewellery box from my pocket, drop to one knee, open it and gaze up into... the smiling face of Bobo, the clown, plastered against the wall - where Willow was standing a second ago - advertising the cherry-choc deluxe cone, the latest speciality of Ice Cream and Stuff. I love ice cream, but really not this much.

"Awesome!"

Willow is darting away over the wet sand to the water's edge, enjoying the misty rain. She is giggling and twirling, the skirt of her dress whipping around her thighs in abandonment. She is so friggin' gorgeous. Looking at her always feels like a physical attack. I lose my breath and at least half my brain cells whenever I see her.

I cannot believe that almost seven years have passed since I saw her standing in the foyer of my parents' house, looking like Little Bo Peep who got lost while searching for her sheep, with her floral dress, her pink cardigan and those ridiculous ballet-style shoes of hers.

"Okay," I sigh, closing the box and shoving it back into my jacket pocket. I get to my feet and run after her, picking her up into a hug when I reach her. She happily wraps her arms around my neck, closing her lips over mine in a kiss cooled by rain and wind, but warmed with love and tenderness.

The rain has stopped, and when we reluctantly end our breathless kiss, I see people slowly trickling onto the beach from wherever they'd been hiding.

Damn! There are too many people now. Willow would hate it if I proposed to her now unless I do it stealthily, without drawing attention. If not, she might run into the sea and swim all the way home.

"Come," I tell her, taking her hand, pulling her towards the stairs leading up to the walkway and the building beyond it.

'We're leaving?" I can see that she is disappointed. We've left our shoes in the car, and she loves walking on the beach right after rain.

"No," I smile, stopping to pull her into my arms again. "Just thought we could get some coffee from Swift Convenience. Do you want some?"

"Yes, please."

She is looking up at me, smiling again, her grey eyes sparkling, and now the air is too thick to enter my lungs, leading to an oxygen shortage in my brain, blocking any creative or clever ideas I could possibly come up with to romantically slip the ring onto her finger and ask her to marry me.

I want today to be memorable and special for her.

I try to say something that will at least set the mood and finally hear some words struggling their way out of my mouth. "And chocolate-peanut butter ice cream cones."

Wow! You're off to a great start, Hunter Drake!

♫

Inspiration Strikes

We have our coffee in take-away cups (Swift's makes the best coffee) and our cones, but at this rate, we're going to be stuck in this store while the weather and mood change and the beach becomes crowded once more.

I love Ronan, the store owner, cashier and also one of my best friends, but right now, I want to toss him over my shoulder and go lock him in the ice cream fridge. He is grinning his boy-next-door grin that hasn't changed in all the years I've known him, chatting up a storm with my soon-to-be fiancée... if I can get her out of here...

"That's great!" I finally chime in. "We really need to go; coffee is getting cold, ice cream is getting hot... We'll catch up with you later, okay?"

"Sure," Ronan says, giving me a suspicious look, his ever-present smile telling me that he knows that I'm up to something. Well, he knows that I've been trying for weeks to find the perfect moment to propose and keep on messing it up. I smile back, acknowledging his perceptiveness and take Willow's hand in mine.

"Oh!" I exclaim, struck by sudden inspiration, when I walk into one of the many red ribbons dangling from balloons floating along the ceiling. I let go of the idea of putting the ring in Willow's ice cream, I no longer need to worry about the range of possible bad outcomes, from Willow choking on it to breaking one of her teeth.

"And I'm taking this," I tell Ronan, grabbing the string with my hand holding the coffee and our bag of ice creams. I have a rule about ice cream; when I buy one, I take as many of its friends as I can. A love of ice cream is one of the scores of things Willow and I have in common.

"That's what they're there for." The guy loves giving away free stuff. He is potentially the worst businessman in history, and yet, this shop has tripled in success since his father signed it over to him.

It's Valentine's Day, and being Ronan, he'd pumped a gazillion red balloons full of helium and set them free in his store, turning the ceiling into a red bubbly cloud. I tug the balloon free from its space amongst its many twins, watching as the others shift to close the gap.

"Let's sit here," Willow suggests when we reach the patio next to the store, covered in brightly coloured tables and umbrellas. We make ourselves at home at one of them, drinking our coffee and eating ice cream... something that might seem counterproductive, as the one cools you down while the other heats you up, but we've always loved doing this.

Being very covert, I slip the ring from my jacket pocket and its housing and tie it to the balloon's ribbon. And now I'm not entirely sure what to do. I think I'll say my speech while she sees the ring and unties it, and then I'll slip it onto her finger, and voila, we'll be able to call all our friends and family, be engaged and get married as soon as we can arrange it!

Yes, I'm in a hurry to start our lives together!

This is perfect! It's a combination of so many of our favourite things, with just enough corny sh#t to make it romantic and memorable.

"Here, this is for you," I say, handing Willow the balloon.

"Huh?" she says, turning to look at me, and reaches out to take the string, but she's holding her ice cream cone in one hand and her coffee cup in the other and misses my point, and the string and off goes the balloon! I watch in frozen horror as it cheerfully bobs along the underside of the umbrella once, twice, three times before finding freedom and taking flight, carrying the ring with it.

"Oh! Sh#t!" I yell, dropping my ice cream and jumping to my feet, sending my chair clattering to the stone-tiled patio.

"Hunter? I'm sorry! I'll go get you another one!" I hear Willow shout, but I'm running, keeping my eye on the wayward balloon floating around the corner of Swift Convenience, heading for the beach. I follow it, thanking Ronan for caring enough about kids crying about losing their balloons to never fill them with enough helium to let them fly too high. He once told me how he calculates these things so that the balloons are just too heavy to reach outer space.

Still, there's a breeze, and the balloon keeps on eluding me, and I round the corner of the Swift Building to see my close friend, Kyle's three-year-old little boy staring up at it, where it's caught under the balcony of the first apartment above the store. It is too high to grab but not too high to bring down with a stone... or two...

"Hey, Job," I say, joining him in his assessment of the situation.

Easy! I'll just pop the balloon, grab my ring and go tie it to another one. There are a lot of balloons in the shop; I can try this as many times as I want. No, I've never been good at learning from my mistakes. I'm more of a try and try again, pounce on it and pound it into submission kind of guy. Willow calls it stubborn; I call it tenacious... and she's supposed to be the one with the superior vocabulary...

It takes me three tries before the stone I hit it with is sharp enough to pop the balloon, and now the little boy is crying, and his mother is glaring at me. She is scary when she glares.

"I thought you were trying to help him get his balloon, Hunter!" she scowls as I drag the string tied to the deflated red rubber from the shrubs and am about to explain the situation to them when I realise... there's no ring!

"Shoot! I'm sorry, Buddy, I thought it was mine," I kneel in front of the toddler and put a hand on his head. "Hey, Ro has soooooooo many in there, he'll give you another one. I know he will. Tell him I killed yours, okay?"

"It's dead?!"

Oh, great, I've made his crying worse. Awesome, Hunter, you're really nailing this proposal thing!

"Kill?" his mother says, and now I remember how she always gave me this exact look whenever I was being too noisy behind her in the biology class. "Really, Hunter?!"

"No, Bud, it wasn't alive, to begin with..." I try to explain.

Rolling her eyes, Blanche grunts in a dismissive huff and takes her son's hand. "Come on, Job, we'll go get you a new one. Uncle Hunter has lost his marbles."

"He had marbles?"

"That's debatable..."

"And ask Willow for an ice cream when you pass her!" I call after them, and at the mention of a snack, Job is grinning at me again. He is his father's son, after all...

I rise to my feet from my second time kneeling in front of someone who is not Willow and turn away from watching the pair disappear around the corner of the building, heading to where I left Willow. I now have no idea where my balloon went!

Oh, I see balloons... many, many red balloons, but they are all being held onto by kids.

Which one of these little buggers has my ring?

♫

Stealthy it is!

"Hunter, why are you stealing these children's balloons?"

I look up from inspecting a balloon string, to see Willow standing in front of me, a puzzled frown knitting her brows. She pushes wispy strands of her gold-brown hair off her face, waiting for an answer I cannot think of.

"I'm not," I say, and then I realise that I'm standing under an umbrella of red balloons, clutching a collection of balloon strings in my hand, and there is a small crowd of children gathered around me, watching me with tiny faces filled with expectation.

Oh, hell, they must think this is some kind of game!

I know most of the town's kids. I've had to babysit quite a few of them through the years and often end up playing with them on the beach or in the parks where they hang out with their families. One of our closest friends, Paisley, calls me a babe magnet because I'm always up to my eyebrows in babies of all ages.

What can I say? I love kids, and for some reason, they love me.

"Ah, you caught me," I smile and shrug, handing the balloons back to them one by one.

"Weren't you going to fly with them?" Debbie asks, popping the tip of her tongue in the gap where her front teeth should be. I pat her head, messing up her bangs and shaking my head.

"I'm too heavy, and your uncle doesn't put enough helium in those things to carry a person."

"I'll talk to him about that," she says in the same determined way I've often seen coming from her mother.

"Maybe it will carry me!" This is coming from five-year-old Joe Winston, and he just might be scrawny enough to pull it off with enough balloons.

"No!" Willow and I say in unison, and then I spot it! My balloon! Drifting over the shrubby growth along the walkway down by the beach. I take off, leaving Willow to explain to Joe and the kids cheering him on why trying to fly with balloons will not be a good idea.

I have a ring to catch!

I'm bundu bashing, not caring about snakes or other dangers, crashing through the growth, keeping my eye on the evasive balloon.

"Hunter, what are you doing?!" I hear Willow call out, running after me, causing me to hesitate. She is very brave, following me into this mess of shrubs and fallen tree trunks, boulders and scratchy branches. Normally, she is quite afraid to venture off the path.

I'm about to return to her when I see that an old dead husk of a tree has captured the obnoxious balloon. It is stuck in its top branches. Wasting no time, taking full advantage of the help I've been given, I dash to the tree and within a few moves, I'm as high as I can possibly go. High enough to grab hold of the string, giddy with relief, to see the ring glistening on it.

I pull and tug and yank, using all the force I can to rip the balloon free from its resting place above my head. I finally hear it pop with an explosion strong enough to make the earth move, and then I realise that I'm not experiencing a balloon-induced earthquake. My movements made the branch I'm standing on snap!

I'm falling, clutching tightly to the string of the balloon. It's not that far to the ground, I reassure myself as I'm pummelled and beaten by breaking branches on my way down, as if I'm running an especially painful victory gauntlet. I finally reach the ground with a grunt of pain.

"Hunter!" Willow is kneeling beside me, and I'm a bit disappointed because I want to be the one who is kneeling, but I doubt that I'll be able to do that right now. My entire body is one bruised mass of pain, and gazing up into her worried face, I can see that the edges of my vision are starting to become foggy. I can hear someone beyond my view calling for an ambulance. Good idea.

I've passed out enough times in my life to recognise the signs.

"You're hurt!"

"Only... my dignity..."

"Well, your dignity is bleeding a little..."

"Missy," I smile, taking the hand she is holding up in front of my face, asking me how many fingers I'm seeing, and slip the ring, still tied to the string, onto one of the hundreds of fingers she's holding up, not even caring if it's the right hand or the right finger. She'll understand. "I love you."

Willow freezes, her eyes widening as she recognizes my grandmother's ring... her ring now.

"Hunter," she breathes, her eyes filling with tears. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Yes," I grunt, still smiling at her, pleased that I've finally managed to pull off a very stealthy proposal. I can read her answer written all over her concerned yet happy face, but I still want to say the words before the ambulance I hear in the distance reaches us. Wrestling through the pain, struggling to keep control of my breathing long enough, I finally say the words I know she's longing to hear.

"Missy," I gasp, fighting the urge to slip into blissful unconsciousness. "I think I've busted a rib."

♪♫♪

Humor Winner - Love on the Page

Copied from Announcement by Humor | Ambassadors

9 April 2023

Hey there fellow humor enthusiasts!

We are thrilled to announce the winner of our "Love On The Page" contest, which was held back in February. But first, we want to congratulate each and every participant who brought their A-game and made the contest a laugh riot.

The entries we received were all hilarious and witty, but there was one submission that stood out from the rest. Our winner is none other than MaggieOHighley, whose letter and short story entry had us rolling on the floor with laughter.

https://www.wattpad.com/story/334640106-by-the-way-this-is-a-love-letter-very-short-story

https://www.wattpad.com/story/334649113-proposal-perfection-short-story

MaggieOHighley, you are a master of humor, and we are delighted to declare you as the winner of our "Love On The Page" contest. Your prize will be arriving in the DM soon.

Stay tuned for more announcements, and until then, keep the humor flowing!

https://www.wattpad.com/story/124101442-the-last-laugh-humor-contests

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