Proposal

"You don't have to do this."
She put her hand on his forearm and squeezed it gently. She knew how terrified he was, and couldn't help but feel powerless to assuage his trepidation.
He knew she loved him. He couldn't stand the thought of embarrassing her, or worse, losing her altogether, but he knew that it was something he had to do. No ifs, ands, or buts.
"I have to."
"Baby, you know I love you no matter what, right?"
She was as sincere as she could be, and he knew he could take her at her word, but there was still that familiar nuance in her tone; that little hint that implied drastic consequences should he consider taking a recess from honor and integrity.
"I know you do. And you know I love you," he paused, unwittingly implying a silent conjunction.
"But you're scared. I know."
The car suddenly felt quite a bit smaller inside.
He was always taken aback at how much she could say with just a few words.
She was patient, but her patience had its limits. She loved him unconditionally, but there were still things that she was unwilling to tolerate from him.
He knew she was right too. Her strength of character and unwavering integrity were some of the main reasons he had fallen in love with her in the first place; well, that and her mesmerizing smile, which she had graced him with when she had caught him admiring her figure at the gym.
He knew he'd never be able to recover from disappointing her. He had to do the right thing. He had to be a man, for once!
"I know how much this means to you. I'll do it. I will."
She smiled, acknowledging his courage.
"You can do it, baby. I believe in you!"
She always had a way of making him feel like he could do anything, but he knew that she expected him to act like it.
She glanced at the clock on the dashboard.
"Ooh! I have to run or I'm going to be late."
"Oh yeah, you'd better get going," he said, knowing that it was primarily his fault that she was running behind, "Let me get the door for you."
He quickly jumped out of the car and ran over to the passenger side to open her door.
As he helped her up he didn't bother hiding his appreciation for her office attire. His raised eyebrow and suggestive smile hinted at visions of her playing the role of his secretary in a sordid office affair.
He was almost jealous of the senior partners in her firm, always getting to see her in those sexy corporate skirt suits, those dark stockings, those expensive high heeled shoes that made her stand almost eye to eye with him, and those glasses that said, "I'm not just sexier than you, but smarter too!"
Almost.
He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it gently.
"Milady."
She feigned a timid curtesy.
"Always the gentleman," she said in a perfectly regal accent. "Would that I could tarry further with my love, but alas!"
"Alas!" He laughed and as he did he felt some of his tension subside.
"I'd better go," she said, returning to her own Midwestern voice.
"Me too. I have a bit of a drive."
She smiled again.
"Kiss me!"
It took him by surprise. Once she was made up and ready for work she usually didn't like to risk smudging her lipstick. She had to look her best in the court room so he couldn't exactly blame her for it.
She kissed him passionately, running her fingers through the hair on the back of his head. He loved that and she knew it.
Once she knew she had rendered him speechless she looked him in the eyes and said, "You go get 'em, baby!"
He smiled knowing he could die a happy man, if he could make it through the day.
As he turned to get back in the car, she slapped him on the backside. Before her could turn around and say anything she was already scurrying up the stairs to the building's entrance.
He wondered at her ability to make a gesture both literal and figurative at the same time. She was out of his league and he knew it.
He certainly hadn't been looking forward to the drive, let alone having something like feelings of inadequacy added to the emotional stew that would be brewing the whole way there.
Regardless, he knew that he could not put it off any longer. His future depended on the next few hours.
As he pulled away he turned on the radio to try and find some music to calm his nerves. His favorite station was broadcasting some mindless call-in talk show thing about the latest pop star scandal. Apparently the little girl's father had shot her manager for getting a little too intimate with his protege.
He grunted in disgust and switched to the next preset station.
Love Hurts, by Nazareth was playing on what was supposed to have been a rock station. He hated that waste of vinyl. To his ears it was like fingernails on a blackboard. His face almost instinctively contorted into a grimace.
"More like this song hurts!"
The R&B station was playing Marvin Gaye's Sexual Healing.
"God, no!" he said aloud as he quickly turned the radio off.
The last thing he needed on his mind while heading into the grinder was that weekend in Cancun when the two of them had barely left the hotel room for two whole days after dancing to that song.
He couldn't afford to be distracted. Not today. Everything was riding on this.
He was about to take the business to the next level, but he had had to reinvest all of the profits back into it to keep it afloat during the development phases, and even though the market was primed for it, including some extremely interested and well funded investors, he didn't have anything tangible yet to show for all of his efforts.
The mange was going to see had followed his progress, sure, but he was a real hard ass; a retired marine colonel who had made his fortune by designing a lighter, more effective material than Kevlar for body armor and then selling the patent to the highest bidder; with a royalty clause in the deal.
A "bullets for breakfast" genius.
This was going to be the toughest sell of his life.
His life hinged on the success of a glorified concept: a web-based network security and virtualization tool that performed a lot of the same tasks as the other major competitors, only much, much more reliably. Of course, explaining the improvements to an IT layman was no small task, and much of the marketing plan consisted of convincing investors that there was a lot of money to be made by providing the service free of charge to the end user. The rest of it hinged on preaching the value of a free product to users who are used to overpaying for software.
He was a dreamer, and knew that no one likes dreamers, especially not in the business world. No one but Sarah, of course, who always encouraged him to pursue his passion. He hated having to lean on the income from her practice even though she had told him on countless occasions that it was what she wanted him to do until the business took off.
"Sarah," he thought aloud.
She had seen him at his worst. Inconsolably grief stricken, he had turned to alcohol after he lost his sister to leukemia. Sarah, never left his bedside after he wrapped his car around that old oak tree on Thornbush Trail. She had held his hand the entire time, and even helped him with his physical therapy.
She had been there for his most embarrassing moments too. He laughed under his breath as he remembered that stupid baby blue tux he wore when he picked her up for the senior prom. With all of the preparations and adjustments he had forgotten to zip up his fly. He could still hear her father's voice when he greeted him at the door.
"Can I help you, son? Or did you already help yourself on the way over here?"
She had stood by him when he quit his job to start his own business. She always told him that she believed in him, and after hearing it enough from her had finally started to believe it himself.
He couldn't remember a time before he loved her. Sure, he had dated a few girls, had enough experiences before they met to know the difference between good sex and great sex, but none of them had ever made him want to be a better man; to aspire to become something greater than his own expectations.
He wanted nothing more than to make her proud of him. Sure, she told him every chance she got that she was proud of him no matter what he did with his life, but he wanted her as speechless as she made him.
About an hour into the drive his nerves had finally settled to a manageable level.
He knew he had what it takes to run a successful business, an empire, even, and that the climate was ideal for his upcoming launch. He knew his product would revolutionize the market, and that with the right investment of time, effort, and capital, he and Sarah, hell, their grandchildren, would be set for life.
He knew that in every venture there were pivotal moments; events that test a man's character and resolve.
He knew that this was one of those key moments.
There was only one thing standing between him and his dreams: that hard ass old marine, who just happened to be filthy, stinking rich.
As he approached the highway exit he had to fight to suppress that butterflies in the stomach feeling.
"You can do this!"
If Sarah said it, it had to be true.
He repeated it to himself as he turned into the gated community where the old bastard lived; and again as he pulled up to his driveway.
He sat motionless for a moment after turning off the engine.
He whispered, "You can do this!"
He had to hear himself say it.
It was too late to back down. The old jarhead knew he was coming anyway.
The doorbell rang loud enough to startle the dogs he kept in the back yard. One of them, the oldest by the sound of its bark, started baying uncontrollably.
From inside he heard a gruff voice yell out as it neared the door, "Shut the hell up, Bear!"
"Great..." he thought to himself.
The door opened.
There stood 6'2", 180 pounds, and 65 years of straight-faced, battle hardened, cold as ice, full metal jacket, meanness. The man looked like he pressed his briefs before sunrise every morning.
In a voice that would make old Clint Eastwood wet his pants, he stated dreadfully matter-of-factly, "Jesse."
"Sir." The judge who had temporarily revoked his license after the accident couldn't have been a tenth as imposing.
"Well, are you going to come in or do I have to ask politely?"
He never knew how to answer him and figured it would be best if he just made his way inside.
"Have a seat," he grunted, motioning toward the living room couch.
Jesse complied without a sound, though he had to fight the urge to blurt out, "Sir, yes sir!"
The old hard ass walked past him and sat in what, by the collection of coasters and remote controls on the table next to it, must have been his favorite chair.
As he did, his adorable little doll of a wife came in from the kitchen.
"You boys want something to drink?"
She didn't look a day over 45, but knew that she had been with that man for over 40 years. Even the old coot couldn't help but soften up around her.
"Sure, honey, a couple of ambers from the last batch, please!"
It was almost cute. Almost.
"So how's business, son?"
He didn't mince words, that was certain.
Jesse, swallowed hard and did his best to put on his business face.
"Well, sir," he paused momentarily, collecting his foggy thoughts, "almost everything is on track for the September launch."
"Almost?" He folded his hands together, clearly expecting an explanation.
"Well, sir," he started again, feeling like he should probably be saluting or standing at attention, "we're presenting to our major investors next month, and if all goes according to plan we'll be right on target."
"That's a big 'if' there, son," he said raising an eyebrow in what Jesse was convinced was something closely related to condescension.
He almost choked, but breathed a sigh of relief as Mary walked in with two very large frosted mugs full of some of the most delicious looking beer he had ever laid eyes on.
"Thank you, sweetheart," the old hard ass said to her with a sly wink that said, "I'll deal with you later."
"Thank you, ma'am," Jesse said as he lifted the mug to his lips.
"Now, don't you call me that, Jesse," she scolded, "I'm no marine!"
"Could have fooled me, Mare!" chuckled the colonel.
"Oh, pff!" she scoffed as she headed back out to the kitchen.
There was a brief moment of silence while the two men sipped their beers.
"How do you like it, son?"
"Oh, the beer," stuttered Jesse, "it's great, sir!"
It was the best beer he had ever tasted. He vowed to remind himself to ask where he bought it after he took care of business.
"Brewed it myself!"
He nearly spat it out all over the hardwood floor.
"Best beer, ever, sir!" He knew he sounded like a suck up but he was already looking forward to round two.
"Damn right!" the old colonel announced with a look of confident satisfaction.
He continued almost without hesitation, "So, about this big 'if', what if," he emphasized, "those investors back out of the deal?"
Jesse knew that there was always that chance, that at the last minute they might back down and leave him high and dry; that he'd have to start looking for backers again. Anything could happen, especially in fluid intellectual property markets. But there was that little trivial fact that Sarah's firm represented the investors and they loved her for all that she had done for them in the past two years that she had handled their case load.
Sure, the old marine was rich, and hell if it hadn't crossed Jesse's mind on more than one occasion. He hated to think that he might have to ask the man for help. And yet here he was, sitting on his couch, sipping his beer, trying his very best to look him square in the eyes when he talked to him.
"Sir, I'm confident that we'll get past this hurdle."
"That's good, son," he started, "but you know, if you need help all you gotta do is ask."
He couldn't believe his ears. His heart almost skipped a beat, knowing that he just might be able to muster up the courage to ask him what he came to ask him.
"Sir, I appreciate it, but," he paused for what felt like an eternity, "that's not why I came to talk to you today."
"What is it, son?" he asked sounding almost concerned.
He could barely think, let alone speak. It had all come down to this moment. The most important, most pivotal moment in his life. He had to set his beer down just to be sure he wouldn't drop the damn thing from shaking so hard. This was his moment. He could not screw this up.
He put his hands on his knees and straightened himself up in to what he imagined would be the seated marine position of attention.
"Well, sir," he started, knowing it was too late to back down, "I came to ask your daughter's hand in marriage."
The old hardened marine set his mug down on the table beside him and looked Jesse square in the eyes.
"Son," he stated almost emphatically, "what took you so damn long?"