The Expat Diaries: Misfortune Cookie (Single in the City Book 2) (31 page)

Read on for an excerpt from
The Expat Diaries: Twelve Days to Christmas
copyright © 2013 Michele Gorman

What if his proposal had an expiration date?

The Expat Diaries:

Twelve Days to Christmas

♫
On the
First
day of Christmas my fortune gave to me…

a ticket home to see my family  
♪

This wasn’t your normal proposal.

‘He’s going to ask me to marry him,’ I said, shakily tucking my mobile back into the beach bag. I felt sick. Giddiness? Nausea? Too much sun? Whatever the cause, I needed to sit down. ‘Ohmygod, he’s going to ask me to marry him!’

‘How do you know?’ Stacy asked, scooting closer to my beach towel and covering me with sand in the process. Tiny pieces of white shell stuck to my obsessively sun-creamed legs. ‘He just told you that? Now?
On the phone
?’

We had the beach nearly to ourselves, even though the unusually warm December weekend made it hot enough to fry pancakes on the pavement. Warm winter days were just one more perk of living in Hong Kong. Not that the locals would dare venture out in less than a winter coat at that time of year. Their wonky internal thermostats convinced them that temperatures below 85°F caused vital organs to freeze.

‘Are you sure?’ Brent asked from his towel, millimeters from mine despite the unoccupied expanse of sand on either side of us. He liked to be close, like a puppy, always underfoot. 

‘Well, I’m not a hundred per cent sure, and he didn’t call
to
tell me that. He just wanted to say hello because he missed me.’ I smiled at that. We’d only seen each other last night. It was such a romantic night. Just thinking about him made me giddy. My grin widened. Stacy made a vomit face. ‘We were talking about Christmas,’ I continued. ‘And he said he has something important to talk to my parents about when we go home. He hasn’t even met them yet. What else could it be? Deductive reasoning, right?’

Stacy nodded.

‘How do you feel?’ Brent searched my face.

‘I can’t believe it, it’s
amazing
! I mean, it seems quick, I know… but it’s not, really. We’ve been together over a year. All right,’ I said, noting Stacy’s expression. ‘Except for those few months.’ What an annoying stickler for detail she could be. ‘I can’t believe it. He’s going to propose. Wow.’

‘Yeah, wow,’ said Brent and Stacy together.

The prospect of taking Sam home to meet my family seemed way less serious back in November when we booked the flights. Granted, involving airports when introducing a boyfriend to your family
will
inject an air of significance to the event. There’s no way around that. We couldn’t exactly pop by for a casual inspection over Mom’s pot roast from six thousand miles away.

I was excited about Christmas even before I knew Sam was coming with me. It had been nearly two years since I’d been home. I couldn’t wait: seeing snow, and caroling in the neighborhood where I grew up, waking on Christmas morning to the smell of Mom’s pancakes, arguing with my sister about which cheesy DVD to watch first, being chastised by Dad for eating all the dark chocolates from the giant Russell Stover box his students give him every year. Ah, family. I figured Sam was looking forward to his own arguments back home in Wyoming, where they’d do Wyomingesque things like rustle cattle or chop down trees in the snow. But no, he had more than rodeos on his mind for the holidays. ‘I’d like to come home with you, and meet your parents,’ he’d said as we snuggled on the outdoor sofa of my favorite rooftop bar. ‘Next year maybe we can visit my family together.’

My belly had flipped at the implication. Next year. Talk about a statement of intent. Ever since I first fell in love with him, I’d wanted to hear words like that. Of course he was welcome to come home with me. Aside from the chance to spend nearly two weeks together, day and night,
and
show him off to my family, there was the small matter of getting there without the need for tranquilizers. I wasn’t known for my composure at thirty thousand feet. As my best friend and fellow Connecticuter, Stacy was contractually obliged to join me in fright, er, flight. But she was exercising an exemption clause to stay with my boss instead (in a non-professional capacity; he was also her boyfriend). That meant an empty seat beside me, ideally to be filled by someone who wouldn’t make the flight attendant change his seat just because I’d crawled into his lap and begged him to hold me.

‘Hannah?’ Brent caught my attention. ‘What do you want to do?’

I searched his face for hurt. I didn’t want to upset him but I had to be honest. ‘Well… I love Sam. Sure, we’ve had our problems, but that’s behind us now. These past months have been wonderful, incredible. Like they were before, when we were in London. Of course I’d want to marry him.’

‘… I meant do you want to swim or lie here a bit longer?’

‘Oh,’ I said, flushing with embarrassment. ‘Yes, let’s snorkel. Yes, okay, good idea.’

‘Oh my God, it’s freezing!’ Stacy shouted, laughing as she ran headlong into the water, setting off for mainland China in a front crawl and leaving Brent and me in the shallows to torture ourselves one shivery inch at a time. When we got to the sensitive bits, we stopped.

‘Are you sure about this?’ He asked.

‘Not really. Maybe I’ll just stay here for a minute, then go back to the beach.’

‘I mean about Sam.’

‘Oh. Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?’ Bracing myself, I dove under water, unwilling to expose
those
sensitive bits either.

The Hong Kongers were right. Icicles formed on my lungs. ‘Holy smokes, it’s cold!’ Hyperventilating seemed to help. ‘Are you watching for sharks, Brent?’

‘Doing my job, sir, yes sir!’ He boosted himself out of the water, scanning the horizon for deadly fins, looking like a very wet, ginger meerkat. ‘Though I don’t know what you think you’d do if you saw one.’

I’d re-enact one of Jesus’ greatest hits. How could he be so cavalier about the risk of watery death? If toothy predators weren’t an issue, then why were the beaches ringed with shark nets? Exactly. They weren’t decorative features and I wasn’t eager to become the object of pity when people read the headlines. ‘Newly Engaged Expat Eaten by Sharks.’ No thanks.

Newly engaged. Sam was really going to pop the question. My Sam, love of my life, The One. I’d wanted it ever since we first started going out. How many times had I imagined spending the rest of our lives together? Too many to count. And it was really about to happen. I dove under water again and screamed to the fishes, releasing a cascade of joyous bubbles from the snorkel. ‘Woo hoo!’ That’s how I felt,
Brent
, since you asked. And you should be happy for me, like you said you would be. I was going to be Mrs. Hannah Parker. My belly churned at the thought. Tears steamed the inside of my mask as I bobbed along with my face in the water. Yes, definitely excitement. And hope and love. And… something else. I felt light-headed, short of breath, and it wasn’t only because hypothermia was setting in. When I thought about saying yes to Sam, I felt just the tiniest bit panicked. Was it because our relationship hadn’t been a hundred per cent perfect? Nobody’s was perfect. That was unrealistic. We all had little things we’d like to be different. It didn’t really matter that he’d only watch chick flicks under duress, or that he loved oysters. We were aligned on the big things, the important ones. I was sure I’d be thrilled to marry Sam. Ninety-nine per cent sure. Ninety-five at the very least. Those were great odds. Everybody had
some
doubts. That was to be expected in a normal relationship. Still…

At the first painfully searing bite, I knew Brent had been wrong to tease me. Hardly a comforting I-told-you-so. ‘Ow ow ow owowOWOWOW!’ I screeched, slapping at whatever was taking an interest in me for lunch. I was just able to stand on the sandy bottom, giving some traction as I lumbered from the water, still bellowing. In solidarity, or fright, Stacy and Brent fled behind me to the beach.