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They’re on a date on a Saturday night, at a fancy place for once. Their normal “date” fare consists of takeaway pizza and binge watching Doctor Who on Netflix, but they figured that a fancy restaurant would be better for their anniversary. They’d been dating for five years, after all. That deserved something fancy.
They’ve just got their food when they here gasps and sighs issue through the restaurant. Turning in surprise, they see that the man at a table across the room is down on one knee, proposing to his girlfriend.
I wonder what that’d be like- wait. No. Not yet. Nope. Nuh-uh, Beatrice thought.
I think… no, no, what? Why would I- nope? Maybe? No. Ben thought, before glancing at his girlfriend and changing his mind to, Soon.
Of course, they were both knocked from these reveries by these crucial words from the waiter:
“Oh, and for the happy couple, dinner is on the house!”
They turned and looked at each other, the same plan forming in two minds.
“You ready?” Bea asked him as they paused outside the restaurant.
“Yeah, just like we practiced, right?” Ben nodded, wiping his slightly sweaty hands on his pants. Fake proposal or not, it was still nerve-wracking. He was going to be proposing to Beatrice, after all. Beatrice, who he’d been in love with since he was fourteen years old. It’s practice, he thought. Good practice.
“Maybe without laughing in the middle of it?” Bea teased.
“Hey, that goes for you too, then,” he retorted.
“I only started laughing because you were, that’s no fair.”
“And I won’t start laughing, so you better not. Come on, love.” He pulled open the door and they both headed in.
They ordered their food and then waited a couple of minutes, just talking, but purposely playing up the “lovey-dovey stuff,” as Beatrice called it. They’d lean close to each other, blush and giggle while the other was talking, their hands clasped on top of the table.
After a few minutes of this, Ben quietly asked her, “Time?”
She nodded. “Time.”
He stood, taking her hand and pressing it to his lips before he began. “Beatrice Duke,” he proclaimed, loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear, “I’ve been in love with you since the day we met eight years ago. The last five that I’ve spent with you have been the best of my life. So,” he sank to one knee and pulled out the costume ring she’d bought at an antique shop. “Would you do me the honor of making me the happiest man alive?”
“Of course!” she proclaimed, barely able to contain her laughter. He put the ring on her finger and then stood up to kiss her.
When they broke apart, they heard the waiter proclaim, “Free champagne and dessert, on the house.”
Ben winked at her, and she winked back.
So that’s what it’s like to get proposed to, she thought. It’s kind of fun. A little awkward, but fun.
I have to do that for real, Ben thought, smiling down at his girlfriend.
They stood outside their next restaurant of choice, a nice little Italian place. They hadn’t gone before, but Hero and her boyfriend insisted that the gnocchi was to die for, so off they went.
“We don’t even know if they’ll give us stuff,” Ben complained.
“They will, most restaurants do,” she shrugged. “Though even if we don’t, we still get to eat some good food and pull one over on about fifty people. Sounds like a good time to me,” she smirked.
“You’re diabolical. I love it,” he grinned, leaning down to kiss her.
Cutting the kiss short, she insisted, “Come on, save that for the restaurant. Let’s go.”
This time, they were going for the old ring-in-the-champagne trick. (“That’s such a cliché,” Beatrice had whined. “That’s the point. They’re expecting clichés. They’ll believe clichés,” Ben replied.) Beatrice would go to the bathroom, and Ben would sort the trick out with the waiter. (“At least since I’m expecting it, I won’t choke or anything,” Bea had said with a grin.)
And so a short while after they sat down, she immediately got up to use the restroom, giving Benedick a quick wink as she left. As soon as she was gone, Ben began to desperately attempt to make eye contact with their waiter, who spotted Ben’s awkward waving and headed over quickly.
“Can I help you, sir?” he asked politely.
“Um, yeah, I’d like to order some champagne and uh… If you could pour it into the two flutes and, and….” he pulled the ring out of his pocket and showed it to the waiter, hoping that his awkwardness would just come off as pre-proposal nerves.
“Ah, yes, of course, sir. You’re not the first person to do this-“ the waiter caught himself, and added, “Because Buon Appetito is so romantic, of course. I’ll take the ring and place it in your lady love’s glass,” he said with a wink, taking the ring and walking away.
Ben then went to text Bea and let her know that she could come back.
The flamingo is in the nest.
Why the hell are you calling it a flamingo?
Have you never heard of code names, Beatrice?
We’re texting each other, dickface. No one can overhear us.
Will you just come back?
Fine then.
As she sat down, she gave an overdramatic sigh. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by the flamingo thing at this point.”
“Hey! We agreed that you couldn’t mock me for that after you murdered Floyd!”
“I didn’t murder him, he was an inanimate object! And that was six years ago.”
“The North remembers.”
They then entered a staring contest that lasted all of ten seconds before they burst out laughing. They’d barely calmed down when they saw the waiter heading towards them with the champagne.
“Showtime,” Bea said with a wink.
“Sir, your champagne,” the waiter said with a smug smile as he lowered the tray.
“Champagne? We didn’t order champagne, did we?” She overacted her surprise, and it was all Benedick could do not to laugh. Then the waiter placed her flute of champagne in front of her and she gasped ridiculously loudly.
“Benedick?” she asked incredulously. Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw the waiter snort when he heard his name.
“Yes love?” he smirked.
“Why is there a ring in my champagne?”
“Oh it’s a new fad diet Hero told me about- ow!” She’d kicked him under the table. “Okay, then.” He got down onto one knee and prepared himself for The Speech 2.0, smiling as he noticed the restaurant go quiet. “Beatrice Duke, I have loved you since I was fourteen years old and terrified of the idea. I loved you when I was seventeen and had convinced myself that I hated you. I loved you even more when our meddling friends knocked some sense into me, and it’s just been growing ever since then, and I don’t want it to ever stop. Will you marry me?”
“I love you too, you asshole. Of course I’ll marry you.” They both stood up and kissed, to tumultuous applause from the rest of the guests.
Their waiter gave a slight cough to get their attention, and the two broke apart.
“On behalf of the restaurant, I’d like to offer you this meal on the house, as a little engagement present.” He paused briefly, before adding, “Just do me a favor, and don’t saddle your kids with a name like his,” he joked.
They both laughed and gushed their thanks, and tried to stem their flow of thoughts.
That speech- it was a lot better than the other one. It felt almost real. Real wouldn’t be too bad, would it? Beatrice glanced at the ring, still at the bottom of her champagne flute. No, no, we’re not ready. Are we?
Benedick ran his thumb over his fian- girlfriend’s hand, thinking, I can’t just fake this again. Next time I do this, it’ll be for real.
The restaurant this time was the same pizza place they’d gotten their pizza from the infamous day of the pizza party. They sat around a huge circular table, the entire old group there, plus a couple of new additions. Meg had brought her fiancé, and Hero had not only brought her boyfriend, but convinced John to come as well.
The pizzas arrived, and a glance at the toppings led Balthazar to give Pedro his most withering look.
“Anchovies? Really? I shouldn’t have let you order.”
“Oh come on, they’re good! If you really don’t like them, just pick them off.”
“They’ve already contaminated the pizza. And I won’t kiss you if you have anchovy breath.” Balth crossed his arms proudly; sure he’d won the argument.
“Then I suppose you’ll have to eat some so you’ll have it too,” Pedro retorted smugly.
“Oh shut up you two,” Meg teased.
Ben laughed with the rest of them, trying to disguise his nerves. The ring in his pocket suddenly felt heavier than lead. Pedro and Hero knew what he was planning. Hero had actually helped him pick out the ring (they’d managed to find a company that sold fair trade certified gemstones, and gone from there) and Pedro had been enlisted to keep Benedick from talking himself out of following through.
Pedro quickly made eye contact with Ben, a silent, Ready? Ben nodded.
“So, Olive Man,” Pedro teased, “what’s it like to be in a relationship for- what, five years now?”
“You should know mate, your getting close enough to it yourself,” Ben retorted, looking between Pedro and Balthazar.
“Just humor me, man.”
Looking over at Beatrice, who was settled next to him with his arm around her shoulders, he steadied himself, and began.
“It’s frustrating as hell,” he started, fake-wincing as Bea gave him a playful shove. “I’m never quite sure what she’s going to do or say. If we’re left alone for too long, we talk ourselves half to death, and I love it.” Seeing her expression soften, he gained the confidence to keep going. “She’s the worst enemy anyone could ever be cursed with and the best friend I’ll ever have.”
“Hey!” Pedro interjected, his voice full of mock hurt.
“It’s the unfortunate truth,” Bea replied with a straight face.
“Hey, you’ve got me,” Balth replied, giving Pedro a quick peck on the cheek.
“I thought you hated my anchovy breath.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“As I was saying,” Ben huffed, “I’ve loved this lady of disdain for pretty much as long as I’ve known her. And that’s not something I ever want to stop doing.” He pulled the box out of his pocket, opened it, and placed it on the table in front of her. “I’ll never stop, if she’ll let me.” A beat of silence washed over the table, and Ben asked, “How about it, love? Would you like to marry me?”
“What do you think the answer is, dickface?” she teased, before responding, “Yes, of course, you idiot!”
The table exploded with whoops and cheers, and everyone pretended not to notice John slipping Meg a five-dollar bill. (John had his money on it being another year before they got engaged. Meg insisted that the two would jump at the chance as soon as the idea had worked its way through their thick heads.)
Once they finished the pizza, their waitress brought over a huge sundae.
“We didn’t order this-“ Ben started.
“Oh, the entire kitchen staff heard you guys celebrating. They insisted that we send this over, free of charge,” she said with a bright smile. “Congratulations, you two!”
The ice cream sent a chill through Beatrice that she couldn’t chalk up to brain freeze. Was this proposal real, or was it another plot for free food? She looked down at the ring on her finger. It was new, but he could’ve lost the old costume ring and just gotten a replacement. Benedick wasn’t ready to actually propose. Was he?
They walked out to the car, worry weighing heavy on her heart. She looked up at him and joked, “So, that was some good ice cream. And that speech was a lot better than the other ones, as is this ring. Don’t even care if you did lose the old one. You should save it for next time,” she rambled, and began to work the ring off her finger.
As soon as he saw her taking the ring off, Ben’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. “Beatrice Duke, you have got to be kidding me right now. I did not plan out that whole speech with Pedro, I did not spend hours with Hero finding a ring that was fair-trade certified and to your tastes that took a good chunk of my paycheck for some free ice cream.” He pulled her closer. “I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, okay? If you’ll let me.”
For once, she was dumbfounded. When she finally found her words, she managed a quiet, “Yes.” Finding her voice, she repeated, “Yes, yes, of course.”
His face broke out into a huge grin. “That’s fantastic,” he said, pulling her in for a kiss, before pausing. “That ring is staying on.”
“Of course it is, dickface.”
“And I’m not proposing again. Not even for free food.”
“What if we want free food?”
“We can always pretend you’re pregnant.” Before she could smack him, he quickly added, “Kidding, kidding, geez! Heh. Kid-ding.”
“Oh shut up you dork.”
“Make me.”