II. Gods and Monsters

24. Promises

Oli was rummaging through his drawers, throwing suitable clothes onto his bed. As he was shifting through his shirts, he went to feel for that re-assuring velvet that he kept just hidden from view. That small little box which held the key to...

It was gone.

Panic set in as he threw every last shirt onto the floor. How could it be gone? He'd kept it there so there was no chance of him losing it! And it's not like he could replace it, he'd spent years saving for the damn thing! Maybe it had been wrapped up in one of the shirts themselves? He set about those he had tossed on the floor, checking the pockets of the more formal ones and utterly unfolding his t-shirts.

"Looking for something?" Charlotte asked from the doorway.

"Oh, nothing important," Oli tried to tell her casually and utterly failing to hide his now heightened panic. "It was just... I dunno... I remembered something daft and... it wasn't here so I guess I'll just..."

He finally met her eye, realising that his nervous rambling wasn't working for a second. Especially since she held the tiny box in her fingers.

"You know, I always worried that I would time it wrong. Either leave it a little too early or a little too late. This never quite factored into it," he conceded.

"What? That I'd find it while going through your shirts, or that I'd find out while we were being hunted by the forces of Heaven and Hell?" she chuckled, waving her arms dramatically.

"Both," Oli replied dumbly.

"Maybe we should talk about it? Like you said, we have half an hour, and it's not like we can pack much anyway."

"I guess," he agreed just as dumbly as his last reply.

They both sat on the edge of Oli's bed, Charlotte doing it with a lot more confidence than Oli. He suddenly felt very shy about the whole thing. What made it worse was the awkward silence that followed.

"So, what was the plan?" she asked him eventually, showing the first sign of shyness since the conversation started.

"Huh?"

"How? When? Where?"

Oli gave a small smile. He'd run through so many different scenarios in his head. So many different ways of asking this one question. Truth was, he'd never found the way that felt right. He racked his brains, trying to think of the best solution he'd come up with.

"You hadn't decided yet, had you?" she asked sympathetically.

Oli looked up at her, horrified that she'd worked it out. His face had clearly amused her as she suddenly burst into laughter.

"Oh my god, this is so typical. Trust us to even mess this up. Bet you would have come up with something spectacular as well."

"Well, I had a couple of ideas..." he admitted.

"Really? Good enough to share? Or is it really cheesy? I swear to god, if you were gonna hide the ring in a champagne glass or a fairy cake or something, I will hit you. You know fine well I'd choke on that ring before I found it," she giggled, jabbing him with her finger.

"Actually, that was the first idea I gave an outright no to. Because I knew you'd have that reaction," Oli laughed, finally relaxing. "I wrote my more favourable ones down if you want to take a look."

"You actually wrote something down? With like, ink and paper? Or was it in crayon? I can't remember what year you dropped out of school," she teased.

Oli rolled his eyes. Charlotte could be an absolute sweetheart, but when things got serious, like that one time he asked her what she would call their kids if they ever had any, she took the piss. He got up off the mattress and pulled up the corner, revealing a small notebook and pen he'd hidden there.

"You kept that hidden the whole time?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. "I'm actually impressed."

"You'd be surprised how many people don't look under the bed nowadays," he replied smugly, handing her the small, leather-bound book.

Without hesitation, she flicked it open and started to read. With each suggestion, her grin grew wider. Some of the ideas were kinda predictable, like taking her to the park for a picnic, covering her eyes, then showing her the ring with a 'ta-dah' (yes, he actually wrote 'ta-dah' down), and others were a bit more... unusual...

"Why is there just 'the moon' written down here?" she laughed, fighting back the pure hysterics she knew was about to come.

"Honestly, I just wanted to see your reaction. I'm kind of disappointed you didn't do anything more... weird..."

"Say's the guy who wrote 'the moon' as a proposal idea!" she cackled, quickly slapping her hand over her mouth as she realised how loud she was getting.

"Oh my god..." she muttered. "We're actually talking about this. You're serious. I'm serious. What the hell?"

Oli looked down to see her still clasping on to the small, red box.

"Well, this is definitely not how I intended this to go, but I guess now's a good time as any," Oli sighed in readiness of the moment he had been planning for so long.

Oli slowly lowered himself onto one knee, delicately taking the box from Charlotte's hands and turning it to face her.

"Charlotte Taylor... will you make me the happiest man on the face of the earth?"

Charlotte grinned from ear to ear, clasping her hands in front of her face as she nodded vigorously.

"Yes?" Oli asked, returning her smile with one of his own.

"Yes," she beamed, dropping down to her knees and placing a soft kiss on his lips.

Oli then took the ring from the box it had sat in for way too long and slid it into its rightful place. With it firmly in place, Charlotte extended her arm and took in the sight of the glittering, yet modest stone that now adorned her finger.

"It's beautiful," she whispered, barely able to contain herself.

Oli wrapped his arms around her waist, picking her up and whirling his new fiance around, causing her to giggle uncontrollably before finally setting her down. And there they stood, heads rested against each other's, intertwined. These moments had become impossibly rare, and after everything this pair had gone through, it was only right that they enjoyed every millisecond they got.

"Remember when this happened all the time?" Oli asked eventually, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

"Yeah... Kinda wish I'd savoured them that little bit more..."

"Hey," Oli soothed, raising her chin with a single finger so that their eyes were level. "We'll have many more, just you wait. We'll make it through this. Then we've got an entire lifetime to spend together."

"An entire lifetime," she echoed, her beautiful smile causing his equally stunning one to emerge. "That sounds perfectly fine to me."

"Till death do us part."

"Till death do us part."