My Wife, My Man?

Chapter Thirty-five

"Where there is love, there is life." Mahatma Gandhi

"I want to ask her to marry me." The simple statement was followed by a light smile on Luke's face. His eyes had a certain spark of excitement in them.

Jack paused from pulling the rowing boat out of the water and bemusedly stared at him. It was still early afternoon when they had grown tired of rowing and decided to give their muscles a break. The sun brightly dominated the cloudless sky, reflecting its graceful light on the surface of the lake. Outlined from afar were trees that had created a scenery that even he — not much of a nature lover, admired.

"Are you sure about that?" There was humour in his voice, hinting towards a tease that would've probably followed.

Luke puffed a soft chuckle, allowing the elevation of his one brow to be the answer to the teasing question. "Why do you ask?"

Jack's shoulders dropped in pretence disappointment. His hand was quick to wipe the invisible sweat that felt to have left a cold sensation on his forehead. "I live with her other half, and I must confess it's difficult," he stated as if to warn him of the trouble he was most likely to face. He laughed when he received the reaction he hoped for.

Luke ran his fingers through the thin strand of his soft hair: he gave thought to the warning. He smiled, knowing Jack's statement was simply to create some sort of humour. "They can be a handful at times, but we still love them anyway," he shrugged, managing to pull his boat ashore.

"Yeah," a laugh came in agreement and a nod of acknowledgement to the fact brought forward, "we do. So, when do you plan to propose?"

"A month and half from now," the smile on Luke's face was like that of a young boy seeing their crush from afar.

"Any special plans on how you're going to do it?" There was great emphasis on the word special.

Luke smiled sheepishly, shrugging. "That's where I need your help," he confessed as he needed to brainstorm on what to do.

"My help?" There was a sort of uneasiness in Jack's voice, then a soft laugh that followed when he received a nod. "Ah, I am awful at these things."

"Bad?" Luke's brows were raised as if the statement sounded rather absurd. "You got married to Perli, so you must be good."

Jack laughed at the assumption. "Yes, but when I first proposed to her, she said no without blinking!"

He recalled how angry he had become after that. Besides, it was not like he went down on one knee and asked her like every lady would have wanted. Thinking about it, he still couldn't understand why ladies wanted that, anyway.

"Ouch!" Luke's expression had shown the sting that the new fact had had on him. He then smiled at him again, "Yet here you are, married."

"I guess so," he smiled a little.

He resumed his task of pulling the heavy boat out of the water and onto the sandy ground. When he finally accomplished this, he turned his attention back to the man who had a great mission at hand. As if to think, he quickly stared back at the boat, and uttered more to himself, "That will do."

He placed his hands on his waist, satisfaction plastered across his face. "They will handle the rest, won't they?"

Luke said nothing, simply shrugged an answer to the question while watching as the men who had helped them earlier made their way back to them.

"Okay," Jack sighed, clapping his hands together and then rubbing his stomach, which had begun to roar. All this rowing had gotten him hungry. "Let's grab something to eat, then we can think over a plan. I can't think with an empty stomach."