Denny asks a Very Important Question

Thanks for reading!

-Becks

.

Day Two - Proposal

.

.

Denny wiped his sweaty palms on his pants, again. He was going to leave wet spots if he didn't stop that. He moved his nervous hands up to his hair, trying to fix it. He'd done something different with styling it tonight, and now he wasn't so sure about it. It wasn't that it looked bad it was just different, and right now every instinct was screaming at him for daring to try anything different. He was happy and comfortable with his life the way it was. Why was he threatening the balance by changing things now?

He was going to look like such an idiot if this didn't go according to plan!

Denny moaned as he pulled at a stray lock of hair, trying to tuck it into place. He looked stupid without his bandana; maybe he should just put it back on. No, he wanted tonight to be special and different from any other date. Still, just for a quick look, he pulled his signature purple bandana loosely over his head, careful to not mess up any of his stylings until he made a decision.

"What do you think, Kuu? Bandana or no?"

His loyal companion looked at him, flat, unimpressed, silent. The bird had been witness to Denny's many uncertainties all afternoon from his perch. Do you think I should give my hair a trim? I should shave right? Is this shirt nice enough? I want it to be nicer than normal, but not too nice so it gives anything away. Do these socks smell weird, or is my nose broken? I swear they're clean.

In the end, Denny had shaved, like he should have; didn't trim his hair, a safe choice; changed shirts ten times; and found a cleaner smelling pair of socks.

"You're right. No bandana." Denny resolutely folded it up and put it in his back pocket. Just because he wasn't going to wear it didn't mean he was about to enter this date without his lucky bandana on him. That was tempting fate a little too enticingly.

Fighting the urge to keep messing with his hair, Denny shoved his hands into his pockets. His fingers wrapped around the most important part of tonight's date. He almost brought it out to look at, but stopped himself with a sharp mental admonition. If he didn't keep it in his pocket, he would absolutely do something stupid and leave it behind. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and rubbed them together, trying to wipe away the damned ever-present sweat on his palms.

An irritated mess of nerves and anxiety, Denny released a short huff. "Maybe I should practice," he suggested to Kuu. "I… I haven't really figured out what I want to say." The last thing he wanted to do was get so nervous and tongue tied that he stumbled over his words and couldn't be understood. He wasn't much of a poet, but he could probably come up with something half-decent and eloquent to mark the momentous occasion.

"Okay." Denny huffed again, buzzing his lips to loosen them up. He looked at his reflection in the tiny, dirty mirror and tried to pretend that his mug was actually her. "I-"

He was interrupted by a squawk from Kuu. No time for practice, she was walking down the beach to his hut. Feeling quite flustered, Denny check his pockets to be extra sure, checked his tackle box, and then, before walking out the door, checked his pocket again.

"Wish me luck, Kuu," he called to his bird with a nervous smile before closing the door behind him.

Chelsea picked up her pace a little once she saw Denny emerge from his house. A wide smile split her face automatically upon seeing Denny, and he mirrored it on his own face. She ran the last few steps, dropping her tackle box in the sand before she flung herself into Denny's arms.

Their kiss was fiery and passionate and Denny hated for it to end. "Hello to you too, Sugar," he muttered to his girlfriend, pressing his forehead to hers.

"Hey, Babe," she giggled before pressing another kiss to his lips.

Chelsea filled Denny's every sense. Her silky, brunette hair was turning bronze in the lowering light of the sun. Her skin was warm beneath his hands. The taste of her lip balm was on his lips, and the scent of her perfume was doing something pleasantly numbing to his brain.

The perfume was a new scent; floral and a little fruity and slightly musky. Chelsea didn't often wear perfume. Denny caught her hand as she moved to unwrap her arms from around his neck, and he pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand for an excuse to smell the perfume on her wrists again. He decided it was his new favorite scent. "Is that new?"

Chelsea blushed a bit. "No, not really, I got it as a birthday present years ago from my parents, but I hardly ever wear it."

"I love it." Denny was finding the scent more and more intoxicating the longer he breathed it in.

Chelsea beamed, wrapping her arms around his neck again, she asked, with a slight quirk to her eyebrows. "And what about you? Is that cologne I detect?"

Denny had spent an embarrassingly long time sniffing mail-order sample cards to find a scent he thought Chelsea would like. Eventually he picked something with an earthy scent, a touch of spice, and – surprising himself – lavender. It reminded him of the woman he loved.

Denny grinned back at her. "Yeah, do you like it?"

"I do." Chelsea leaned in close to press a kiss to his cheek. Denny shivered a touch in anticipation. If all went well tonight, this wouldn't be the last time he heard that phrase come from Chelsea's mouth.

"I love what you've done with your hair too. Is it always like this?" Chelsea ran her fingers gently through his locks, teasing at the tight curls. "You're always hiding it under your bandana."

"Ah, yeah, I had to leave the bandana behind tonight," Denny said a little sheepishly. He could still feel little electric currents running across his scalp from where Chelsea's nails had brushed it. Then, he realized that he would have to come up with a reasonable excuse for the bandana's absence without giving anything away. "It, uh, it got some fish guts on it earlier."

Chelsea wrinkled her nose playfully. "Well, we wouldn't want fish guts on our date." She bent over to pick up her tackle box and retrieved her pole from its home on Denny's rack. "So you ready for some fishing?"

The fisherman laughed at the joke. It was their normal Friday night date; some fishing for a bit, mostly to unwind and chat without too many interlopers before dinner together at one of the restaurants on the island, and then whatever struck their fancy after dinner.

"Lead the way, Sugar."

He purposefully delayed for a moment to collect his own gear, and surreptitiously check his tackle box again, before setting off down the beach after his girlfriend. He didn't much mind walking behind her, admiring the fall of her hair down her back, and the graceful sway of her hips, and the fall of the dress over the curve of her – wait! Denny only just registered the sundress Chelsea was wearing tonight. Chelsea never dressed up for their dates anymore. They had long ago reached that comfortable stage of their relationship where they understood that fishing might get messy – so what was the point of ruining nice clothes?

Did she know? Had someone in town blabbed? He hadn't gone around town telling every one of his plans to propose, but he couldn't exactly buy a blue feather on his own and he had enlisted his friends for help picking a suitable cologne when he became nose-blind to the samples.

Why else would Chelsea have taken so much care for their usual, casual date night if she didn't know what he was about to do? Ooh, Denny was going to feed whoever spilled the beans to the sharks!

He considered, for just a split second, to just throw his plans out the window entirely and wait. He had wanted to truly surprise Chelsea and if she expected to be proposed to tonight, that kind of killed the surprise. His hand patted his pocket.

No! He would still go through with it, and together he and Chelsea could take revenge on the blabbermouths in town.

He did consider just skipping fishing, though. After all, it could be a messy task and he didn't want to have potentially get fish guts on Chelsea's nice dress. He glanced to the sky. It wasn't quite sunset yet, and even if the surprise had been ruined, he wasn't going to let the one chance for a romantic proposal on the beach at sunset slip away from him.

Denny loped a few steps forward to catch up with Chelsea and linked arms with her as they wandered down to the edge of the pier. They each took time setting up their rods – Denny being extra sneaky to make sure Chelsea couldn't peek into his tackle box – and then settled down together at the end of the dock with their feet dangling over the edge. In comfortable silence, they dropped their lines into the water, neither really trying to catch any of the tiny fish that lived beneath the dock.

They followed the familiar script of conversation: 'How was your day?' 'Catch anything exciting?' and such. But Denny could tell Chelsea was nervous about something. Her answers, while neutral or positive, were clipped pretty short, and she favored silence tonight. The rush of waves and the cries of the gulls beginning to roost for the night was all that passed between them.

Yep. If she was nervous, she definitely knew Denny was going to propose. But… an icy stake of doubt chilled Denny's heart, if she knew he was going to propose, why was she so nervous about it? Did she not feel the same way he felt about her?

Denny hadn't been able to envision his future without Chelsea in it for the better part of the last year; really ever since they started dating. The realization that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her kind of hit him over the head one day and he had never wanted to consider anything else. He hadn't seen any warning signs that Chelsea's affections were waning or that she didn't feel the same way; and he thought their communication was pretty top notch for a young couple.

Denny shook away his doubts. He was a nervous mess tonight even though he was the one proposing. Chelsea had to be feeling pretty nervous too, knowing she was being proposed to. That was it.

He glanced to the western sky. This time of year, the sun barely touched the ocean as it set, and the mountains on the western end of the island tended to eat up the sunset pretty quickly. Right now, the light was perfect, if he waited too much longer, he'd be proposing in semi-darkness.

Taking a deep breath to calm his pounding heart, Denny reeled in his line. "I don't think this lure is doing me any favors tonight. Sugar, would you mind grabbing my silverfish lure from my box?"

Chelsea had been staring out over the water a little dreamily and started a bit at his request. "Oh, yeah, sure thing." She had let the little minnows eat all of her bait off her hook, so she reeled it in and set her rod aside.

"Thanks, hun." Denny said, pretending to be distracted with untying his original lure. He watched carefully from the corner of his eye as she walked back to his tackle box, and as soon as she was behind him, he set his rod aside and scrambled to his feet.

"Why'd you leave your tackle box all the way over here?" Chelsea asked, having to walk several steps up the dock to get to it. "Do you want me to—"

Whatever she was going to say died in her throat as she opened the lid of the box. Denny knew that carefully placed on top of everything was a delicate blue feather. He only had a few seconds to get into position. He fumbled the small ring box from his pocket and got down onto one knee behind Chelsea's back. It was only then that he realized he had no idea what he was going to say. Too late to panic now, he was just going to wing it!

Chelsea gasped and picked up the feather in her trembling hands, holding it like it was made from glass. "Denny?" She turned to face her boyfriend and saw him waiting there, ring in hand. Her hands flew to her mouth.

He looked at her like she was the sun, moon, and stars of his life. "Chelsea, I-"

Suddenly, Chelsea laughed. One absurd, uncheck giggle that grew into a fit of laughter. Denny drooped, feeling like someone had just dropped an anchor into his stomach. Why was she laughing?

"I'm sorry, Babe," Chelsea struggled to explain around her laughter. "It's just…" she reached into a pocket of her dress and drew out another blue feather. "You read my mind is all."

Denny felt a grin split his face and he scrambled to his feet. He thought his heart was going to burst, he was so happy. He couldn't help his laughter either. "So that's a yes?"

"Absolutely, yes!" Chelsea threw herself at him and he caught her very enthusiastically. He could feel the feathers in her hands tickling the back of his neck. Overcome with love, he couldn't resist kissing her, or holding her as tight as possible.

Chelsea stepped back just enough to say, "Maybe you should put that ring on my finger, my fiancé."

Denny obliged, he expected his hands to be shaking with emotion, but they were steady as rocks and the ring slipped perfectly onto Chelsea's finger.

"I love you, Chelsea, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you."

"I love you too, Denny."

They kissed again, but stayed close, unconsciously dancing cheek to cheek to the song of the ocean.

"You sneaky bastard," Chelsea whispered in his ear, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "I can't believe you beat me to the proposal. I was planning this for two weeks."

Denny couldn't help but smile. "I've got you beat. I was planning this for two months."

Chelsea finally stepped back, giving him an appraising look, and refusing to let go of his hands. "How did you keep that a secret on this island for two months?"

"I may or may not have threatened to turn the involved parties into shark bait if they let anything slip," he admitted with a sly grin. "You really had no idea?"

"No, that's why I bought the feather."

They two of them shared a laugh again, pressing their foreheads together.

"Oh, Chen must have been dying knowing that we both bought feathers." Chelsea realized. "He never even hinted when I came in for mine."

"Well, I guess I know who in town I can trust with all my secrets," Denny joked.

"But now we have two blue feathers. What do we do with these?" Chelsea asked, holding up the feathers in her hands.

Denny recognized the one he had bought for Chelsea – he'd spent long enough staring at it over the last month – it was speckled with dark blue, and turned almost indigo at the tip. The feather Chelsea had bought for him was almost pure blue throughout, the same shade as sea on a sunny day, with a touch of iridescence giving it a greenish hue.

"Well I know that answer. This was a tradition in my hometown." He took Chelsea's feather and a strand of her hair and with a few deft knots had tied the feather into her hair. It was tucked just behind her ear, and fell down to her shoulder, like a beautiful sapphire in a pool of bronze. She petted the feather lightly, and smiled, thanking him with a kiss.

"It's a shame your hair's not quite long enough to do the same," she said, holding up his feather to him. "Too bad your lucky bandana has fish guts on it."

"Well, actually…" Denny fished the purple kerchief out from his back pocket. "I didn't want you to think any special was happening before it did, you know?"

"You sneak, hand it over." Chelsea held her hand out expectantly and once she had the bandanna in hand, she turned to her tackle box. With some fishing line and creative use of a fish hook, Chelsea was able to stitch the feather to Denny's bandana. She helped tie it back around his head so his feather matched hers in position and placement.

"We're going to make everybody sick with our lovey dovey matching," Denny said, pecking Chelsea on the lips.

She hummed, contentedly, showing she was quite fine with that possibility. "So, my love, shall we go to dinner now?"

"I think we shall, dearest." Denny looped his arm around Chelsea's waist and they strolled off together.

.

The couple discovered, upon entering the diner, that Chen was not as good of a secret keeper as he appeared to be. With a little sneaking and conniving the shop keeper had confirmed with Denny and Chelsea's friends that both of them were planning to propose, and it would most likely be tonight. Half of the town had come together to secretly plan a congratulatory party for the two.

All plans for a romantic dinner together vanished in an instant when they walked through the doors. Denny was mildly disappointed, but he still thoroughly enjoyed the party and ribbing his friends for their craftiness in putting this all together behind his back.

After all, he realized between a flurry of well wishes and toasts, who better to share one of the happiest days of his life than the people he loved?