Summary: This is everything that Zac does leading up to the proposal in the previous chapter, getting the ring, setting everything up, and of course, asking Doug's permission to marry his daughter.

Word Count: 1931

Zac stood in a jewelry shop, looking at hundreds of rings with expensive price tags on them. "Or we have this one, the elegant design. . . ." the jeweler continued to speak but Zac was no longer listening as he had zoned out. None of the rings he had seen or been shown were the right one. There were a few that had different things he liked, but none that combined them perfectly for Evie.

"It's not the right one for her," Zac cut the jeweler off from his long speech. "I'll come back some other time once I've given it some more thought." More thought was something he should have given it in the first place, he realized as he walked out.

He didn't even know what her ring size was, something he found out was important when he first entered the small jewelers. How was he supposed to know her ring size? He couldn't just ask her and have her not figure out what he wanted to know it for, Evie was too smart for that. 'Who would know what Evie's ring size is?' Zac asked himself as he walked towards Ocean Cafe.

Zac face-palmed, realizing that Carly was the most obvious answer. Hadn't he watched enough romance movies with Evie to know that you always go to a girl's best friend to find out what their ring size is when you want to propose? Evie and Carly had been best friends as far back as anyone could remember, probably since birth. Carly was definitely who he needed to talk to.

When Zac entered the cafe, he saw that Evie wasn't at her shop. Sure, she wanted to get her own shop somewhere outside the cafe and she was working towards it but until then, he knew that she was happy to have a place in Ocean Cafe. "Where's Evie?" Zac asked Carly who was now a co-manager with David. The two had decided to make Ocean Cafe into a small chain together as friends and business partners, thus, they had taken business classes in college.

"Not here," Carly answered. "She's on her lunch break, so she went out."

"Good."

"Good?" Carly asked. "How can that be good, she's your girlfriend."

"I actually need to talk to you," Zac said, starting over towards the cool room.

"Me?" Carly asked, following Zac to the back of the cafe.

"Yeah. I went to the jewelers today and I-"

Carly cut him off, "Need to know what Evie's ring size is?"

"How did you know?"

"C'mon, everyone knows you two have been serious for years. It's 7.5, by the way. Have you asked her dad yet?"

"How do you know that off the top of your head?"

"It's a girl thing. Now have you asked her dad yet?"

"Not yet."

"Well, you know her ring size, now go ask Mr. McLaren if you can marry her before she gets home from work." Carly placed her hands on Zac's shoulders and ushered him out of the cool room. "Go," she shooed him.

"What was that about?" David asked, walking up beside Carly.

"Nothing, you'll find out in good time."

David stood, shocked and in confusion as to what Carly meant for a minute or so after she had walked away to take customers' orders. He shook his head and got back to work, apparently he'd find out about whatever this was in good time.

CHCHCH

"Zac? Evie's not here," Mr. McLaren said when he opened his front door to his daughter's boyfriend.

"I know and that's why I'm here."

Mr. McLaren wasn't sure why Zac would need Evie not to be home to come over, but he opened the door farther to allow Zac to enter. Once Zac was inside, the two men walked over to the living room and sat down to talk. "So what's up, Zac?"

"I'd like to ask you for Evie's hand in marriage," Zac started, getting right to the point. "I know she's your only daughter and all," he began a rant, "but I love her and I'd do anything for her."

"Zac, of course. I wouldn't have it any other way."

Zac's eye gleamed.

"Any ideas on how you're going to ask her yet?" Mr. McLaren asked, generally curious.

"I've had a few ideas for a while. I'll have to think through them a bit more and everything before I actually decide how to do it."

"You'll get it all sorted." The two men talked for only a short while longer before Zac headed out to make sure he was gone before Evie got back home. He didn't have to work that day and had the rest of the night free so he headed home to plot out the possible ways to propose. He'd probably end up running his favorites past Carly in the end.

The following day, Zac was back to work. He'd been working at the cafe with David and Carly and had majored in business himself. Evie was out as she continued to work towards getting her own small shop somewhere. When the morning rush of people died away, Zac pulled Carly to the side.

"I need advice on how to propose to Evie. I have a few ideas but I want a second opinion," Zac continued and explained the ideas that he had picked out that he liked the most. You only got the chance to propose to your best friend once in your life and he wanted it to be perfect.

"Definitely the one where you go to Mako," Carly said once Zac had listed all the options. "That place is special for the both of you and you'll be all alone on Mako. It'll be really romantic."

"Alright. That's good, that was my favorite one."

Carly laughed. "We better get back to work or David's going to fire us."

"Yeah right, David's not going to fire us. And if he did, we could just open a cafe competing with him and steal all his customers."

"Yeah," Carly agreed, laughing a bit sarcastically. "And it took him forever to fire Erik."

Zac nodded in agreement as they headed to the main portion of the cafe.

The rest of the day continued normally. As he he worked, Zac started plotting the night he would propose in greater detail. He made a mental list of what he'd need as he worked. This included all the stuff that would go into the moon pool cavern for the proposal and how he would get it in the cavern when the time came.

CHCHCH

A week after his initial visit to the jeweler's, Zac returned. This time he was prepared. He'd done some research online which made it a lot easier to talk to the jeweler and get the design for the ring just right for Evie.

"That's it," Zac said when the jeweler pulled out a ring matching the description Zac had in his mind.

The jeweler smiled at Zac and they spent a few minutes getting the ring ordered in Evie's size. It would take a week or so for it to come in, but when it did get in, they would call Zac to let him know that he could pick it up.

That week had given Zac enough time to figure out all the little details for the proposal Now he just needed to get Cam to help and let all the mermaids know to stay away from the moon pool on the night of the proposal.

Zac didn't get a chance to talk to Cam in the days following ordering the ring. He and Evie both had a couple of days that they were free so they took full advantage of it and spent as much time as they could together. Now that Zac had a plan in mind and a ring picked out, the couple days he spent with Evie made him even more certain that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, as if he needed anymore reassurance.

It was a day or so after Zac's days off that he got the chance to talk to Cam.

"Hey mate," Zac said, running up to Cam who was cleaning off one of the lifeguard surfboards.

"Hey Zac, what's up?" Cam replied, looking up long enough to see Zac.

"I have this plan to propose to Evie but I need some help from you." Zac went on to explain how he wanted to get things to the moon pool and how he needed Cam to take everything out on a boat and then help him take it in. "So if you'd be able to help, that'd be great."

"Of course I'll help you, mate."

"Thanks." Zac and Cam went over a few other things before Zac headed over to the jeweler's; the ring had come in.

CHCHCH

"You're all set to cover for Evie tonight, right?" Zac asked Carly the following Saturday.

"Yup. You've gotten all the details figured out?"

"Mhm. I let all the mermaids know not to come to the moon pool tonight, you're covering for Evie, and Cam and I are going to get everything into the moon pool in a little bit to get everything in there."

"Aren't you going to have to borrow dive gear from Evie? She's gonna want to go with you."

"I already thought that through. She's going to do some more with the deal for her own shop and won't be able to come with us."

"Alright then."

Evie, who had been watching Carly and Zac go back and forth in hushed voices, grew curious as to what they were talking about. When the two finished conversing, Zac headed back out of the cafe.

"What was that about?" Evie asked after walking over to Carly.

"Nothing,"Carly replied offhandedly.

Evie was doubtful that it was actually about nothing, but she trusted Zac and Carly to tell her if it was anything important that she needed to know about.

A little while later, Zac came back into the cafe, this time with Cam at his side. The best friends headed straight over to Evie, she raised her brow questioningly. "Yes?" she asked.

"Cam and I are going out diving and he needs to borrow some gear."

"I'll come too. When were you going to head out?"

"Right now," Cam answered, "We were going to head out as soon as I got the gear."

"Are you sure it can't wait?"

"Cam and I haven't been out together in a while, we can go out later, just the two of us," Zac said, taking Evie's hands in his.

"Okay," Evie agreed. She went and got all the gear together that Cam would need and they headed out. It wasn't much later after that that she had to leave to work on her business deal.

CHCHCH

Zac had all the stuff he needed packed up in waterproof bags. They loaded everything into Cam's boat and headed out towards Mako.

Getting everything over to Mako was the easy part, getting it into the moon pool was much easier said than done. It took Zac and Cam several trips each to bring all the stuff Zac had in. Once they had everything brought in, Cam headed back to the mainland while Zac stayed behind to set everything up the way he wanted it.

Before Zac took off towards the cafe where Evie would have returned to by now, he patted his pocket, the ring was still there. He dove on and began carrying out the proposal.

A/N: Thanks again for reading. I hoped you liked it, and if you did, let me know what you didn't like so I can improve. If you did like it, let me know what you liked, I'd love to hear from you.

Continue with the ideas you have that you'd like to see. If you've already suggested something, the wheels and gears in my mind are turning but I don't have solid ways for the ideas to carry out so once inspiration comes, I'll get them done. Thanks for reading.

-CrazyHayniac