Cameron finally got home, right before midnight. I looked up from the TV and was glad he was alone. I hated his loser friends.

He stood there at the door, a dumb grin on his face.

“What did you do now?” I asked.

He just stood there, looking at me with that smile. Cameron was an asshole, but fuck, he was hot sometimes. Like he was that night, standing there at the door in his dumb old brown overcoat.

“I guess, yeah, I got something for you,” he said.

Cameron never got me things. No gifts. Not for my birthday, ever. Not even after I caught him fucking around.

“Yeah, it’s here, hang on, it’s in my coat.”

He made a show of looking through his coat pockets until he stopped and held out a little bag.

“Yeah, here, you’re going to like this,” he said.

I figured he was messing with me. Again. Or he was up to something. Things never went well when Cameron was up to something.

“It’s for you,” he said, holding a crumpled little brown paper bag in his hand.

“Nice. You got me some garbage,” I said.

“C’mon, take it. I got it special, for you.”

I took the bag. It was light, I figured it was empty, or maybe it was an I.O.U. note. Not like Cameron ever paid back his debts, but maybe.

“Just rip it open,” he said, watching me, those blue eyes shining behind his stringy blonde hair.

“Okay, okay, let’s see what my romantic boyfriend has gotten for poor little … fuck, Cameron, where did you get this?”

“Will you marry me, Alexis?” he said.

I stood there, looking at the diamond ring sitting in the torn, oily, ripped paper bag, then up at him.

“The fuck?”

“Put it on, go ahead. I bet it fits perfect,” he said.

I was tempted to throw it at him, but then I looked, and he wasn’t joking. Cameron was a lying bastard, but I knew that lying bastard, and after two years of his bullshit, I knew when he was lying and when he wasn’t.

I tried it on. It fit. The fucking beautiful silver ring with a big shining diamond fit.

“I talked to Mikey,” Cameron said. “You know how he and Samantha got hitched at City Hall last year? I talked to him, and here, look, I got the papers and everything. We can do it in a couple days, seriously. I’ll do it, marry you and everything. You’ll be Mrs. Alexis Cameron.”

The funny thing was, at that moment, my mind got totally distracted by his name. Everybody called him Cameron, just Cameron, but that wasn’t his name. His full name was Nicholas Michael Cameron, but he didn’t like being called Nicholas or Nick or Nicky because that was his father’s name, and he hated his father. So, everybody always just called him Cameron.

Mrs. Alexis Cameron.

Fuck.

Then he was hugging me. He didn’t even smell like booze. Fuck, I liked when he hugged me.

I just stood there in his arms. Crying.

Fuck.

“What about my parents?” I said.

“Fuck them. I’m marrying you, not your old man,” he said.

“I’m not saying yes, but if we get married, what do I tell my parents?”

“Nothing,” he said and went to the refrigerator for a beer. “First off, your father would probably rather kill me than have us get married. And second, your mom don’t want to see it neither. We’ll just tell them later.”

“Why now?” I said. “Something happened, didn’t it? You did something, didn’t you?”

“When I got up today, I was looking at you, sleeping,” he said, and he gulped down half the can and put it down on the kitchen table. His eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, they were full of tears. “And you looked so pretty, Alexis, and all day I was thinking about that, how pretty you are, you know, and then after work, I was meeting Joey Lesko about that hauling job we’re doing. Joey says we’re going to get lots more work, and Joey, he said he had some stuff he was selling, and …”

“You got me a fucking stolen engagement ring,” I said.

“It ain’t hot. Joey said he got it at an estate sale or something. It’s legit.”

“So you got me a used engagement ring.”

“Vintage,” he said. “It’s vintage, just like me,” he said and did a little pirouette.

That’s when he kissed me.

Fuck, Cameron could kiss. He tasted like chewing gum, and fuck, he felt good. His arms around me, strong, you know? It was nice.

I didn’t think. The words just came out of me. “Yeah, I’ll do it,” I said, “but then we’ll do a proper wedding next year back in Ohio, for my mom.”

“Proper, yeah, next year.”

And that’s how I got this pretty ring, and how it came to be that I got engaged to Nick Cameron.

Cameron wouldn’t live long enough to marry me, which is probably for the best.

But that’s another story.