The Full Story (of how the Date became the Fiancé)

Thank you Date, with your one guest post you’ve managed to double my readership.

Oops, did I say Date?

I meant Fiancé.

Because it wasn’t a publicity stunt to get more readers.

Shop Girl and the Date are officially engaged!

“Holy Sh*t,” my brother said, when I told him.

I’m only just starting to believe it myself and that’s partly because I have proof.

The Fiancé once said he didn’t believe in engagement rings.

He obviously changed his mind.

In the restaurant, after reading his blog post out loud, I turned to him and there it was, sparkling from inside the ring box he’d opened upside down.

STOP!

REWIND.

I’d sensed something extraordinary was going to happen that evening.

He’d been so jumpy when I’d met him as if he’d drunk ten cups of coffee.

Then there’d been that mysterious lump in his jacket pocket that I’d accidentally touched.

He’d disappeared into his bedroom, mumbling an excuse and when he’d reappeared the lump had gone.

In the restaurant he’d wanted everything to be perfect, had looked agitated when a load of children had piled onto a table nearby.

As our desert arrived, (ice cream which would melt in the ensuing excitement), he got out his computer to post his blog online.

He hadn’t banked on the internet connection being so terrible.

It started to look like it wasn’t going to work.

“You can put it on tomorrow,” I said.

“No!” he cried, “I have to put it on now!”

Maybe I knew then.

This was clearly no ordinary blog.

Before the computer battery ran out, the connection returned and he was able to put his blog online.

By paragraph three I was in tears.

I finished reading and turned to him, and he was holding up the box with a beautiful ring he’d chosen all by himself weeks earlier.

“Will you marry me?”

In my imagination I’ve always said a clear, resounding ‘Yes’.

In real life, I was a blurry-eyed, blubbering bundle of shock.

“You haven’t said yes!” he said. “You have to say yes!”

“Yes!”

Of course yes! He was the Date! He was the hero in my book! Of course it was always going to be him!

The first person I told was the Greek waiter.

He shook the Fiancés hand then knocked on our table.

“Number 33,” he said.

I won’t forget that.

33 will always be a lucky table.

And I am a very lucky girl.