A crinkle-crinkle sound made Sharon look over at Rob. He was unwrapping a cigar. She blinked and kept watching as he picked up her cutter and sliced off the end. Rob paused for a moment, then picked up her lighter and looked at it as if it were Yorick’s skull.
Sharon took another puff on her cigar.
“They usually don’t explode, you know.”
Rob looked in her eyes.
“I’m trying to overcome years of parental warnings here.”
He looked away from her, put the cigar in his mouth, flicked the lighter and got the cigar lit. He took a shallow puff.
“How stupid do I look?” he asked.
“You look fine.” Sharon took another puff, not really knowing what to think. This was the last thing she had expected Rob to do. “You know, you’ll have to take your name off that petition now.”
“I know.” Rob took another puff. “Springfield’s about three hours from here, isn’t it?”
Sharon tried not to sigh too loudly. More state geography.
“Far, but not impossible,” she said.
“I could visit you on weekends.”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
Rob drew on his cigar and made a face.
“God, Sharon, how do you stand this? This tastes like cardboard.”
“It shouldn’t.”
Rob crushed the cigar out in the ashtray. Sharon saw the label and thought of something.
“Was that the one I gave you when you finished your thesis?”
“Yes. I kept it on my desk in my apartment.”
“All these months? No wonder it tasted dried out.”
She held out her cigar to him.
“Here, try mine.”
Rob reached out and took it, which Sharon hadn’t really expected him to do. He took one puff, then another.
“Like switching to technicolor,” he said.
Sharon tried to cope with the unexpected sight of Rob smoking a cigar. “Why do you want to smoke cigars now?”
Rob looked at the cigar in his hand and then turned to her.
“You know that church on Broad Street?”
Sharon frowned. “You mean ‘the church of the poisoned mind’?”
Rob sighed. “That’s the one. Anyway, they had a new message on their sign today. ‘Where will you spend eternity? Smoking or Non?’”
He looked into Sharon’s eyes.
“I know that God doesn’t work like that, but that sign got me thinking, what if that’s the way God divides up humanity on Judgment Day?” He drew on the cigar. “If it happens like that, I want to spend eternity with you among the smokers.”
Rob suddenly looked surprised at what he had said.
Sharon blinked. Was Rob actually trying to…
Rob set the cigar in the ashtray and got on his knees. He took up most of the back porch floor when he did so. He looked up at Sharon, blinked and took a deep breath.
“Sharon, will you marry me?”
Sharon felt tears well up. She had hoped for this moment, but she had wondered if Rob would be bold enough to go against his mother.
She grabbed the cigar and drew deeply as she looked at the mountains and the sunset. She wanted to remember this moment, Rob, the view, the silly cigar, for the rest of her life. She expelled the smoke and looked down at his face.
“I’d love to.”
~The End~
Cigars and a Love Story…..
By Mike Samerdyke for Cigars4Women and posted in Creative Thoughts by MikeBSG
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Smart Options! I’ll have to guess about these. I bought our pop a wonderful humidor for his wedding a couple years back(url is in the name)…not confident what to do the following time around. Hunting for them is normally a bother!