We met at Claremont High School when we were 15 and 17 years old. Lance was finishing his Senior year and well on his way to D.C. to attend Howard University when we took a liking to each other. The night before he left, we made plans of reuniting there but I wasn't able to afford attending college out-of-state. We stayed in touch the first year and a half writing and calling each other long distance but the time and space became difficult, and we eventually slowed, then started our lives with other people. We reconnected briefly once in 2014 when I crashed his high school reunion but the timing wasn't quite right. And then it was. On International Women's Day in 2018, Lance commented on one of my posts. We started chatting via DM, and spent a lot of time getting to know each other as adults before making plans to see each other. It wasn't very long before we decided he'd come spend a few days in LA (on my couch). It was July and that was it. We knew within 24 hours of being in the same place, we wanted to be with each other everyday, forever. He never did sleep on the couch.

I wanted to involve Askia's family in asking her to marry me. I eventually came up with an elaborate "Da Vinci Code" style engagement that involved her children, her siblings, her Mom, and one of her best friends. It started with her Christmas presents which were a Cryptex and a book about Art History. From there, Askia received coded voice messages that she had to decode. The decoded messages pointed her to call several of her family members who in turn gave her a series of numbers. The "keys". I didn't realize "the keys" would make her believe she was getting a car. On New Year's Day, after touring Saddleback Ranch, we headed to Malibu Pier for what she thought was dinner. It was the message I coded into the Art history book I gifted. It said, "I will ask you to marry me on a pier." At 4:47pm (sunset) I nervously asked her to marry me. Her first response was, "Did you ask my mother?" When I told her I had indeed asked her mother and named everyone else who knew about the proposal, she emphatically nodded and asked, "What took you so long?" She also asked if she was getting a G-wagon.