may, age 24
Caper Cove was a slice of heaven. There was something a little bit magical about the tiny secret of a town, an ethereal feel to the little hideaway that was nestled in a sandy creek off Lake Michigan. The rocky shore was lined with tall trees that protected the town from the cool wind that rolled off the lake, the white-gold beach catching the sun as though a magnifying glass focused the rays on the sand. A little island sat in the narrow inlet, hiding the cove from view.
That island had proved to be the perfect spot to watch boats floating past, the stunning vista stretching from the gentle Michigan shore right across to the bustling Illinois coast. Once on a particularly clear day, the sky a striking azure that held the sun in its cloudless embrace, Lucas had been able to spot the Chicago skyline where tiny skyscrapers dotted the horizon, their fingers touching the sky beyond the glistening lake. It had become his favourite place to relax in the three days since Mira’s and Mawar’s wedding.
Having taken care of the legal aspect of their marriage almost three years ago, long before they had ever envisaged they would wed, the girls had had a bit more freedom with the ceremony itself. In the end, it was more of a celebration than anything else: it had taken place on the beach just down from the adorable little house they lived in, a cosy cottage tucked into the woods. Mawar had stood barefoot with her toes curled into the sand, her dress matching the swirling blues and whites of the lake; Mira had stood by her side in a flowing dress the colour of the sky as the sun had set over their perfect day with only their closest friends and family there to share their day.
Mawar’s parents had been in the country for a month already, taking advantage of the ninety days on their visas to spend some time with their daughter and to explore the country she now called home. They had been staying with Mira’s parents, the two couples getting along famously as they had bonded over their daughters and their ties to Farnleigh. Mira’s mother had spent the first four decades of her life in the town that Mawar had been raised in, which still served as something of a novelty over the dinner table.
Lucas and Asher had flown out a couple of days before the wedding, each taking a fortnight off work to indulge in their first trip abroad together. In their seven years as a couple, never had they made it further than Scotland when the idea of flying had always turned Lucas’s stomach, but he had swallowed his fears with months of planning out the perfect trip. They were due to spend one more night with Mira and Mawar in Michigan before they headed off to enjoy the rest of their holiday touring the east coast.
Even Tom and Mika had made it over. The five days they had spent in the picturesque town had been well-deserved, giving them the break from real life that they had sorely needed when eleven months of trying to conceive had proved futile. They were persistent, determined to have a child, but even they, one of the strongest couple’s Lucas knew, were finding it harder and harder to keep going with each month that came and went. When they had headed back to England the day before, it had been with looser shoulders and smiles on their faces, as close as they had always been.
Mira had been selective with her invites. Other than her friends and family in America, the only people she had asked were Tom and Mika and the boys. Not one of her family members from England had made the cut: she wasn’t close to any of her uncles or their children and although she knew her aunt a little better, inviting her would have meant inviting Adler. She was the one person nobody wanted at the wedding, the one person who would have undoubtedly made the day all about herself, making everyone else miserable in the process. Lucas had made sure she wouldn’t be there before he and Asher had accepted the invite. No matter how much time passed, no matter how many years it had been since he had seen her, her name alone still made his stomach churn.
Some things were too hard to let go, the claws that lingered at the back of his memory with enough distance that the memories felt more like a bad dream now.
*
Lucas leant against the door frame of the spare bedroom he and Asher had been staying in, his arms folded across his chest and an amused smile on his lips.
“Reckon you’ve got enough there?” he asked, nodding at the case on the floor. Asher had brought as few clothes as possible, rolling up shorts and t-shirts with his underwear and socks, and every other inch of space in his suitcase was taken up with packets of Haribo. Mira had assured him that he would be able to buy the sweets in America but he hadn’t wanted to take any chances. Just in case they tasted different, he had argued, much to Lucas’s amusement.
“No such thing as too many,” Asher said through a mouthful of gummy bears. He held out the packet to Lucas, who plucked out a foamy fried egg. “Plus, I was right. I swear they taste different here.”
“Sure.” Lucas nodded though he wore his scepticism written across his face. He couldn’t taste a difference. “Are you ready?”
“Yup.” Stuffing in a handful of packets of Haribo, he slung his backpack over his shoulder, ready for their last day of exploring the area with Mira and Mawar. They had insisted that the boys join them for a final walk down to the secret beach on the other side of the woods. It wasn’t Lucas’s usual territory by a long shot – the opposite, in fact, when he hated beaches – but he had stepped out of his box enough just by flying to the states. It was now or never, a chance to push his limits.
“Hey there, handsome,” Asher said when he reached Lucas, kissing him on the cheek as he passed him. “You’ve caught the sun.”
Lucas’s hand went to his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin. It had been surprisingly hot for the end of spring, his freckles a couple of shades darker now than they had been at the start of the week.
“I love your freckles,” Asher said as he headed into the kitchen with his water bottle in his hand. Filling it up, he took another out of his bag that he filled halfway, topping up the rest with crushed ice. Lucas loved extra ice in his water, even when it wasn’t warm outside.
Mira burst through the door with a dramatic harrumph, hanging off the frame. Her eyes were wide and impatient, her lips pressed together. “Oh my God, guys, take your time much?” She rolled her eyes and hitched up her shorts that left almost nothing to the imagination: the loose tank top hanging from her narrow shoulders left even less. She almost never wore a bra, covering her body with as little material as she could get away with.
“We’re coming, we’re coming,” Asher said. He zipped up his bag and followed Lucas and Mira outside, where Mawar was perched on the rock that bore their house’s number. She jumped down when she saw them, her own bag bouncing against the small of her back.
“Awesome, let’s go,” she said, nodding at the path she had planned out for their final adventure. She had been enthusiastic about showing the boys around her new town, the one that she had had to explore for herself fairly recently. As far as the town was concerned, she was still a newbie despite having been with Mira for seven years now, living with her for around half of that time. But with Lucas and Asher trailing along behind her, she was the fountain of knowledge.
“Where exactly are we off to today?” Asher readjusted his bag, evening out the straps. Mawar rolled her eyes dramatically, her whole body following through with the movement.
“Oh, come on! I told you, like, a million times!” She harrumphed, acting put out, though she grinned when Mira bumped along beside her, finding her hand.
Lucas still couldn’t believe that they were married. It blew his mind that he and Asher were the only single ones left in their group. When he was young, he had doubted whether Tom would ever open up to anyone enough to date, let alone get married, and yet almost two years had passed since Mika had become his wife. It baffled him even more to think that more time had passed since Mira and Mawar had officially tied the knot. Three years ago, almost to the day – three days ago, in fact – they had wed.
Part of him had thought if any of them were to have married, he would have been first. After all, he was the only one who had always known who he had wanted to be with, the only one to have never even questioned his sexuality, the only one to have lusted after married life for longer than he could remember. Another part of his brain reminded him that he was still young. It wasn’t that he and Asher were dragging his feet, that they didn’t love each as much: it was that their friends had all jumped the gun.
He told himself that, anyway, trying to block out the other thoughts that slipped into his head when he wasn’t careful enough, the ones that told him Asher didn’t want to get married. They had never talked in depth about marriage. Asher wasn’t one to dwell on the future, preferring to live in the here and now: he had surprised Lucas last year with his confidence about being a father someday.
Mira nudged him. “Whatcha thinking about?” she asked, genuine intrigue in her eye rather than her usual cheeky glint. Lucas had often wondered, had he and Asher not got together that New Year’s Eve, had Mira and Mawar not found each other, if she and Asher would have become an item. He thought they probably would have had some kind of relationship, though their group was already tangled enough.
“Nothing really,” he said, answering her question a second or two too late for that to be entirely believable. “It’s so beautiful around here.”
“Isn’t it? I know it’s home but sometimes I’m still totally blown away. Mar’s made me appreciate the area even more,” she said. “Nature’s insane. I don’t get it, really, but I’m so glad I get to call this home.” She spread out her arms, gazing around at the tall trees that hid the water from view, the lake that Asher insisted was more like an ocean. Shunning his years of geography, he was adamant that a body of water the size of Lake Michigan was a sea.
“It’s stunning,” Lucas said quietly, taking in the scenery at his own pace as he followed Mawar. She and Asher had ended up at the front, their conversation somehow turning to fitness.
That wasn’t something Lucas had much of an interest in, other than appreciating the physical aspect of Asher’s love of the gym. After trying an introductory session to appease his boyfriend, Lucas had decided the gym definitely wasn’t for him. The thirty minute session had left him with burning lungs, his legs turning to jelly. Asher couldn’t stop laughing when they had driven home and Lucas had been unable to get out of the car, his muscles pushed past their limits. He had been sore for days afterwards, struggling to even walk downstairs while Asher had jogged to the gym for a couple of hours. Those two hours three times a week were virtually the only time the two were ever apart.
“Crazy, isn’t it?” Mira murmured.
“What?”
“How much everything’s changed.” She nodded at Mawar and Asher then looked over at Lucas. “So weird to think that at the start, I joined the group as your friend and those two were dating. Now she’s my wife and Asher’s your…” She trailed off, pursing her lips. “Well, he’s basically your husband.” She laughed, dimples in her freckled cheeks. “You’ve been together forever.”
“Seven years,” Lucas said. “Same as you and Mawar.”
“No, I know that,” she said, “but I mean really. Like, not officially. You’ve really been together forever. How long’ve you guys known each other?”
“Nearly twenty-one years,” Lucas said. “We met when we started Reception together … twenty-one years in September.”
“Shit,” Mira said quietly. “Really, really forever.” There was a glint in her eye, a smile playing on her lips. “And how long have you loved him?”
Lucas pursed his lips as though he even had to think. “Nearly twenty-one years,” he said. He smiled. The sun came out from behind a wisp of a cloud, warming his cheeks. Mira let out a long whistle.
“Jesus Christ. I don’t know how you didn’t go crazy. I mean really, seriously, how did you not lose your mind?” She shook her head. “The way I feel about Mar … if I felt like that for fifteen years without her feeling the same way, I just don’t know what I’d do with myself. It’d kill me. That must be so freaking painful, I think I’d actually kill myself.”
Lucas sighed quietly. “Well, I didn’t,” he said. Mira glanced at him, her eyes a little wider, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she let a moment pass by without a word.
“Excited for the rest of your trip?” she asked after a few seconds, painting brightness back onto her face and lacing it into her voice. “Your plans sound amazing.“
Lucas’s smile grew and he nodded. “I really am,” he said, almost as excited just by how excited he was, how his positivity had managed to crush his fears about being in a foreign country, where even speaking the same language didn’t even translate. He had been apprehensive when he and Asher had first started to think about their holiday, only relaxing when they had decided that rather than fly from state to state, they would rent a car.
“You guys are total goals,” she said, almost to herself. “You’re gonna have an amazing time. You’ll probably have seen more of America than I have by the time you’re done.”
“We’re only driving across to New York,” he said. Their journey was due to start across the lake in Illinois, heading a little south before continuing east through Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland, cutting through Pennsylvania before coming to a stop in New York City.
“You say that, but that’ll be, like, five or six other states,” Mira said. “I’ve been to … God, only four in my life. And two of those have been since Mar and I got together!”
“You live here. And you can drive. You should see your country,” Lucas said.
“I know, I know. Mar’s always planning out these elaborate cross-country trips,” she said with a laugh. “What can I say? Michigan’s home. I’ve got everything I need right here.” Her eyes fell on her wife, a few steps ahead of her, and an easy smile fell over her lips.
The gentle stroll continued for more than half an hour before the thick trees cleared, the forest giving way to the bright sky and the water glittering several feet below. The land sloped down to the shore, the path dwindling down from dust to a crescent of white sand. The tiny, private beach was protected from the breeze, the air completely still. The leaves looked as though they had been freeze-framed, the only movement the gentle roll of the water that hardly even lapped the shore.
“Oh, wow,” Asher said, the first to break the silence as Mawar led them down the worn path. There was no-one else around; they hadn’t seen a single other person since leaving the cottage, as though the world was their oyster. “This is amazing.”
“It’s my favourite spot,” Mira said with a smile. “My dad brought my mom here, way back when they were … God, like, eighteen. And it’s where he proposed when they were forty.” She took Mawar’s hand and kissed her cheek. “I brought Mar here the first time she came over.”
“And it’s where I proposed,” she said, the most infectious, delirious grin on her lips.
“It’s just … wow,” Asher said again. “It’s so quiet. And so still.”
“It’s stunning,” Lucas said, focusing on the scene as a whole rather than the fact that it was a beach, that he would have to walk across the sand. The lake was completely clear, not a boat to be seen from the hidden strip of beach that seemed as though no-one had ever disturbed it.
“Hey.” Asher reached for Lucas’s hand and pulled him over, slipping his arm around his waist when he kissed him, the two of them framed by the unspoiled landscape. His lips lingered on Lucas’s for a moment, the kind of lazy kiss that meant there was nothing he would rather be doing.
“Come on,” Mawar said after a moment, jogging down onto the beach. Mira flew after her, stripping off as she went until she wore nothing but a pair of bikini bottoms, digging through her bag for the top half. Mawar kicked off her sandals and stood right on the edge of the water in a skirted one-piece, digging her toes into the sand.
Asher laced his fingers with Lucas’s. “Come in,” he said as they walked over to join the girls.
“In the water?” Lucas pulled a face that got a laugh out of his boyfriend.
“Yeah.”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“No,” Asher said, “but I brought two towels and a couple of hand towels and spare socks. I reckon we can work out the logistics surrounding the transition from the water back into dry shoes, sand free. If you want to. If you trust me.”
“Of course I trust you,” Lucas said, “but I’ve never been in the sea.”
“Good news: this isn’t the sea,” Asher said.
“I’ve never been in a lake.” He squirmed at the thought alone, staring out at the sparkling lake. He had always wished he could just run into the water like his sisters did, like Asher did: he wished he could be so confident and carefree, to let go of his hang-ups.
“Want to give it a go?” Asher set down his bag on top of Mawar’s towel and unzipped it, laying down one of his own before he took out another and held it up to Lucas. “I have a totally clean, one hundred percent sand-free towel; I have a separate hand towel for each foot, and I have spare socks just in case. And I have a couple of pairs of trunks in here too.”
A wave of affection rolled through Lucas at how much Asher cared, the lengths he had gone to, but he couldn’t shake the niggle of doubt at the back of his head. Asher seemed to sense it.
“You don’t have to swim,” he said.
“I can’t,” Lucas added quietly, painfully ashamed that at almost twenty-five, he had never learnt to swim.
“I know,” Asher murmured. “You don’t have to do anything. Mind if I go in though?”
“No, of course not.” He sat down, his heart heavy as he watched Asher change into his swimming trunks and run into the water after Mira and Mawar. The three of them waded out until the water was waist-deep, lounging in the water as though they were sunbathing in the park. Lucas sat cross-legged on the towel, his gaze dropping from his friends to the bag that Asher had packed. He had thought of everything: a whole spare outfit was packed in a plastic bag to keep the sand out, along with plenty of towels to dry off cleanly.
Still safely in the middle of the towel, Lucas slipped off his shoes. He placed them upside down on the towel so the sand wouldn’t blow into them, though not a grain as moving when the air was so still. His heart beating fast, he took a deep breath and peeled of his socks. His feet were exposed, still protected by the towel. For now.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt sand between his toes. Over a decade, easily. Maybe even fifteen years. Either way, it was safe to say it had been a long time since he had taken his shoes off on the beach. It had been a long time since he had been to a sandy beach full stop.
It took a little while to psych himself up to stand. Under the towel, he could feel the grains moving beneath his feet and he tried not to grimace, though it was hard to rewire his natural reaction. He quickly slipped out of his shorts and his underwear, pulling on the trunks Asher had packed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had worn trunks. Not since he was three or four, he was sure. Pulling the drawstrings tight, he tied them in a tight bow and folded his clothes into the bag along with his shirt.
Asher looked over and stopped in his tracks when he saw Lucas standing on the towel in nothing but a pair of trunks. His shock was evident on his face: no matter what he had done, he had never thought it would actually have any effect on Lucas, who had never budged on his hatred of all things water.
“Are you coming in?” he shouted.
“I don’t know,” Lucas signed. Asher’s cochlears were safely in the bag away from the water: he couldn’t hear a thing. His hearing had deteriorated to the point that now, when he wasn’t wearing his processors, he was completely deaf. Until several months ago, there’d been a residual murmur of sound in his left ear, but that had been extinguished.
“Do it!” Mira cried out, beckoning him over. “Come on, first time for everything!”
That was true, Lucas thought. No matter his stubbornness, he had still had several firsts in his life. Being with Asher had helped to push him out of his box a little. This was just another of those steps. With that at the forefront of his mind, he stepped off the towel for the first time. The second his skin made contact with the soft sand, he recoiled and clenched his hands into fists but he kept going, his body stiff as a board as he crossed the beach.
“Oh my God!” Asher cried out. It had taken a while for him to talk with any confidence when he wasn’t wearing his processors, even just around Lucas. That sudden self-consciousness had brought them closer, when he had begun to understand his boyfriend on a new level.
Lucas felt like he was losing control even as he made the decision with every step he took. His breathing was quickening out of control, his hands shaking, and he felt like he was going to pass out when he felt the first tickle of water tease his toes. Breathing hard, he flexed his hands and let out a shaky laugh. Asher waded over to him, getting faster as he got shallower. He reached out his wet hand to Lucas.
“You’re amazing,” he said, his voice a little distorted by his inability to hear himself. His grin widened when Lucas took his hand. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to,” Lucas said, signing his words. He did want to: he wanted to be able to do things like that without overthinking it every single time, without working himself into a frenzy over the smallest things. He stepped closer, the water covering his ankles, and he shivered. To most people, it was absolutely nothing. To him, it was huge.
“You’re fucking incredible,” Asher said with a laugh of utter joy that erupted out of him. His glee was contagious, a diluted version seeping into Lucas.
“Thank you,” he said. He regained control of his breathing at last, focusing on Asher’s eyes. “I love you.”
Asher’s smile grew. “Can I kiss you?” he asked. Ordinarily, he didn’t need permission but he was soaked from head to toe in lake water, something that would normally require a hot shower before he could be anywhere near his boyfriend.
Lucas nodded. He closed his eyes with Asher kissed him, taking his breath away as they stood in four inches of water with the loose sand shifting beneath their feet. He swallowed every instinct to run back to the towel, instead pulling Asher’s wet body closer and holding onto him as though he would never let go.
“Just when I think I know you inside out,” Asher whispered, “you go and surprise me like that.” He kissed him again and pulled away with a grin. Lucas found himself smiling too, bubbling into a laugh at the absurdity of the situation. It was as though something inside him had snapped, throwing caution to the wind, and he was fairly sure he liked it.
*
It took ten minutes of careful planning and execution but Lucas made it back to the towels with clean, dry feet and a newfound sense of accomplishment. His heart felt full, as though he had a new lease on life. In a way, he did: he had leapt so far out of his comfort zone that he couldn’t see the line anymore.
It was only when the sun ducked behind a cloud that they reluctantly decided to leave the beach. Mawar took the lead again, heading off in a different direction to the one they had come from. She had made it her mission to learn the cove inside out, her free time spent exploring her new home, and after years of effort she now knew it better than many of the locals who rarely ventured away from the security of the main beach and the rustic row of wood-fronted shops that made up the town.
“I’d say this is the scenic route,” she said as they walked, “but everywhere here is absolutely breath-taking, so this is just another of my favourite walks. You guys will have to come back out here one day. There’s still so much I want to show you.”
“You’re a great ambassador for the town,” Lucas said. He still couldn’t believe what had happened on the beach, that he had not only walked across the sand but he had gone into the lake, joining Asher and his friends out where the waves chilled his belly button.
“She really is, isn’t she? I’ve said before, Mar would be an amazing tour guide but we don’t really get tourists round here,” Mira said. Looking around, she added, “I don’t know why when it’s so freaking gorgeous here, but I don’t want to jinx it – I love how peaceful it is. Anyone around here either grew up here or knows someone who did. This is home.”
Lucas felt a pang for home. Not Brighton: Farnleigh. An odd sense of pride and longing rolled through him, suddenly missing the town that had raised him. As much as he loved Brighton, he had found that over the past year or so, he felt an increasingly strong pull to go back home. Tom’s and Mika’s words echoed in his mind: Brighton was fun, but Farnleigh meant family.
After almost thirty minutes of walking, Mawar came to a stop and Lucas almost toppled over. His heart lurched when he saw why they had halted. Right in front of them was a river, a couple of feet deep and at least ten feet wide. He stood rooted to the spot as though gravity had taken control of his legs. Mira slipped off her sandals and walked straight through, slowing when the cold water reached her thighs.
“Shit,” Mawar said. She turned around to face Lucas, apologetic realisation all over her face. “I completely forgot.”
Lucas stared at the river. “Is there a bridge?” he asked, glancing upstream.
“Not for about a mile,” Mawar said. She looked utterly distraught, her face falling to see the distress in Lucas’s eyes. He looked over his shoulder, wondering how long it would take to just go back the way they had come but they had looped around, two miles away from the beach, and he had no idea which way led to home.
Asher slipped off his backpack and handed it to Mawar before he crouched down and patted his back. “Hop on.”
“What?”
“Hop on and I’ll give you a piggyback across,” he said. “Come on.”
Lucas cautiously stepped forwards, looping his arms around Asher’s neck and when Asher stood, he hooked his arms around his boyfriend’s knees to hold him secure. Lucas’s heart thudded hard, partly paranoid that he would fall into the water and partly worried he was too heavy but Asher carried him with ease.
“I only brought one spare pair of socks,” Asher said with a laugh when they were halfway across, the water flowing around his knees. “Can’t have those getting wet too.”
Lucas rested his chin on Asher’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he murmured.
“Anything for you,” Asher said, hoisting him higher. Then he stopped. Looking over his shoulder, he took Lucas by surprise with a kiss as they stood in the middle of the river that grew a little colder each second. Lucas wished he could save that moment as a snapshot of perfection, a moment that summed up his love for his boyfriend. He was always there for him, always there to hold him up.
“That’s true love right there,” Mira said when the boys joined her and Mawar on the other side of the bank. Asher let Lucas slip to the ground, completely dry, and he kissed him again.
“You can say that again.”
*
The sun was due to set at ten past eight. When the hour struck, the sky was a glorious candyfloss dream. The orange glow of the dipping light bled into the pink wisps of cloud that underscored the palette of blue above the horizon. The moon hovered in the distance, waiting to take over when night fell.
Lucas didn’t want the day to end. He didn’t feel ready to say goodbye to Mira and Mawar in the morning with no idea of how long it would be before he saw them again. He wasn’t ready to leave the town he had fallen in love with, to take a deep breath and continue on his travels.
For the last night, the four of them hadn’t planned anything fancy. Instead, loading up Mira’s father’s rickety wooden boat with a stuffed hamper and a few blankets, the four of them had rowed out to the island to picnic beneath the sunset.
With a full stomach, Lucas let out a contented sigh and he rested back on his elbows, his ankles crossed and his head tipped up at the sky. The air was still warm even as the sun bid farewell, the sky slowly changing as it rotated through a wheel of colours. Mira crouched between the trees with a proper camera on a strap around her neck, snapping photographs of every stage of the sunset. She had a passion for photography, her house littered with her own pictures tacked up on the walls alongside Mawar’s paintings. Some were abstract, some hyper-realistic, all of them breath-taking.
“Damn it!” Mawar sat on her haunches and frowned.
“What’s up?” Mira put down her camera at last, looking over at her wife.
“I meant to bring prosecco and glasses but I totally forgot.” She harrumphed and stood. “I’m gonna pop home and get it.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” Mira said. The rowing boat was small and manageable but it was so much easier with two people. “Reckon you guys can cope for twenty minutes without us?”
Asher chuckled as he tore into a packet of Haribo and lay back with his head on Lucas’s stomach. “I think we can manage.”
Mira and Mawar took off down the rocky side of the island to the boat, bobbing where they had moored it. Lucas wasn’t looking forward to leaving the island, though he had already done it several times. That didn’t make it much easier each time he had to step into the rickety boat, paranoid that he would trip and fall into the lake even with Asher giving him a hand.
“I’m gonna miss this place,” Asher said with a sigh, turning his cheek against Lucas’s stomach to look up at him. “This has been amazing.”
“It really has,” Lucas said. “It’s so beautiful here. Look at the sky right now.”
They both gazed at the horizon as the sun lingered on the cusp of setting, the colours at their richest as blues and oranges swirled together. Lucas rested his hand on Asher’s head, playing with his hair as they lay together in perfect peace. The moment was ruined by a rustle of Asher’s packet of Haribo and Lucas laughed, rolling his eyes.
“I thought we were having a romantic moment,” he said. “I see where your priorities lie.”
Asher chuckled and shifted so he lay on his side next to Lucas, chewing a couple of gummy hearts. “You’re my number one,” he said. “Even before we got together … you’ve always been my number one, Lucas. It just took me a while to figure out in how many ways you were my everything.” He kissed his cheek. Lucas didn’t want either of them to move, to leave the purity of the moment.
“You’re everything to me,” he said quietly. “Always have been, always will be.”
Asher’s grin grew. He kissed Lucas again and rustled around in the packet. He took out a gummy ring, a glint in his eyes. “Be my Haribeau?” he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.
Lucas chuckled and ate the ring that Asher held out to him.
Asher frowned. “Is that a no?”
It was Lucas’s turn to frown. “Huh?”
With a sigh, Asher pulled over his backpack and took out another packet of sweets, tearing them open and taking out another ring. He sat up and Lucas did the same, a little confused. Asher took his hand, running his thumb over his knuckles. “I was trying to be cute,” he said with a laugh, “but I guess it failed.”
“I’m … I’m confused.”
“I was asking you to marry me,” Asher said. He held up the ring. “Haribeau. Get it?”
Lucas was fairly certain that his heart stopped for a split second before it began to gallop at a million miles a minute. His eyes widened, his breathing quickening. “Oh my goodness, you’re serious?”
“As serious as I’ve ever been.” Laughter toyed on Asher’s lips. “Am I gonna have to ask a third time? Should I take this as a hint?”
“Of course I want to marry you,” Lucas spluttered, pushing the words out past his shock. As much as marriage had been on his mind recently, he hadn’t predicted a proposal. “Oh my goodness. Yes. Of course.”
“I want you to be my husband,” Asher said. “I want you to be mine. I want us to get married and have a wedding; I want us to buy a house and have kids and grow old together. I want to marry you, Lucas.”
Lucas couldn’t control the tears that sprang to his eyes, his chin quivering. “I want to marry you too,” he said, his voice wobbling before he clamped his hand over his mouth. His beam was evident in his eyes, though. An ecstatic sob burst out of him when Asher moved his hand to kiss him.
The sun set as their lips met, sealing off the day on the most amazing note. Asher and Lucas hugged, holding onto each other as though nothing else mattered but their embrace. Lucas didn’t want to let go, reluctant when Asher pulled away until he lost himself in his boyf- his fiancé’s eyes.
Asher smiled as he pushed Lucas’s glasses up to the bridge of his nose and dried his cheeks with his thumbs. “I think it’s about time we renewed our vows, don’t you?” he murmured. His hand came to rest on the curve where Lucas’s shoulder met his neck. “It has been twenty years, after all.” He kissed him again, closing his eyes, and he let out a sigh as his smile grew. “There are a few things I want to add.”Â
+ – + – +
HEAD OVER HEELS IS NOW A FEATURED NOVEL!!!
I am so excited and thrilled to have been featured in the general fiction category (and thank you to trivialpotter for pointing it out to me!) it really does reaffirm my faith in my writing and this story. thank you so much to all of my wonderful readers and commenters for sticking by my side. now my challenge is to finish this book before its feature window comes to an end . . . about four weeks to go!
i also must thank tashtypes for letting me know i won a watty award for twenty-one night stand in the breakthrough section. i am beyond ecstatic to have won an award, especially for the novel that kickstarted everything for me. thank you all so much.
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