“What are they for, Soph?” asks Dean, who is not a soulless consumer in love with shiny things like me.
Her expression is pained. Like it’s so hard for her to have to deal with such dim-witted fools. “You keep calling her your wife, but you don’t wear rings! You have to wear rings if you’re married!”
“We do, don’t we? What a great idea.” Dean sorts through the jewelry. He tries on a couple of gold bands, but they’re too small. Then he picks up a simple thick silver band and slips it on his ring finger. “This one works.”
And I have a whole lot of nothing to say about any of this. Because those are absolutely real engagement and wedding rings spread out on the step. The man is marrying himself—to me. Like the first time he told me he loves me, this moment has me in a chokehold. It’s meant to be big. One you remember for the rest of your life.
“Astrid has to put it on you,” instructs Sophie.
Hazel nods. “It’s how it happens in the movies. The other person puts it on your finger.”
Bowie is too busy eating trail mix to express an opinion.
Dean takes off the ring and holds it to me with a hint of a smile curving his lips. “Would you do me the honor?”
“I don’t know.” I peer down my nose at him and the ring and shove some more candy into my mouth. “It’s not like you’ve wooed me or asked me properly or anything.”
“How do you define ‘wooed’?” he asks. “Because I feel like I exclusively focused on you and your safety and happiness.”
“You exclusively focused on my happiness?”
“On your long-term happiness,” he says. “You have to be alive to be happy, right?”
The funny fucker knows I am not saying anything about a cage in front of the children. I take the ring and turn it around and around. “You didn’t even ask me out until the world was ending. And then it was entirely on your own terms.”
He ignores me and carries on with his nonsense, saying, “For better or for worse, in sickness and in health—”
“Isn’t ‘to love and to cherish’ meant to go in there somewhere?”
“Till death do us part—”
“Is that why you waited outside the bathroom this morning while I used the facilities? Are you telling me I am not going to have a moment’s peace until one of us joins the dearly departed?” I ask. “Because I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
The children’s heads turn back and forth between us like it’s a sports match. Not sure we’re really modeling a healthy relationship.
“You’re smiling,” he says with a grin. “You don’t hate the idea of forever with me.”
“I have issues, clearly. But this is not a wedding. This is just me going along with this for now so you don’t lose all credibility in front of the children.” The ring slides down his finger without too much resistance. Hate to say it, but it looks good on the man.And I don’t hate how I was the one who put it on him. “Don’t let it be said I didn’t give you pretty trinkets.”
“You’re the prettiest. Nothing else matters and you know it. And I’ll be wrapped around your finger until the day I die.”
One day, I will learn how not to smile when he says such cheesy things. When the dairy is so blatantly in your face. But that day is not today. “I guess that’s as official as it gets.”
“We should ask Reema to marry us sometime. She’s official. Then you can wear the dress, and we can have a party.”
“And we’ll be the flower people!” shouts Sophie with glee.
“Yes!” screams Hazel. Truly the child has a remarkable set of lungs on her and much passion for life.
The solemn moment is broken by the appearance of a small black canine. No idea what breed it is. Some sort of lapdog, by the look. However, it sees the children and wags its muddy, tangled tail with glee. And the sentiment is most definitely returned in kind.
Soph’s face is filled with delight. “It’s a puppy!”
“No,” says Dean with dawning horror. “That is not what I meant by a dog.”
But no one is listening to him. Not even me.
“We’re in Northern California,” says Pedro on the two-way radio. “That’s about as comfortable as we are narrowing down our location, given everything.”
