“Hey, Mama,” James said. “Don’t push. Don’t you have enough grandbabies yet?”
“No such thing as enough,” she replied.
“We haven’t talked about it.” I exchanged looks with Brooklyn.
“No rush. Just sayin’.” Mama bent to hear little Hallie, who tugged at her skirt. “Cupcakes? Of course I need one.” She let the five-year-old pull her across the room like a galleon under sail, guided by a tiny tugboat.
“Maybe you should talk about it,” Cheyenne said to Brooklyn. “While I’m still around to babysit.” She stared off across the room, then took Eb’s leash from me. “Oops, there’s someone I want to talk to. Enjoy your heart-to-heart.”
Brooklyn and I watched as she strode across the room toward a petite, long-haired Black woman whose self-possessed air suggested she was perhaps a year or two older than Cheyenne. Reaching her target, Cheyenne said something and then had Eb sit and hold up a paw.
“Hmm,” Brooklyn murmured, watching as the other woman bent and gravely shook Eb’s proffered foot. “What do you think?”
“I think Cheyenne will tell us when she wants us to know.” I suddenly needed to get some alone time with this man. Because Cheyenne also wasn’t wrong. Maybe we should talk. “Can I show you my etchings?” I gestured toward the hallway, drawing him away from the crowd, then pointed up the stairs when we reached them.
“I thought Liam lived up there now.”
“He does, but there’s still the office. Come on.”
Brooklyn raised an eyebrow but took my outstretched hand and followed me up, a trip I could finally make with ease. I unlocked the office at the top, guided him in, and closed the door behind us.
The party below came to us as a muted babble. I hadn’t turned on the lights, and through the window at the end of the room, we could look out across the neighborhood. We drifted over there, standing shoulder to shoulder, looking at the dark night outside. Many of the homes had holiday lights up, and the scene glittered with red and blue and green and gold. Although also… “Is that an inflatable octopus with a silver-headed cane and a Santa hat?”
“Our kind of people,” Brooklyn chuckled.
I turned to face him. “So. Mama’s way out ahead of the game, but we haven’t talked about it. Do you want kids one day?”
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “When I was with Becca, we discussed it, but the idea scared me silly. I don’t know if that was because I knew we didn’t have the kind of solid foundation kids need, or I assumed someone who grew up like I did would be a terrible dad.”
I had to kiss him, fast and soft. “Well, Cheyenne should sure have set that second fear to rest. You’re great with her.”
“Not the same as with a baby.”
“Probably harder.”
“What about you?” Brooklyn patted my chest, then gave my beard a tiny tug. “You have excellent dad energy with all your fur-babies.”
“Yeah. I guess I didn’t think I’d have anything left to give, with all the dogs and cats I cared for.”
“I hear the past tense in there. What about now?”
“Now? I’m not ready. Not any time soon. But I saw you with that little boy, and something in my chest clenched. You are great with kids—with James’s foster kids, Danny and Rob’s little ones. You meet Kevin on his own terms as a young teen. So maybe, someday, I can imagine wanting kids, if I had you at my side to share that life with.”
“Okay. So we put that firmly on the maybe shelf. Good talk.” He kissed me as I laughed.
“Right. At least neither of us is a no, so we know where we stand. And there’s one other thing I want to discuss.” It was probably too soon for that as well, but we’d been living together for over two months. Every day, we fit together better, in bed and out of it. We’d had a few fights, mostly about me failing to let him know when I was running late, or him assuming I’d say yes to some social invitation when my batteries were low. But we talked through it, and the make-up sex was awesome.
I put my hand on his chest, over his heart. “I grew up in a conventional family,” I said. “Midwest country life, uncles, aunts, cousins, church on Sundays, weddings and funerals, farming and hunting and fishing and all. When I decided not to go home after college, and to embrace being out and queer, I thought I was leaving all those conventions behind.”
“Well, you left behind the hunting and fishing,” he noted. His smile was soft and fond.
“Sure did. But it turns out, I’m more conventional than I thought. Or at least, I want some of the privileges.” I lifted my hand to set my knuckles on his stubbled chin and run my thumb over his pretty lower lip. “I want to call you my husband. I want a wedding and my ring on your finger. If you don’t, I’m not going to go off in a huff. Or get mad, or even sad?—”
“Shh.” He leaned forward and kissed me. “Stop trying to accept a no before I say it, and ask me.”
I swallowed hard. There he was, this kind, outgoing, handsome, loving boy-next-door who’d survived hard times and come out of them without losing his smile, and here I was. Stocky and long-nosed and wild-bearded, though he’d told me not to cut it when I asked. Distractable and awkward, except with my fur-babies. Almost forty, and still without money in the bank.
“I don’t have a lot to offer,” I told him, “except everything I am. I love you, and I want to spend my life with you, and make you happy. Will you marry me?”
