EPILOGUE
Brad
Six months had passed, and Brad had been trying to find the perfect time ever since. It never quite seemed to be there. He couldn’t think of the right way to ask, or the right words to say, and the ring which he’d bought all of those months ago languished in his pocket, forlorn but not forgotten.
Now Brad watched from the sidelines as Aaron, dressed for the first time that Brad could remember in a suit, stood up at the altar, smiling a little bit. But not for his wedding, not for their wedding, but rather for a friend.
The real surprise for Brad was not that Ken and Justin had decided to get married, but rather that it had taken them as long as it had. They had settled down into domesticity with an ease that Brad was sure he could never manage himself, raising their daughter, Jade. And she was their daughter because Ken had legally adopted the little girl. She stood up there now, resplendent in a golden floof of a dress that made her pale skin seem almost to glow and her hair to shine even deeper black.
Not only was Aaron standing up there, but Lance and Jamie were there, too, a Lost Boys reunion, of a sort. Darien and Noah stood with them, too, smiling as they watched while Justin and Ken promised to love each other for the rest of their lives.
Brad didn’t usually expect that to be the sort of promise that was kept. In his experience, nothing lasted that long. But from Ken and Justin, he found that he did believe it, that neither of them would ever let the other go.
Lara was there, and a few photographers, journalists who looked like they had died and gone to heaven to be able to witness this. Somewhat to the surprise of pretty much everyone involved, Ken’s entire family was there, too, a huge, chattering swarm, more than a few of whom were dabbing at their eyes as they watched the vows.
Even Ken’s mother, who wasn’t exactly known to be the most accepting person in the world, had deigned to show up. She looked neither exactly happy nor unhappy. She seemed to have come to some sort of acceptance, which was maybe the best that anyone could expect from her.
And then it was done. It was all done, Ken and Justin were married, joined together for life. Brad knew that it would work, somehow, which was weird because he wasn’t exactly the most optimistic when it came to that sort of thing. But both Ken and Justin had this look on their faces, and they were both so stubborn that it wouldn’t have any choice but to last.
The moment the kiss was over, Jade was squealing with delight and flinging herself into the arms of her two fathers, and Aaron, by some miracle, was turning to look for Brad. Even more of a miracle, Aaron left his friends and came to Brad, wrapping his arm around him, like he wanted to be with Brad at this moment more than anything else.
Was now the moment? The one that Brad had been waiting for for six months now? Brad shook his head a little bit. It wasn’t quite right, not exactly perfect, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. It just wasn’t, so he satisfied himself with wrapping his arm around Aaron’s waist and hugging him close to his side.
Not now, but maybe soon.
* * *
In the end, the moment didn’t come until much later in the night, but it was that same night. The wedding had been at sunset, and the party had stretched on long into the evening. Long ago, the children had been taken away by relatives, and from there, the booze flowed like a river and people were soon a little silly.
Not Brad, though, and not Aaron, either. Neither of them drunk much, but Ken did, and he stumbled over to Brad and gripped his shoulder with strong fingers as he whispered into his ear.
“Are you going to do it yet? Do it already!”
Was it that obvious? Brad hadn’t told anyone but Leah that he even planned to, but Ken seemed to know and gave him an amused little smirk before going back to his new husband. Justin, too, shot him a grin and a shrug, and it seemed to him that Lance and Jamie and Darien and Noah were all staring at him, too.
Had they read his mind or something? Or was it just that obvious how Brad felt about Aaron? He supposed that he had never been all that good at hiding it.
Aaron came back with a plate filled with some of the remnants of the great feast that had been laid out, and it was then, laying his eyes on his boyfriend, on the man who meant everything to him, that Brad realized that that elusive moment had come.
Everyone had left, he realized, except for the Lost Boys and their men. Even the journalists had gotten bored or tired or had gotten enough material and had disappeared, and Brad found himself in an odd position, where he was only around people that he trusted.
Funny. He would have thought that the perfect moment would have involved him and Aaron being completely alone. He would have thought that it involved a romantic dinner, or a boat ride into the sunset, not the aftermath of a huge wedding party when he and Aaron were both utterly exhausted.
But this felt right. Or maybe Brad was just tired of waiting, and Ken had tipped him over the edge.
“Aaron.”
That first word, Aaron’s name, turned out to be the hardest step. Once he’d said it, once he had Aaron’s eyes on him, he reached into his pocket and felt the smooth, slightly fuzzy velvet, a little worn from having been in there for so long.
Time to fix that.
Brad pulled it out, then glanced around at the other men, not really surprised when he saw that he had everyone’s attention on him, which made it a pretty big deal for Brad to go down on one knee, though he did it. It was humbling himself in front of the man he loved, and for him, it was a sign of his devotion that he would be willing to do it.
“Brad?” Aaron’s voice came out quiet and a little strange, but Brad couldn’t let himself think about that. He couldn’t let himself worry about what Aaron would say, or he would never get this out at all. So he opened the box and held it out, presenting him with the sober, heavy white gold ring inside. It shimmered even in the low light, set with tiny, classy little diamonds, interspersed with the amethysts that so reminded Brad of Aaron’s eyes.
“Aaron, will you marry me?”
Aaron
