Marston grabbed onto the box to make sure he didn’t drop the ring, snapped it shut, and circled both his arms around Kell’s waist. Felt Kell’s heart thudding, felt the shake in his frame. The kiss on his neck. The dampness of tears.
“Yes, yes, yes,” came the whispered shout, so full of gladness and joy that Marston knew, in that instant, that he was right to ask now. To not wait. To let their love and life and happiness begin as soon as possible. Not saving the proposal for the perfect moment because there would never be anything more perfect than right now.
Kell pulled back, not all the way, but so that he could look at Marston while he scrubbed at his eyes with a shaky hand.
“Yes, always yes,” he said with a quick kiss on Marston’s mouth. “Can I see it? Can I put it on? Will you put it on me?”
Cupping the velvet box in his palm, Marston carefully opened it. Then, gently pulling the ring from its slot, the gold cool against his skin, the inset diamonds sparkling in the light, he put the box down and reached for Kell’s hand.
Kell gave it to him.
For a moment, Marston clasped that hand and kissed it and thought of all the happiness that would be theirs to share, from that moment forward. It wouldn’t matter about the wedding or the honeymoon, though Marston was looking forward to being in the hot tub overlooking the ocean with Kell. It wouldn’t matter, any of it, except that they would do it together.
As he slid the ring on Kell’s ring finger, he asked again, “Kell Dodson, will you marry me?”
“Yes, I will marry you, Marston Cleary,” said Kell in a clear, strong voice.
The weight of gold now on his finger must have been what made Kell’s hand shake as he traced Marston’s face with his fingers, a long, slow draw of skin on skin, till at last he brushed his thumb across Marston’s lower lip, as Marston often did himself.
“What a lovely man you are,” said Kell, a smile dancing in his green eyes. “When is the wedding? When we go to San Diego?”
That could have been perfect, it would have been. The two of them, married on a beach by a barefooted preacher, their toes in the warm sand as the sun went down. But—
“I’d love that,” said Marston. He stood up, his arms around Kell’s waist, holding him close, even after Kell’s feet were firmly on the floor. “But maybe that’d be too soon? Your mom would want to be there and she’d want to bring that new boyfriend I’ve been hearing about. Plus, we’d want to invite the guys from the ranch and the valley, so—maybe in the spring?”
“We’ll plan it together.” Kell nodded, then looked over at the silver laptop set snuggly on the end of the kitchen counter. “Could we tell her now? Over Zoom?”
This had been the hardest part for Marston, his own personal struggle. Logically, he knew that it wasn’t Mrs. Dodson’s fault that she’d been unable to find her son while looking for him for two years. But emotionally, the fact that Janet Dodson let her ex-husband beat Kell for six months, and had agreed to send him to conversion camp, was a harder pill to swallow.
He sometimes had to struggle to interact with her, though he wasn’t about to cut her off from her son because that would be cruel, and he wasn’t that kind of guy. He’d told Kell about his feelings, hoping Kell would understand, and Kell had. Gently and kindly, he’d listened and nodded, and kissed Marston and folded himself into Marston’s arms.
“I think she’s struggling too,” Kell had said, though what she had to struggle over, Marston had no idea. Janet seemed to have a pretty cush life living off alimony payments from her ex, living under the expansive roof of Aunt Miriam, who, from the bookshelves in the background of their mutual Zoom calls, seemed to be pretty well off.
But he loved Kell more than his own life, so when Kell dashed to set up the laptop on the small kitchen table for the Zoom call, Marston made them coffee, pulled out the sugar and milk to doctor it with, and sat down at the table wearing his very best neutral face.
He was prepared to let Kell lead the conversation, as he usually did, seeing that Aunt Miriam and Janet were more Kell’s family than his. As Kell clicked the link and fiddled with the audio and video, Marston was shocked at how tired Janet looked. Her normally tidy dark blond hair was scraped back in a ponytail, and the circles under her eyes, green eyes like Kell had, jumped out at him. She looked exhausted and upset, like he’d never seen her.
“Hello, boys,” she said, including Marston, as she always did. “I’m so sorry I can’t be there for Thanksgiving, but the weather—”
“Hey, Mom,” said Kell, warmth in his voice. “I see you got back home okay.”
“I guess the snow’s pretty deep there,” she said, looking at them each in turn. “Maybe I can come out for New Year’s or even in the spring.”
“The snow will be even deeper, then,” said Marston, speaking without meaning to, realizing that what the words might be interpreted as:You will not be able to visit us for a long, long time. Maybe never.
He stopped himself. The last thing he ever wanted to do was keep her apart from her son, but as Aunt Miriam had been sick at the end of summer and needed Janet’s help, and then it’d gotten busy in the valley, with all the parolees heading to various destinations and futures, and Kell and Marston setting up their tiny house, there’d not been a chance for a visit. Then the snow had started, and all bets were off, and Kell and his mom had not yet had their chance at an in-person reunion.
Janet’s eyes, even through the filter of the Zoom call, glimmered with tears. She truly loved Kell, that much was certain. And through Kell, Marston had learned that Janet had been terrified of her husband, unable to fight back or stop the abuse.
Well, maybe she could have stopped it, or maybe she couldn’t. And maybe Marston was letting his own personal demons getting in the way of his relationship with her. After all, just because Marston’s own mom had been a shitty mom didn’t mean that all moms were that way. Maybe.
“Sometimes,” said Marston, slowly, drawing both Kell and Janet’s attention to him. “There’s a thaw. Around mid-January or so. You could fly out then. We could set up one of the yurts for you. We’ve had several kits delivered, and I think we could get some help making it cozy for you. Or you could stay at a motel in Chugwater. Anyway, we’d love to have you. If you wanted to give it a try.”
Marston felt the intensity of Kell’s gaze, the way his fingers gripped Marston’s wrist, a hard, passionate squeeze that spoke volumes because, as everyone in the room knew, Marston never initiated offers like that.
“And Kell’s got something to tell you,” Marston added.
“I’m looking up what a yurt is,” said Janet, almost at the same time, her eyes a little unfocused as she typed on her keyboard. “Oh. Ayurt. I see what that is now. I’d love to try that.” She looked at them again, and now a smile was warming her eyes. “I’d love to. And what is your news, Kell?”
