“She’s gonna cry,” he says finally.
“I know.”
Kai huffs at that. “I’m just telling you to prepare you, because I know how much you hate it when she cries.”
I thread my fingers into his hair. “Happy tears I can deal with.”
We’ve found our rhythm as a trio while building our relationships as individuals. We’ve been on dates as couples, as well as with each other. Kai took Isla line dancing, something I hate with a passion. According to Quinn, I’ve become a good book-boyfriend, whatever the fuck that is, by buying Isla some of those romance books Quinn loves and taking Isla out to the lake for a picnic and to read in peace while I fish. And Kai and I spent the day at a whiskey distillery together.
Every day, I’m learning more about what it means to love two people. I’ve shared my past with Isla, and we’ve found ways to manage the anger and grief and sense of isolation that comes from shitty childhoods. Kai continues to anchor us both in a happy home where we laugh more than we cry and never yell.
And we communicate. The first time I had full penetrative sex with Isla when Kai was out, I had complicated feelings. Part of me felt like it was cheating because he wasn’t there, which was weird, because we’d already been sexually intimate in the bathroom together. But he reassured me that he was cool with it. In fact, he encouraged it. After all, he rationalized, if we feel horny, and one of the people we love is standing right there in front of us, why wouldn’t we?
“I don’t think I can waste another minute,” I admit.
Kai runs a knuckle down my cheek. “You bought all that shit to make her a pretty tray of food for breakfast.”
“I’m so nervous, I think the smell of bacon might make me puke.”
He takes my hand. “Then, let’s go do it now.”
We walk back to the bedroom, grabbing what we need from the closet in the spare room on the way. As the door opens, Isla rolls lazily toward the door to see who it is.
“Morning,” she says, pushing the hair back off her face.
“Morning, Sunbeam.” One look at her face and the nerves I felt downstairs are gone.
“What are you two up to?” She pushes herself upright, tugging the sheet around her, like we haven’t seen, sucked on, and licked every part of her body.
I reach into the bag and pull out the small red box before handing it to Kai. We climb on the bed on either side of her, and Kai opens it.
“Sunbeam, we already asked you to be our old lady,” Kai says. “Now, we’re asking you to be our wife. And while the law is taking a while to catch up with arrangements like ours, Lucy’s drawing up papers to help legally entwine our lives as much as is possible. We want you to know that, to us, you’re our wife in every way that matters.”
I don’t have a big speech like Kai does, so I keep mine simple. “Marry us, Isla, Please.”
“Oh my God,” she says, her hand across her mouth in shock.
The ring catches the light, even in the dim morning. It’s a white gold band because, as Kai pointed out when we were choosing it, the earrings that she always wears, which were her nanna’s, are silver.
It’s balanced, but not symmetrical. Two stones. One picked by each of us, just for her.
A pear-cut diamond, bright and precise, leans against a square-cut black diamond, the light sinking into it rather than reflecting.
“It’s beautiful,” she says. “They’re so different.”
“They’re supposed to be,” Kai says.
I lift the ring from the box. “The pear is Kai. Catching the light. Impossible to ignore.”
“Sweet talker,” Kai says. “I knew you could be romantic.”
Isla grins at that.
“The black diamond is me,” I say. “Grounded. Solid. Less flash, but unbreakable.”
Kai takes it from me and slips it onto Isla’s finger. It’s a little loose, but my heart bursts at the sight of it on her. “I kinda like the way the pear is angled to lean against the square. Kinda looks like the two of us, don’t you think?” Kai asks.
“It’s beautiful,” Isla says, holding her hand out so she can admire it. “Two completely different stones that don’t compete with each other.”
