“And it would be crushed pepper, not parmesan cheese,” Oscar replied.
“We still can’t afford anything,” Aaron said.
“We can offer our guests drip filter coffee, one cup each, and when everybody leaves, we can go for pancakes, just us. We’ll give them knitted party favors—all your half-finished projects—and you can knit a tux for each of us.”
“We could also wear sweaters and jeans, Spike. And go to the courthouse and have everybody over after.” Aaron—sweet, smart, measured Aaron—drew in a breath that sat in his chest for a long, long time.
“I’d marry you in sweatpants,” Oscar said.
He wrapped his arms around the small of Aaron’s back, pulling him in by the waist. Their lips met in the middle, the last coffee Aaron had sipped on his way home from work still lingering bitter and delicious as his tongue slipped through the gap between Oscar’s teeth, deepening their kiss, his hands rising up Oscar’s back as they climbed through his shirt. Aaron’s ring was still cold against Oscar’s skin, still new, still settling.
“I’d marry you wearing nothing at all,” Aaron said as he pulled away, eyes smoldering with the same desire that simmered in Oscar’s middle, dripping hot for him.
Oscar didn’t need to be told twice. A moment later, Aaron was hoisted up on Oscar’s hips with a yelp, legs wrapping around his waist. Their clothes lined up behind their bedroom door, a carpet of scattered things that mapped their way to bed.
Entirely naked and hungry for more than just food, Aaron fell onto the mattress like a gift from the skies, and Oscar descended, ready to give thanks and worship. As his lips trailed kisses up Aaron’s thighs, rising to the heat of his center, fingers trailing his wetness and slipping into Oscar’s mouth to taste it, Oscar smiled, looking up at him.
He couldn’t wait until the day he could call him husband.
26
ACES
Signal Processing was Oscar’s only B, but he didn’t much care right now about the A’s blinking at him on the digital report card he’d received from his university. His phone screen blinked to black as it locked, his other hand firmly grasping Aaron’s.
Oscar rubbed the golden band Aaron had only taken off twice since he’d put it there a fortnight earlier. Aaron’s fingernails were painted black now, Tobe’s work from when Aaron had invited them and Marta over to tell them about the scans and the tests and the suspicions. Oscar had never witnessed a hug as long as the one Aaron and Tobe shared. Nor had he ever been so glad to watch another person be so deeply loved.
Joe and Anna had been told at their apartment in the middle of a supposed movie night. Joe hadn’t been able to hold back his tears. When he and Oscar eventually went out to get food, he’d pulled him aside and wrapped him up in one of his gymbro bear hugs.
“You’ll be fine, Oz,” he’d said. “Both of you. No matter what, you’re not in it alone.”
They hadn’t told them about being engaged yet. Aaronhad said he wanted to wait for the results first, that he didn’t want to stain their happy news with fear. Oscar hadn’t argued.
He’d had his own quiet spiral with Grandma and Lina. Although Aaron had been to Grandma’s for dinner several times since Christmas, he’d insisted Oscar go alone this time. Aaron had taken a bus to see Gemma at the care home, and Oscar had found his way to his own family.
His spaghetti and hot dogs had tasted like tears, no matter how much parmesan Grandma kept piling on top, and after, the three of them had huddled up on Grandma’s couch and watchedThe Princess Diaries. Grandma had seen fit to say that if she’d ever consider dating a woman, it would have to be Julie Andrews, specifically in her role as Queen Clarisse, and it had made Oscar laugh.
“I like Anne Hathaway,” he’d said, “but inThe Devil Wears Prada.” So they’d watchedthatnext, and Grandma had said Meryl Streep wasn’t half bad to look at either.
“Are you sure you’re not bisexual, Grandma?” Oscar had asked.
“Who knows?” Grandma had replied. “I only ever had true eyes for your grandfather, Spike.”
Oscar had fallen asleep on her couch, all cried out, but Lina had woken him up to take him home, insisting he’d want to get back to Aaron for the night. They’d stayed out in her truck for a long time. Oscar told her about their mother but not about the ring. Lina cried a little. It must be hard to watch your entire family fall apart again and again because of a sibling you dearly loved, but maybe it was a good thing that Papa had whispered to them about sticking with each other on those long drives to and from the beach.
In this, he lived on, too.
In the hospital now, Aaron’s hand twitched in Oscar’s, alerting him to the fact that a nurse had called him in. They rose to their feet a second later, hesitating in front of theirchairs. They were so blue, so clinical, so cold. This wasn’t the gender clinic any longer. There was no orange here and no softness, and if the doctor cut into them, he wouldn’t be giving them a new lease on life.
Not this time.
“I’m going to be okay, right?” Aaron mumbled. When their eyes met, it was not ocean or sky that Oscar saw, but a map of his future, each coming day pinned to Aaron’s cheeks, a tapestry of moments.
“You’re going to be just fine, boo,” Oscar replied. He leaned in, kissing him on the cheek. Oscar couldn’t imagine Aaron not being the same as he was now, but he could imagine loving him in every version of their unfolding story, in every version of who he was and who he might become. “Let’s go in, then.”
The walk to the doctor’s office hammered terror into every part of Oscar, his every nerve ending open and alive, waiting for the axe to sever his pulsing aching mind from the rest of his body. But to Aaron, he gave a smile, a strong and steady grip, a promise that he would be for him what Aaron had given him since the moment they’d met: hope.
“Aaron, come in!” The doctor’s round ruddy face lit up when he saw him.
