“I’ll even show you the color if you don’t stop being a smart ass,” Oscar had replied.
“Alright, alright, chico.” Lucas had leaned back into his couch, smiling. “I’m proud of you, kid.”
“Thanks, Luke.” Oscar’s throat had closed up a little.
“It’s our wedding gift,” Lucas had said then. “The money.”
“Luke, no. It’s too much. You won’t even be here for the wedding!” Oscar could already imagine Aaron’s mortification if he had to go out and convey this news. “You’ve just had a baby. No.”
“Philip would have bought you some ugly fuck-ass crystal designer plate for your living room that Aaron would have hated and you would have broken in a week, and it would have cost nearly as much. Seriously, Spike. It’s our gift.” Lucas had flashed him a wink. “Only condition is you switch to Team Jacob.”
“I’d legitimately suck the Volturi’s dicks if it meant Aaron got his scans.” Oscar had melted into the tank then, sagging like a sack of potatoes, the events of the day catching up with him. The ceramic had clanked loudly, rattling a curse out of him.
“I’m relieved he’s fine,” Lucas had said, stifling a laugh as Oscar carried on with his string ofcurses.
“Yeah, me too.”
Now the call was over, and Joe and Anna had gone home, too, and it was just the two of them and Luigi left, back in the bathroom, Lu curled up in the sink, Oscar and Aaron standing beneath the warm water, their hospital clothes tangled in the laundry bin, their bodies tangled in each other.
“I love you so much,” Oscar said, pressing kisses all over Aaron’s face, smiling at the lather foaming atop his head. “I’m so lucky.”
“We both are,” Aaron replied, leaning into him.
His hands were warm, sliding up Oscar’s wet slippery back. Aaron melted into his softness, made him feel beautiful exactly as he was, turning everything Oscar had once thought a flaw into a blessing, a thing of magic.
“Bed?” Aaron murmured as they turned off the water and grabbed their soft towels.
“Bed.”
It wasn’t dark yet, and their bedroom was showered in the late afternoon spring light, brightening the pink, white, and blue of the blanket Aaron had made. It was a soft warm thing, welcoming their bodies as Oscar laid him down.
Aaron was a sight, lying naked atop the flag that defined so much of their shared suffering and all of their shared joy. His dark brown hair caught the light, glinting red as rubies, sunlight turning the blue of his eyes crystalline, freckles stark on his shower-fresh face.
“You’re everything,” Oscar breathed, clambering on, hair dripping over Aaron’s stomach and chest as he leaned over him. “How lucky was I to walk into that clinic and make that appointment?”
“How lucky werewe?” Aaron sat up, hooking an arm around Oscar’s neck, pulling him in for a kiss. “I love you. I love the family we’ve built together. I love the one we have when we close the door.”
“Yes,” Oscar replied, embracing him. His forehead tastedlike the honey milk soap they’d bought at the market when Aaron had insisted on going anyway as a distraction the previous week. “I love it, too. All of it.”
“But hey…” Aaron pulled away, eyes searching Oscar, reading him like one of those spicy queer novels sitting on his bedside table. “You know we can wait a bit if you want to, right? I know the circumstance pushed you to ask, but now the legal mumbo jumbo is no longer so pressing…”
Oscar closed his eyes, felt the press of Aaron’s ring on his neck, a gift from Papa. Maybe the legal mumbo jumbo was no longer an issue, but Oscar wanted the “Mambo No. 5.” He wanted to wear something tacky to the courthouse and get Aaron sunflowers and dance with him and their friends while they drank cheap champagne from Paulie’s and quoted books from Laura’s in their vows and ate the almond cake Grandma had promised to make vegan just for Riley’s sake.
“We don’t need to do it. But do youwantto?” Oscar asked, stretching his arms around the small of Aaron’s back, their bodies pressed to one another, throbbing wet for touch.
Oscar would grind against him in a minute, lap up his goodness, his want, his desire, a made-for-Oscar thing, and then Aaron would love him, too, and maybe later Oscar would lie down for him, and they’d do everything Aaron liked best. For now, Oscar waited for a response.
“You know I want to, Spike. You’re my family. But doyouwant to?” Aaron asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Oscar brushed a line down Aaron’s cheek. “Medical circumstances might have pushed me to act, but isn’t our entire story defined by medical experiences? We met in a clinic, boo bear, waiting for the knife.”
“That’s quite fair.” Aaron’s lips spread, his eyes the universe, a galaxy of stars. Oscar was an asteroid, his own reflection in Aaron’s gaze reminding him that someone looked at him and thought him beautiful.
He leaned in, kissing him, their lips finding each other easily, known. Aaron was so known to him now, the letters of his name etched into the ridges of Oscar’s fingertips, all ten of which knew how to love him, how to touch him, where to go.
“I can’t wait,” Aaron whispered as Oscar kissed a path down his neck and over his freckled shoulder, nipping at the collarbone. “I can’t wait to be Aaron Peters.”
“We don’t have to take my name just because I’m the one who proposed,” Oscar said, pulling away briefly.
