Page 107 of Say It Again
“Kid, look at it.” Aaron swallowed, bouncing in his seat. “It is yours.”
Daniel finally looked at the dessert. He stared, rather, unmoving. It’d worked out better than expected. It’d worked out beautifully. A thick chocolate mousse dusted with cocoa powder atop a cookie crust sat in the middle of a white dish. From the center of the mousse, a sugar-encrusted sprig of rosemary jutted out like a tiny tree branch. Hanging from the branch?
A ring.
Daniel blinked. Eyes rounded and mouth wide open, he blinked. Of course he was shocked. They’d never spoken about marriage. But they’d never come so close to breaking up either. Something wasn’t working—Daniel wasn’t happy. Daniel needed more. Aaron had to give him more. He had to give him a promise.
His insides wound around themselves tightly enough to make his limbs tremble as he stood from the table and fell to one knee in front of him. He whispered, “Kid. Look at me. I have something important I need to ask.”
Daniel finally blinked up from the ring to meet his gaze.
Around the restaurant, forks were clinked down on plates and shushes exchanged between couples. Even the pianist playing in the background stopped to provide them with silence. Aaron had always heard moments like this happened in slow motion, but that was an understatement. It was so slow that he had time to scan his entire body for an ounce of hesitation only to come up with Ask him. Do it now.
He dug into his pocket and unfolded a crinkly piece of paper with his smudged handwriting. His voice shook as he cleared his throat and said, “Daniel. You make things make sense in a way I’ve never had. With you inside my house, it feels like a home. With you in my life, it feels like I’m finally growing roots. You are technicolored and dazzling. You’re precious.”
Daniel’s hands snapped to cover his face.
“You’re it for me, kid. You’re so it. You can take this as a promise.” He stuffed the paper back into his pocket to grip one of Daniel’s hands. The memory of him standing outside of a restaurant flashed across his mind—Come get me. He’d looked so shattered. “I choose you. I absolutely choose you. Please hang in there with me.”
He didn’t know when it would be. Someday. Someday when he had enough, when he’d saved enough, when he was enough, he’d able to quit. Until then, all he could do was promise.
“I promise to take care of you. To keep you safe. I promise to always choose you.”
Daniel’s tears streaked down his cheeks. It wasn’t clear if he understood the secret meaning at first, but then he nodded. It was barely there.
Aaron’s smile washed over him. But barely there counted. The ring—he needed the ring.
He stretched his neck long to see the dessert, which was slightly out of reach. When he tried to carefully fetch the plate, the ring, having been obediently balanced on the rosemary sprig the entire damn time, plunked into the mousse the second he touched it.
“Oh shit,” he whispered. “Dammit, did that just—? Well, son of a….”
He was at a disadvantage where he knelt on the floor, because he couldn’t see what he was doing, which seemed to be burying it farther into the mousse the harder he tried to fish it out. His cheeks were getting hot, probably because every person in the restaurant seemed to be waiting on him.
Daniel clenched his teeth into a shaky smile. He tapped his fingertips together and cleared his throat. “Do you, uh. Do you need help, or—?”
“No.” His whisper sounded frantic, and he was definitely sweating. “I’m sorry. This is not—hang on.” He’d been trying to save the dessert, but it was far less important than not making a complete fool of himself, so he destroyed it as he seized the ring.
Once silver and glossy, the poor thing was now globbed in brown. Aaron tried to suck chocolate off his fingers, probably smearing it onto his face as he searched the table for a napkin. He couldn’t very well slide this mess onto Daniel’s finger. He widened his eyes as the answer dawned on him. Then he stuffed the entire thing into his mouth.
Daniel looked like he couldn’t take it any longer. He burst into laughter, loud like an air horn as Aaron held up a shaky finger and worked the ring around in his mouth. A rumble of giggles began to fill the restaurant until most everyone was laughing too.
Aaron spat the ring out in his palm to inspect it, but because of wet fingers, slippery metal, and the fact that somewhere along the way he’d pissed off the gods, he dropped it.
The crowd grew loud with gasps and Oh no!s and What happened? Was that the ring?
He’d never be able to replicate the perfect storm of physics to make such a thing possible as the ring chinked on the floor a few times and then started to roll. It was a fast little sucker—faster than outstretched arms could catch, faster than what should’ve been possible. It also seemed determined to ruin his night, because it traveled five table lengths, then pinged off the shoe of the only man in the room who was not paying attention.
“Tom!” The man’s date hurled her napkin at him and pointed at his foot like it was on fire. “Get it. The ring. Get the ring. Pay attention!”
Tom hmmed as he lifted his sole, glanced around the floor, then stepped on it.
“Oh for the love of God, it’s under your shoe, Tom! Your damn shoe.”
Aaron buried his face in his hands, but he didn’t need to participate, because everyone else was yelling at Tom for him.
Tom, a very apologetic cartoon turtle of a man with a shiny bald dome, black-rimmed glasses, and his head kind of sunk in the bulk of his body, heaved for breath as he first rushed the ring to a guy tying his shoe and not proposing to anyone, then finally to Aaron, the other person kneeling.
This was the most explicit torture he’d ever experienced, but he thanked Tom through pursed lips even though he’d really rather find an oven to lay his head inside. And he still had to propose. Not that Daniel was going to be able to see him through his tears or breathe through his laughter. Hopefully he could hear him?