Page 121 of Say It Again

“You know when I bought this ring for you, I had to write down the inscription for the jeweler because I couldn’t say it. I tried, and I couldn’t do it. And even that was a challenge.” His chuckle was a little darker than intended. “I’m sure they thought I was broken. I might be, but I always meant it. From the beginning, I meant it.”

Daniel blinked up at him. “Meant what?”

Aaron’s heart started to patter a bit faster. “The inscription. On your ring.”

It seemed like Daniel was lost in time for a bit; then revelation softened his features. “I forgot about that.”

“Have you never read it?” Aaron’s eyes widened. “You never saw the inscription?”

“You said not to take it off. I never took it off.”

Aaron bit the inside of his cheek as he peered down at the ring in his fingers. A lump had lodged in his airway, or maybe it was bile on its way up. Either way, it was bitter, and he might choke if he continued.

He had to continue.

“So what if I read it to you?” he asked, because stalling for time was more manageable than saying it, and his hands had started to shake. “Give me just a second.” He swallowed the lump, hard like chalk and just as dry. “Here—here we go. It—it says—”

It was more than muscular and more than his nerves. It was like his bones trembled.

“It says—” It wasn’t a memory that bubbled up so much as a feeling, although the images that flashed spun in cryptic revolutions like an old-timey movie. Mostly of his dad’s shirt where it stretched when he tripped trying to grab it, his hands and knees skidding on gravel.

“It says—” It said all kinds of things. It said, I’m sorry and What did I do wrong? It said Please don’t leave.

“It says—” It said awful things. Things like Be more. Be more and more and more until someday, he’d have so much that his dad would be sorry he left.

“I—” It said things that weren’t true. Things that weren’t real. Things like He’ll hate you. He’ll leave you. He’d have so much one day that no one would ever leave him again.

He fell to his knees because standing was too much, just like the saliva that flooded his mouth was too watery, but he swallowed. He swallowed that and the lump and the cold blue eyes that matched his own and all of it. None of it was real. What was real was right here, and he wouldn’t choke. He didn’t need to be more for Daniel to stay. What was real was right here.

When he found his words again for the first time in twelve years, he found them patiently waiting for this moment. This second. When no other words would do.

“I love you.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

DANIEL CRUMPLED to his knees too. To meet him where he was on the old hardwoods that didn’t judge how tattered they were as he gripped Aaron’s face, locking their gazes long enough and in enough silence for it to feel vibrational. Like he could see the space between them, defying physics. Like the molecules couldn’t compete with how close they needed to be, so they just disappeared.

“May I see it?” he whispered. “The ring. May I see it?”

Aaron stared for a moment longer, then blinked himself into motion. The metal, warm and heavy in his palm, felt different as he held it up, twisting it around in the light.

I love you. That was all the tiny inscription said. Written simply in a basic block font, it wasn’t fancy or wordy. I love you. It looked naked, even. Like something was missing.

But nothing was missing.

He smoothed a thumb over the tiny words as his vision blurred with tears. To Aaron, writing those three words inside a ring was like writing the rights to his soul. To Aaron, they were the most complicated three words to ever exist, and saying them meant more to him than most people could imagine. And yet he’d gone out of his way to make sure they were written. That they were at least spoken somewhere, even if it couldn’t be from his tongue.

The speckled flakes of icy blue that floated in Aaron’s eyes could tempt even the holiest of men to shed his skin, soften his resolve, and wade into their waters. No one else had eyes like that—a watercolor palette of frost, cobalt, and aquamarine, dense with pain and wild enough to look animated.

Behind them was a person so complex and beautiful that Daniel could spend a lifetime just learning more.

He crawled into Aaron’s lap, threading his arms around his shoulders. “Put the ring back on.”

The watercolor palette sparkled with fire, and Aaron’s whole being suddenly buzzed, like a million blinking fireflies.

“Put it back on.” Daniel nodded. “I won’t take it off again.”

“Daniel Alexander Greene.” Aaron’s fingertips shook as he unlooped Daniel’s arms from around his shoulders to squeeze his hands. “Will you marry me?”