Tenderness Ch. 07

I was starting to feel a little paranoid, a little nervous. "Um, no. I'll just be looking at the men's rings today." Trying to be subtle had no effect. Her smile just widened by a few teeth and she said. "I know that titanium rings are very stylish, but we do have some very good feminine casts over this way, you don't have to give her a man's ring!"

I flushed. I felt like everybody must be looking at us. "Um. I'm fine, I would just like to look a little longer please." She nodded knowingly and left.

Only to be back a second later with a display of titanium rings for women. Slim models with diamonds set in, squiggly models, lacy rings made entirely of celtic patterns. "What style does she like" The clerk gushed. "If she likes to dress starkly, perhaps this one would be best," She held up a dark titanium ring with a diamond set in the band. "But perhaps she would like this model better..."

I interrupted her, so annoyed that I forgot myself and spoke loud enough to be overheard by a few nearby customers and another salesman. "NO, Ma'am. I'm fairly sure that HE wouldn't like ANY of these rings."

She stopped talking and stood there with a pair of inlaid titanium rings in one hand and her eyes and mouth shaped into perfect O's of surprise. I felt my cheeks flush and I turned around to see a young black couple staring at me wide-eyed and an older woman looking absolutely shocked.

I started to edge out, feeling ashamed and afraid.

"Mrs. Yancy? Come over here and help this customer with her ring-cleaning please." The other salesman walked over in a quick stride. He was in his thirties, overweight, but dressed in a very stylish grey suit with diamond cufflinks. His hair was styled and he wore a trimmed beard. He smiled sympathetically at me.

"Come in the back and I'll show you the full selection. You wont have to worry about the rubbernecks." He said the last part loudly and deliberately, and the older woman having her ring cleaned looked away with a 'humph!' noise.

I followed him, grateful to get out of sight.

---

The back of the store looked like a bank vault. The wall was lined with locked metal shelving, and the ceiling was alive with cameras. He pulled out a chair for me and I sat down, thanking him quietly. He grinned at me.

"You got some kind of guts! I didn't have the balls to go looking for rings for me and Edward, so I ordered them online. I'm sorry about Yancy. I'm gonna put in a word about her to the manager. That woman needs to have some damn sense kicked into her!"

While he talked he moved across the wall of locked shelves. He pulled out two of the shelves and set them down on the table. The shallow shelves were actually spare displays, sheets of plain cardboard with slots for the rings.

"These are all of the male titaniums that we have in the store right now. We have more in the catalogue, and size isn't a problem. We can either get them sized here or you can send for a new one if you don't want to worry about weakening the ring. Do you know his size?"

I dug in my pocket and took out a copper ring that he had been wearing when he took me out on our first date. "Um, no, but I have this."

He took it, and guessed the size in a glance, and wrote it down. "Give me your hand and I can measure your size." He saw me smiling, and he grinned back. "If only you could see how punch-drunk happy you look right now." He wrote down my size too.

We talked about sizing, and engraving, insurance, and about their special three-day return policy.

"Now, I wish this wasn't the case, but if something doesn't go as planned, you have the option to return the rings within the first three days with only a thirty-dollar fee if they're in good condition. These titanium babies are tough, so I wouldn't worry about that. However, if you get the engravings you want, you wont be able to return them. Are you sure you want to engrave them?"

I thought about it for a few minutes, looking at the models. Then I smiled at him. "He's going to say yes."

And I knew that I was telling the truth.

--------DANIEL--------

Long day...

It had been long, but I was satisfied. More then satisfied, I was thrilled. I had just gotten a substantial bonus. I wondered if I should just put it in my retirement fund. I had gotten Aaron to start one. My parents had gotten on me to start one as soon as my college loans were paid off, and he had just finished his, so it was good to start early. He joked and called me morbid, and I guess I was, a little.

I fumbled the key into the door and heard Noel's claws scratching across the floor so he could greet me. When the door opened he nuzzled me knees, making that half-whine, half-barking noise that huskies do so well (and loudly). He used to jump up on me, but with his arthritis those days were pretty far behind him.

Then I realized why he was so agitated. I smelled dinner. It was fragrant and sweet at the same time. Aaron poked his head from the kitchen and grinned at me. "Welcome home Daniel!" He chirped.

I stepped in, amazed. The table was set up with the only tablecloth we had, the nice red one. He had found a candle somewhere and put it in a small cut-crystal flower vase to keep it up. Our table was big enough for six people, and I smiled when I saw that he had put our plates right next to each other. He had two bottles of Arceiro red wine in a big mixing-bowl of ice. One was already open and half-empty.

I stepped into the kitchen, which was amazingly clean despite the work he must have done. He was a good cook, cleaning up as he went along. The smell got better and better until I saw the broiler pan on top of the stove. Aaron grinned, and he looked so goddamn cute!

He practically bounced the few steps over to me and hugged me tight around the neck. "Got here just in time! I just pulled the steak out. Go get out of those clothes and into something comfy."

I peered into the broiler pan as he messed around in the fridge. It was beef tenderloin wrapped with bacon. It was surrounded by tender seared onions and vegitables and it smelled... I couldn't even describe how it smelled!

"This is amazing sugar-plum!" I heard him snort as I walked over to change out of my work-clothes. "But what's the occasion?"

I took off my tie and started to unbutton my shirt. When I turned around to grab a T-shirt, he was there, smiling his big goofy smile. "Who says we need one? I love you Daniel!" And with that he yanked my Firefly shirt over my head and kissed me when my head popped out. He was dressed informally, in jeans and an old marching-band T-shirt. His bare feet padded across the floor. So I kicked off my shoes and pulled on my sweatpants to go out and join him. It was going to be the fanciest informal dinner of my life.

I grinned as I was halfway down the hallway and the music started playing. He was a massive fan of Florence+the Machine, and she was starting to warble Strangeness and Charm from the iPod dock. I rolled my eyes and stepped carefully over Zoe, who meowed loudly and rubbed against my ankles as if trying to make me fall.

"Scoot, cat." I grunted, nudging her out of the way with my foot, which she batted playfully. I poured us each a glass of wine from the opened bottle. He set the broiler pan down on the table on top of a ceramic pan-holder Annabel had gotten me at my housewarming party.

He held up his wine glass (also a gift from the housewarming party) "A toast?"

I nodded. "To love, and bacon!"

He giggled and clicked glasses with me before taking a drink.

---

After dinner, I was so stuffed that I felt like I could barely move. Noel had managed to beg a scrap of bacon or two and was lying content on his doggy bed.

We had drunk our way into the second bottle. I wasn't drunk, I was just pleasantly buzzed. We moved our drinks and wine to the living room. This was normal, after dinner we usually watched a movie and made out a little. Sometimes it was hard to wait until the movie was done, and I had already had to wash the couch-covers more times in the last few months then the entire year before.

But before I got up to pick a movie, he put a hand on my shoulder and yanked me back down. I was puzzled. "Hey, what's up?"

He sat cross-legged, facing me on the couch while I sat like a normal person, my head tilted to look at him. He took a deep breath, and started to talk. I tucked his hair behind his ear as he did.

"Before... Before I met you, I was living in a state of apathy. I was wasting my life, but now that we're together, everything is just perfect." I could see his eyes getting wet, despite how steady his voice was. "It wasn't just... It wasn't just the rape. You saved me from this shadow that had been hanging over me as far back as I can remember. You saved me from my father, and from my insecurities, and from myself, I guess." His voice wavered a little at the end.

"Shit, I w-wasn't supposed to cry." He mumbled. I wiped his tears away, getting a little choked up myself.

"What is this about, Baby?" I murmured, kissing his eyes, and feeling his tear-laden lashes.

He smiled a little. It was happy-crying. "Shut up Daniel, I gotta finish this."

I nodded and pretended to zip my lips.

"I know that we've only been together for a few months, but I feel like I know you better then I've ever known everyone, and I want to know more."

I was speechless as he brought out a little blue velvet box. Could that be...? It couldn't possibly...? There was even a little thought in the back of my head that wondered, Isn't that MY job?

His hands closed over the box, the fingertips hooked around the velvet seam to open it. "I know that we could just go to Iowa, but because of DOMA it wouldn't count for anything here. I want to wait until it's legal in Minnesota, but... But I want to know now."

He opened the little blue box. Nestled in the soft grey silk was a simple silver band. No, it was too bright to be silver, maybe steel or titanium. It was slim, with slightly darker edges. It gleamed like a round wink of starlight.

"Daniel Lewis Arceiro?" His eyes were wide open, full of love and hope. "Will you marry me?"

Now the tears were coming to my eyes, streaming down. It took all of my manly prowess to stop my hand from going to my mouth. "Yes." I choked out. He laughed, and he was crying too. We were both crying and laughing with joy.

He held my left hand and slipped the band on, it fit perfectly. "I stole your copper ring." He admitted, grinning so hugely it covered his face. He dug in the blue box, lifting up the silk panel where the second ring was hiding.

"Oh, I forgot! Look on the inside of the band!"

He showed the inside of his while I slipped mine off of my finger. I had just put it on, and it was loathe to take it off. I peered into the insides of both rings, and in simple blocky text, they both had the engraving.

'If you can't do something smart, do something right'

Suddenly I was laughing even harder. Not mean, just laughing. It was fucking perfect.

"F-From Serenity!" I laugh-sobbed, stupid with joy. He nodded and slipped his band on with careful reverence before hugging me so hard I felt my ribs creak.

I loved him so hard it hurt. I crushed him under me on the couch and kissed him so hard that his teeth cut my lip. I didn't care.

It wasn't a sexy feeling, that's what surprised me. After pinning him down and kissing my lip bloody, I picked him up and danced crazily, I had too much energy to sit still, too much energy to have sex. I needed to scream and dance and run.

I picked him up and twirled with him in the living room. He screamed with laughter and Noel jumped arthritically around us, barking his head off.

After we had calmed down a little, we called everybody. We got around the landline and put it on speaker, and we called everybody we knew to tell them the news. We were up at the phone for three hours telling everybody the good news. Before we knew it, my parents were planning what they referred to as the 'pre-wedding' and were offering to cater.

"Mom, what the hell is a pre-wedding?" I yelled, still dizzy with laughter and love. I had Aaron as the little spoon (you can spoon standing up, right?) and I gave him a squeeze that made him giggle, and I kissed the top of his head.

Dad was panting with laughter on the line and mom had to speak up over him. "Because of DOMA you two can't get a real marriage yet! But I want to celebrate it anyway. We can let you have the restaurant for a day, and we'll cater. You can invite the whole family and all of your friends! It will be a way to consummate it!"

Aaron was red-faced with wine and joy when he leaned forward and giggled. "It's been consummated Mrs. Arceiro, don't worry!"

Dad had been leveling off, but at that last comment he started to roar again.

At the end it was decided. We planned a date for the fifth of September, which would be a Sunday, and most people would be free. It was looking more and more like an official wedding as the planning continued. My parents were being amazing, offering to cover wine, food, location, and even a deejay. We would still be covering some of the costs, but those were minimal compared to the two thousand or so dollars they were offering to cover.

They waved it off over the phone. "We paid most of the costs for Marcus's wedding!" Dad said. "And her relatives showed up just to grab booze and dash! This whole pre-wedding will probably cost about as much as that damn cake."

Then I was laughing. Dad was still furious over that damn six-layer cake covered in purple frosted roses and curlicues. It had cost 1800 dollars.

Aaron looked at me with a mischevous gleam in his eyes. I had told him about the cake.

"Ooh! Mr. Arceiro! Can we have a cake too? I think it should be four layers... maybe five..."

Mom cackled with laughter over the phone and it took a beat for my father to join in.

---

When we finally hung up, we had both burned off some of that furious energy, but I still didn't feel like sex. I just wanted to snuggle and admire my new ring.

I told him so, and he shrugged. "Wanna watch Serenity?"

And that's what we did. We sat curled up on the couch with him in my lap. He kept his left hand over my left hand, and we kept clicking our rings together. When Jayne said his line.

"Shepard Book once told me; If you can't do somethin' smart, do somethin' right."

We both looked at each other and kissed. It was our line now.

When the kiss broke, he looked into my eyes solemnly. "That wasn't stupid or nerdy?"

I smiled and kissed his nose. "It was nerdy alright. But it was perfect."

---

Aaron definitely took over the party-planning over the next few days. He did want to have a cake, and we found a place that would make a modestly sized wedding cake for about a hundred dollars. Aaron refused to have a fancy cake.

"Do you know what fondant is?" He groaned. "It is this yucky clay-like crap they put on fancy cakes to make patterns and shapes. Let's stick with buttercream."

We both ate a different kind of frosting that night, but that was besides the point. We ordered a small chocolate cake with buttercream frosting and two little groomsmen on top. We had to search far and wide for one with a ponytail, and Aaron painstakingly painted his face slightly darker. He also painted glasses onto the other one. We were such a cute plastic couple.

There wasn't that much to plan, really, but he was so excited, and I was too. Sometimes I would be at work, and I would just look down at my ring and want to scream out the window that I was engaged. Since our engagement, Aaron had become something of an activist, and I had joined him wholeheartedly. He had signed up to an organization online and all day he called homes of voters to educate them on the upcoming marriage amendment. It wasn't coming for a year, but he was determined to stop it. I joined him, and we pinned flyers to doors in neighborhoods on the weekends. Sometimes I thought that gay marriage would become legal in Minnesota through his sheer force of will.

On Labor day, we had dinner together, and I saw the invite list. Overall, we had about two hundred people, but other then the Principal of his school and a few of his friends from Purple Rain, they were all my family, and my friends. But when I got to the bottom of the list, I saw heavy eraser marks. I touched the paper, and it was rough from being penciled in and erased, penciled and erased, over and over. I rubbed the thin paper between my fingers.

The invite list was under a bundle of flyers and mail. I checked some of the flyers. Along with the ones informing people about the anti-marriage amendment, there were some for his Survivors group, which he still visited twice a month. He had added George Heinlein to the list.

I rubbed that bare patch of paper. It was erased too thoroughly for me to tell who it had been, but I had a pretty good idea. I looked over at him. He was reading some paperwork for the new school year, he had gotten the job smoothly, none of the other contestants were even considered as far as I could tell. I was loathe to bring up his father, but I had to.

"Did you call him?"

He looked up over the (fucking delicious) mushroom soup he had made and saw that I was holding the invite list. He got that sad look on his face again. "Yeah."

I put my arm around his shoulders. "What's the verdict?" I asked quietly, pretty sure that I knew. Now that I was closer, I could see the cover-up around his eyes. He had bought that stuff for his bruises, now he only used it when he was crying and he didn't want me to know.

He leaned on my shoulder and I kissed him on the top of his head. "He hung up." Aaron whispered. "At l-least h-he waited until I w-was d-d-d-done talking th-this time." I cradled his head as his voice broke. The makeup stained his tears, and flesh-colored water ran down his face.

I wiped his face with the oven-mitt he had used to bring the pot of soup to the table. As the makeup came off of his face, I saw just how big the red socketed patches were. It had been a really bad one this time.

I half-carried him to the bedroom and snuggled with him, waiting for the tears to stop. That was the only real cure for this kind of thing. I wrapped my left hand around his left hand, and our rings touched.

--------AARON--------

When our rings clicked together, it calmed me down slightly. Jesse, at the Purple Rain; she bitched about wedding rings all of the time. She said that they were created by the diamond companies, along with that bullshit advice to spend two months salary on them. Maybe our rings were just a marketing gimmick, but my ring comforted me. I sometimes slipped it off (very carefully, only when I was sitting still) and looked at the words on the inside for comfort. It was nice to wear a material sign of my love on my finger for all to see. Even if they didn't know what it meant.

I was so grateful that I had him now. That I had my man.

I didn't want to think about my dad. I didn't want to think about my pathetic attempts to get in touch with him. I wanted my man. I loved thinking that. My man.

I turned around and kissed him. I could sense how surprised he was, but then his face relaxed, and he kissed me back. I could see his beautiful gold-flecked eyes up close. He carefully removed my glasses. When he turned around to put the glasses on the side table, I sucked on the side of his neck.

He moaned softly, and slid his hands under the bottom of my t-shirt. He gently fondled my nipples, flicking his fingers over them to feel them harden into points. He gently tickled my ribs, making me squirm and laugh.

When I did laugh, he smiled the sweetest smile in the world. "Now, there's the sunshine I've been looking for.

I rolled so I was resting on top of him, and I continued to kiss him. I slowly humped my ass against his crotch as we kissed. He snaked one hand under my waistband in the back of my pants, and he gently massaged my asshole with two fingers, making me tense up with sensation and groan.