by Anna Martin
With a cheeky grin, Chris stretched his left arm up to rest his forearm on top of his head, then turned to me. I wasn’t particularly surprised to see a new design on his body – he seemed to want a new tattoo every six months or so – but this particular one made me smile.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked him.
“It depends, what do you think it is?”
I knew, as did he, that it was a thistle – an emblem of Scotland, my homeland. The design was about the size of my palm, located on his ribs…
“Next to my heart,” he said, finishing the thought for me.
The ink was raw, new, telling me he’d probably had it done while out doing his ‘last minute shopping’ the day before. Suddenly his desire to make love once the lights had gone out the previous night made sense.
“You’re mad,” I told him. “And I love you.”
He shook water back from his face and smiled. “I’m glad you like it.”
Short of tattooing my name on his body, this was the closest he could come to a permanent symbol of our relationship on his skin. There was no way for me to know that years in the future he’d add a banner underneath the thistle with ‘McKinnon’ written on it – my name. There was no way for me to know that by the time the tattoo came along, it would be his name, too.
We spent the day being truly lazy: watching TV, eating, drinking a bottle of wine, then another, then cracking open a bottle of whiskey. Dinner was delicious, dessert more so, and by the time evening set in we were both sprawled on the sofa with a box of chocolates on the floor between us and my personal favourite Christmas movie showing – Miracle on 34th Street.
The sprawling, and the sofa, weren’t anything particularly new for us.
The Christmas pj’s, that we’d changed back into after dinner – they were a seasonal thing.
Chris sighed heavily in what could only be deep contentment and I ran my hand over the back of his head, down his neck and tucked it around his waist. I thought, for a while, that he might be sleeping, until he stretched and sat up.
“Today was awesome,” he said as he rocked his head from side to side, stretching out the aches in his neck.
“For me, too.”
“I want something else to eat,” he mumbled and I laughed as he hauled himself up off the sofa and staggered down to the kitchen, returning ten minutes later with an enormous sandwich layered with ham, salad and coleslaw.
And a bag of chips.
I had to admire how much food he could manage to put away, and his youthful metabolism that allowed him to burn it all off again. To be fair, he did go to the gym a few times a week. And I didn’t.
When he was done I dragged him close and kissed his cheek. I had a confession to make.
“I got you something else,” I admitted, my lips hovering over his skin.
Chris laughed. “I got you something else, too.”
“I want to go first,” I said, sliding to the floor and reaching under the tree for the box that I’d hidden at the back. He joined me next to the tree, sitting cross legged with a big grin. I handed him the box, exchanging it for a long, slow kiss where his tongue explored mine before he pulled away.
Chris pulled the paper from the box and looked up at me with a mixed expression of shock and awe. The watch wasn’t the most expensive, but it was a lot nicer than the cheap plastic thing he wore most days. I’d chosen one made of dark metal and a black face, expecting it to look good on his pale skin and next to his bright tattoos.
“Wow….” he said. “Thank you. It’s amazing.”
I smiled as he pulled the watch out of the box and fixed it to his wrist; I’d had them adjust it to fit me, since we were a similar size, and it fit him perfectly. Once it was secured he launched himself into my lap, peppering my face with kisses.
“Okay, okay, I get it, you like it,” I said, laughing. I rubbed my hands up and down his sides and caught his mouth in another, slower kiss.
“My turn,” he said as we broke apart again and found another, much smaller box from the pile of gifts.
I turned the box over in my hands before looking at him, trying to figure out if I should be nervous. His face just showed excitement, so I pulled off the paper and opened the box.
Nestled inside the black velvet were two rings.
One of them I recognised – I’d given it to him a little under a year ago, after he’d come back to Boston. It was never meant to be an engagement ring, more of a promise of my commitment to him. Since he wore it every day I wasn’t sure when he’d taken it off to wrap up with the other one… thinking back, I was sure he was wearing it at dinner….
The second ring was smooth silver, like Chris’s, and decorated with a similar Celtic knot pattern.
I pulled both from the box and rolled them around in my hand.
“Chris,” I started, but he shook his head to stop me and scooted forward, throwing his legs over my thighs so we were pretty much as close as we could get. He reached out and caught my free hand in both of his.
“I’d ask you myself,” he said. “But I’d probably do it wrong. And you’re so much more romantic than I am.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “You seem to be doing well so far.”
He smiled, his eyes so warm and full of love it made my stomach flip over. “I’m going to say yes,” he murmured. “I just want you to ask.”
“Okay,” I said, conceding. I shifted a bit, closing the small gap until we were sitting practically nose to nose. He hadn’t given me any time to think about how I wanted to do this but maybe that was for the best. I was the sort of person who would probably obsess over getting it right, and he hadn’t given me chance to do that.
The white lights on the tree were twinkling softly, casting shadows over his face and I thought I might always associate the scent of pine needles with this moment.
“I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy, one day at a time,” I said, twisting my hand until our fingers tangled together. “Starting with today. I love you so fucking much, Chris,” I added, laughing a little as he squeezed my hand. The cursing was definitely a side effect of living with him for this long. “Will you marry me?”
“Yes,” he said immediately. His eyes were bright with excitement and I laughed softly, then kissed him.
We fumbled with the rings, me returning his to the fourth finger on his left hand and him slipping the new ring on to mine. The metal was already warm, from where it had been clutched in my palm while I’d worked out my clumsy proposal.
The desperation to be close to each other, as close as possible, meant we ended up making love on the floor, right under the tree. I knew he was probably sore from the night before and took my time with his body, teasing him up and over the edge before losing myself inside him.
After, we laid back in front of the fire, his head on my belly and my hand stroking his hair. He was quiet, but I knew he was still awake by the sound of his breathing.
“I thought you didn’t want to get married,” I said, breaking the silence.
“When did I say that?” he said.
I tried to think back. “I don’t know,” I said lamely.
“I didn’t want to get married before I met you. Things change, I suppose.” He shifted around and crossed his arms on my chest, resting his chin on the back of his hands. I was treated to one of his slow, lazy smiles that warmed me up from the inside.
“I never thought I’d get married before I met you either,” I said. “My whole life changed when we got together.”
“For the better?”
“So much better it’s barely worth thinking about,” I told him. It was the absolute truth.
Chris ducked his head, scratched his nose, then looked back at me. “I can’t wait to be married to you,” he said softly.
“Me too, baby.”
Any ideas I may have had about locking myself away with Chris and spending the rest of our lives in some kind of naked, gay, hippy utopia were dashed with
the arrival of the next morning. We had planned to make food – a lot of food – and my alarm went off early, reminding me that I needed to get up and start cooking.
A few things were easy; the chili was already made, it just needed re-heating and I was making a nice, warming curry, too. The leftover ham from the day before was going to be cut up cold, Chris agreed to make a salad and some pasta with pine nuts and pesto and I made a large bowl of rice to serve with anything and everything.
We weren’t expecting our guests until lunchtime, however, that did not mean we weren’t rushed and slightly crazy all morning. I found myself diving into the shower only thirty minutes before I was expecting people… when the doorbell rang for the first time I was just buttoning up one of the shirts Chris had given me.
I reached the door before he did, opening it to Luisa and all her children.
“Hey, Chlo,” I said to my daughter and found myself on the receiving end of one of her rare hugs.
“Happy Christmas, Dad.”
I squeezed her a little tighter than normal. “Happy Christmas, darling.”
The one thing guaranteed to make me feel like an old man was having a fifteen year old daughter. Chloe was, against all of my best attempts, turning into a young woman; she was petite, like her mother, and she had obviously gone to some effort to make her hair shiny and curly. I didn’t mind her wearing makeup, not when Lu seemed to have taught her how to apply it so it enhanced her features, rather than obscuring them under a thick layer of paste.
She was wearing a red dress and black tights and diamond earrings, beautiful, and sophisticated. Until she opened her mouth, of course.
I could distinctly remember my own father telling me when I was younger that I would only realise that my parents were right when my own children started telling me I was wrong. There was no way I’d ever admit it, but he was right.
As I was mid-hug with Chloe, Chris appeared and immediately scooped up Luisa’s youngest daughter, Cassie, who thought that Chris was possibly the most wonderful person on the planet. The two of them had a lovely relationship that I’d always admired – I attributed his ease with children to being part of a large family himself.
Over the next half hour our home filled up with friends, family, and those people who fell into both categories at once. The strange layout of our house – the kitchen on the lower floor and living room upstairs – didn’t really cater to having guests move between the spaces very well. It had been a concern, that was until everyone arrived.
People seemed content to move, or stay in one space, or even sit on the stairs to chat and catch up. As the afternoon moved on, and people started eating, I started to relax.
When our guests seemed settled Chris and I pulled Chloe aside. I didn’t want to do it in my office, but there were people in the everywhere and we didn’t want an audience, and it was a better location than our bedroom.
“Chloe, there’s something we wanted to talk to you about,” I said, leaning back against my desk. To sit down would make me feel like her teacher, which would just be weird.
Chris hoisted himself up to sit on the windowsill and smirked at me.
“Okay,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest and looking between him and I with growing suspicion. “What?”
“Chris and I have been talking, and we’ve decided to get married,” I said calmly.
It took a few seconds for her to absorb the information, then she broke into a big grin. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” I said, matching her smile.
“Oh my God!” she squealed and launched herself into my arms, laughing. “That’s so cool!”
Chris slid to the floor and joined us in a three way hug; Chloe immediately opened her arms and pulled him in close too.
“When is the wedding going to be?” she demanded as she pulled away. “Did you get rings? Can I be a bridesmaid?”
“Can you be a bridesmaid if there’s not going to be a bride?” I countered.
“Dad,” she said, giving me a look.
“Leave her alone,” Chris said, elbowing me in the side. “Of course you can. Your dad gave me a ring a long time ago, remember? But I got him one for Christmas.”
I obligingly held out my hand for her inspection, feeling like a big bloody girl.
“We’ll probably leave it for a while yet,” I said as she ran her thumb over the pattern on the ring. “We’re not in any rush.”
“I’m really happy for you,” she said. Chris hugged her again and I felt a choked up, something stuck in my throat. They were the two most important people in my world.
“We’re going to tell people later,” I said as they broke apart. “I wanted you to know first, though.”
“You haven’t told anyone yet?” Chloe asked.
“No,” Chris said. “Rob wanted you to know before anyone else.”
“Thanks,” she said with a little smile.
If we were gone for too much longer people we’d be missed; Chloe slipped out of the office first, leaving me alone with Chris. His face brightened into the sort of smile that filled me up inside.
“She took that well.”
I nodded. “I thought she might.”
We held hands as we re-joined the crowd.
After a while, I found the confidence to sit back and just enjoy having so many people around who I actually enjoyed spending time with, instead of fussing and worrying if everyone was happy. I managed to hold a proper conversation with Luisa for the first time in ages; her husband was taking care of their baby son and Chris seemed to have Cassie permanently attached to his side.
“Congratulations,” Lu said, nodding toward the ring on my finger. I blushed and nodded.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
“When are you going to make an honest man out of him, then?” she asked as she stretched her legs out in front of herself and balanced a glass of spiced rum on her stomach. It was an impressive feat.
“Some time next year, I expect,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you about taking Chloe to Scotland.”
Lu raised an eyebrow at me, her expression clearly conveying a message that could only be are you high?
“When?”
“I’m thinking in the spring,” I said. “When I have time off. Chris and I were talking, and I want to take her to Edinburgh and maybe London, too.”
“She’ll shit a brick, Robert,” she said and sipped at her drink. “If you want to do it I don’t have a problem.”
I nodded, pleased that she approved of the plan. I hadn’t mentioned Paris, but Chris wanted to go there too and I was thinking of adding the third city to the trip, drawing it out over two weeks. Lu was right – Chloe would freak out (one of her expressions, not mine) if I mentioned taking her to Europe, for that reason I was keeping the idea close to my chest for the time being.
We chatted for a while longer until Lexi joined us and dumped her sleeping daughter on my lap and Luisa decided it was time to check in on the location of her own children. Lexi was one of Chris’s oldest friends and I had grown to adore her too. Their band had disintegrated after Chris had left, although they did all meet up to jam a few times a month. Since the baby had come along those music dates had become fewer and further between.
I had never been a natural around children. It had taken time for me to bond with my own daughter, and even as she grew it took effort on my part to stay close to her. It was easy to love Ruby, though. She was adorable, a little pink thing in a red velvet dress who fit perfectly in the crook of my arm. Best of all, she’d just been fed and needed little more than a comfortable place to sleep while her Mama had something to eat.
I was content to sit back and people watch for a while, until Chris came upstairs to find me and situated himself on the other side of my lap, tucking his feet up into the chair and transferring Ruby to his own arms. I wrapped both of my own around him and laid my head on his shoulder.
“How are you doing?” I asked him.
“Good,” he said
. “People like my food, so I’m happy.”
“Of course they do. You’re a great cook.”
He beamed. “Thanks.” Looking down at the baby in his arms, Chris gave her a little bounce.
I debated how wise asking him about children was – we’d had the conversation before, and with a baby in his arms it probably wasn’t the right time to bring it up again. Still.
“Do you want a family?” I asked, throwing caution to the wind.
