Chapter 16 #2
Her hand finds the waistband of my jeans, working at the button. Then she pauses, looking up at me with a wicked gleam in her eye. “You know, for someone who just proposed, you’re being very slow about this.”
I laugh, the sound surprised out of me. “Are you seriously critiquing my technique right now?”
“Always,” she says, tugging my shirt free. “It’s kind of my thing.”
I reach for the hem of her shirt, pulling it over her head. She’s wearing a simple black bra. Practical rather than fancy, exactly what I expected and somehow exactly right. I lower my head, my mouth finding the sensitive spot where her neck meets her shoulder.
Her breath catches. Her hand finds my hair, fingers tightening as I work my way down her chest. Each kiss, each careful stroke of my tongue building toward the moment when her control begins to slip, when the sound she makes shifts from appreciation to need.
“Tovek,” she says, and there’s an edge to her voice now, something raw and honest.
“I’m here,” I say against her skin. “I’ve got you.”
We undress each other with more enthusiasm than grace. Her jeans get stuck on one ankle. I nearly knock over the desk lamp reaching for her. She laughs when my belt buckle catches on her underwear, and I have to stop kissing her long enough to untangle it.
“Very smooth,” she says, grinning up at me.
“Shut up,” I say, but I’m smiling too.
When we finally come together, it’s not the careful choreography of movie sex or even the desperate urgency of new relationships.
It’s messy and real and punctuated by her sharp intake of breath when I hit the right angle, by my groan when she does that thing with her hips that makes my vision blur.
“There,” she says, her voice breaking. “Right there, don’t—”
“I know,” I say, building a rhythm that makes her arch against me. “I know.”
After, when we’re both boneless and slightly sweaty and completely, perfectly satisfied, Mei reaches for my hand, her fingers tracing the pattern of scars that cross my palm.
“The ring,” she says, her voice rough. “Can I see it? Or do I have to wait for the proper moment with champagne and fancy dinner?”
I should say yes. Should make her wait, should create the experience that proposals are supposed to be. Instead, I find myself saying, “It’s in the pepper grinder. In the hollow base. On our bedroom dresser.”
She blinks. “The pepper grinder.”
“I panicked when you started organizing things,” I admit. “Moved it from the sock drawer to the boot to the pepper grinder. Very smooth. Very romantic.”
She laughs, that bright sound that makes my chest tight. “Stay here,” she says, reaching for her discarded shirt. “I’ll be right back.”
She returns three minutes later, her hair somehow still perfect despite our activities. But she’s not holding the pepper grinder. She’s holding a small wooden box.
“What’s this?” I ask, reaching for it.
“Open it,” she says, her voice carefully neutral despite the tension in her shoulders.
I do, finding a simple wooden box. Hand-carved cedar with our initials on the lid in the shorthand we’ve developed over months in the kitchen.
Not a heart. We’re not teenagers, and what we’re building is more complicated than that symbol allows.
Instead, a knife and a whisk, intertwined.
Her precision and my strength, her talent and the way I support it.
“It’s beautiful,” I say. “When did you—”
“Last month,” she admits, not quite meeting my eyes.
“After the sock drawer incident. I realized I wanted this. Us. Forever.” She takes a breath.
“I was going to tell you. At the Dragon’s Nest opening.
With all our friends there and the bar finally, completely ours.
” She meets my eyes directly. “But you beat me to it. With burning sesame seeds and no prepared speech.”
The warmth spreads through my chest again, different this time. Deeper. “The ring,” I say, reaching for the box. “It’s not... I didn’t plan to do it like this. I wanted it to be special. With the right words and the perfect moment and—”
“This is better,” she cuts in, her hand warm on my arm. “A surprise. A real one.” Her smile is quick, a flash of teeth and mischief. “Though you might want to work on your timing. The sesame seeds are a total loss.”
The ring is exactly where I left it. A simple platinum band with a channel-set ruby that catches the light like a drop of blood, exactly the kind of understated elegance that would make her eyes light up when she saw it.
“It’s perfect,” she says, breathless. “Exactly what I would have picked.”
She holds out her hand, and I slide the ring onto her finger. It fits. Not too tight, not too loose, exactly the size I measured while she was sleeping. She holds it up to the light, watching as it catches and reflects.
“I love you,” I say, the words coming out more formal than I intended. “All of you. Every complicated, fierce, and stubborn bit of you.”
Her eyes go soft. I brace for the sassy comeback I expected. Instead, something gentles in her expression. “I love you too,” she says.
The words settle between us, weighted with implication. Not just a declaration or even a promise, but a recognition. The way we see each other, really see each other, in all our spectacular failure and occasional courage.
“Always,” I say. “I’ll always love you. Always choose you. Always want to build things that last.”
She nods and settles against my chest, her weight familiar and grounding. “Good,” she says, her voice slightly muffled against my skin. “Because I’m not going anywhere. Debt, goblins, spectacular failures. None of it changes the fact that you’re it for me.”
“You’re it for me too,” I say, meaning it completely. “The only one. The last one. The one I want to build everything with.”
She’s quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing idle patterns on my chest. “Eight weeks,” she says finally. “Until the Dragon’s Nest opens. Until we show everyone what we’ve built together.”
“Eight weeks,” I agree. “And then the rest of our lives.”
She smiles against my chest. I can feel it, the curve of her mouth against my skin. “The rest of our lives,” she repeats. “I like the sound of that.”
We lie there in comfortable silence, the afternoon light filtering through the half-drawn blinds of our small office. Outside, I can hear the sounds of the bar preparing for the evening rush. Greta’s voice calling out drink orders, the rhythm of our world continuing without us.
But in here, it’s just us. Two people who found each other in the chaos, who built something real, who are choosing each other every single day.
“We should probably get back to work,” Mei says after a while, but she doesn’t move. “The sesame seeds won’t toast themselves.”
“New batch,” I say. “Better batch. With perfect color and the exact right amount of attention.”
“Like us,” she says softly. “Second chances. Better versions. Built to last.”
I kiss the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her shampoo mixed with chili oil and smoke. “Yeah,” I say. “Exactly like us.”
In eight weeks, the Dragon’s Nest will open, and we’ll show the world what we’ve built together.
But for now, this is enough. Her weight against my chest, her breathing deep and even, the ring on her finger catching the light.
This is everything.