Chapter 23 #2
Dried out daisies I easily knew were from Zilla’s funeral.
The little plastic bubble vending machine container thing that the fake wedding day ring Cy had just given me came in.
Every mixed CD I’d ever made him, playlist I’d ever written down, it was all here.
“You little stalker,” I whispered as I pulled out my old, busted MP3 player.
Hand made drawings were in another bag. Scribbles, doodles from both of us.
I found an album full of more of the millions of pics Sunny loved to take of all of us.
It was unreal, seeing proof of just how happy I’d been with them, in my element.
That gap without them, it was rare to see me smile, a real, genuine one, let alone find a pic of me smiling. The difference was stark.
I didn’t hate my parents for their choices but I didn’t agree with them.
They’d wanted so badly for me to live a normal human life but there were other sides of me screaming at me, crying for burrowkin, my mates, slowly killing me denying myself, denying all of it, if I was being honest with myself.
It would never have worked out quite as they’d liked it to have.
My gaze lifted, meeting Elm’s. He was up and scooping me up to hug me to him before I could move.
Something cold and metallic touched my finger.
“Pru, you be Elm wife? Yes? Okay. Elm, you be Pru hubsand? Yes. ‘Kay, now kiss you wife,” Elm rumbled jokingly, in the same rushed way Birch had when it was his turn to pretend to marry me to Elm. Birch was so starved for sugar he said ALL the parts himself.
With a laugh, I cupped the side of Elm’s face and kissed him. The band he placed on my finger was simple, complimenting Cy’s, the gold band surrounded by green, blue, and white and brown gems to match all of their eyes.
Pulling out his bands from me, simple, basic, bronze looking metal forged right here with Doogie’s help.
All the guys’ rings matched but for the personalized engraving I’d had to learn how to do for each.
In Lepyr and Creeson, Elm’s read Sweet Home, a reference to a song by SYML that made me think of him.
Reading that, Elm brought me to tears the second he softly rumbled out the lyrics.
I KNEW. I just knew that song would speak to him the way it did me. Swiping at my eyes, I laughed, a soft, happy sound, then hugged him hard.
Elm continued to rumble out the rest of the song until I was a happy, wet eyed mess.
The inside of Cy’s rings read Forever and Ever, Amen, after a Randy Travis song in both languages, in honor of his longstanding country music love affair.
Realizing there were inscriptions on his rings, Cy let out a soft, surprised noise as he studied the inscription on his.
Releasing Elm, I was snatched up by Cy again and smothered in no less than a thousand more kisses.
Kehl patiently waited for his turn.
When Cy released me and I turned to him, Kehl was down on one knee, holding out the ring for the box Cy’s legit pink ring had been in, a fat, princess cut purple stone with a bronze colored setting shined brighter than any diamond, winking at me.
In Creeson, then English, he asked, “My Purr-roo, Kehl heart, be Kehl wife? Make Kehl hap-penis husband?”
Elm and Cy snorted with laughter at the hap-penis thing. I was feeling too sweetly seduced to give a single shit how he said it. I’d give him all the happiness, hap-penis, whatever he needed.
“Yes,” I whispered softly and held my hand out.
Kehl slipped the ring on my other ring finger, looking rather pleased to have his own finger to put a ring on and not have to share. Taking Kehl’s hand, I held the band I had for him out to him so he could read it before placing it on his finger. The inscription inside read simply MINE.
Kehl scooped me up with a pleased roar that sent critters with wings roosting nearby shooting off into the sky.
“Why not we think do that?” Cy wondered aloud.
Elm shrugged. “We make our Pru roar for us later.”
Cy let out a grunt that said, Yeah,okay, good plan.
Together, they both suddenly rumbled, “But not t’gether.”
Kehl grinned at their reluctance to share. I knew exactly why.
More fun time with me for him sharing me with both of them.
“You’re wicked in the best kind of way, did you know that?” I whispered for his ears only.
Kehl rumble-purred right back.
“‘Nough that!” Cy joked. “We have ‘tatoes eat, precious! ‘Fore it gets cold!”
“Nothing like a good fantasy reference to kick off this shindig,” I joked right back.
Kehl glanced between us frowningly but I assured him, “I think Joanie has the movies and Rosa has the books. You’ll like them. They’re fun.”
Cy and Elm both nodded along with me as I spoke.
Kehl rumbled appreciatively at the smell of mashed potatoes as they began to serve those first.
“You know what would be absolutely perfect?” I murmured as we all loaded up our plates with meat, vegetables, mashed potatoes, and warm bread.
My mates all glanced my way collectively. Bringing my eating utensil plump with a bite to my lips, I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively, “If I got to lick this off of one of you… or, you know, all of you… one at a- Ack!”
“We go!” Elm had me scooped up, the container of potatoes shoved into my hands, and was running me back to our hut before I could even finish the suggestion.
“What about Kehl and Cy?” I laughingly asked.
“They next. Wait turn,” Elm muttered.
Sounding very much like the dirty style potato appreciating afficionado I may be corrupting him into, he growled out, “MINE!”
Later. Much later, Kehl decided licking the gravy he’d made off of his mate was preferable to being sticky in any way, and Cy settled the cake fight we got into by calling a truce that involved us licking frosting and cake goop off of each other.
Best not fake surprise picnic wedding day ever.
Sunny insisted after learning bits of our proposals we hadn’t exactly gone traditional with that wasn’t what she’d meant, what she’d had in mind when she’d suggested it, but I honestly couldn’t have imagined it going any better. I’d never want it to go any other way.