At Attention (Out of Uniform 2)

“Baba, look at the presents!” Sophia pointed to the table. “Do our present now too!”

“It’s already on the table.” Apollo dropped his voice, trying to encourage her to do the same.

“I want Dylan to have our present first.” Chloe stuck her lower lip out, not at all lowering her voice. “Baba, you promised!”

“There’s a present on top of the party?” Dylan’s eyes were wide and his voice wavered. The way he worried his lip with his teeth said that he had an idea what was coming. Apollo couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“Yeah, Baba, do the present,” Dustin teased. “Or do you need the wine first?”

“Okay, okay.” Like any mission, there was nothing gained from procrastination, and now that Apollo had his target in his sights, he wasn’t backing off just because of a few nerves.

The girls grabbed the large piece of rolled-up paper off the table and tussled over who got to take the bow off.

“Hey, shouldn’t I unwrap it?” Dylan asked, voice still shaky.

“No,” Chloe said, every bit as authoritative as Apollo with his men. She grabbed one edge of the roll and Sophia grabbed the other, revealing the sign they had painstakingly lettered and colored:

Dylan, will you marry our Baba?

Apollo fished in his pocket for the small box. He’d bought it back in December, thinking about Christmas, but things had still felt too new then, dating too much fun, and Dylan hadn’t wanted to talk about moving back in yet. Apollo had known though, even then, that this was where they were headed, something that excited him every bit as much as it terrified him.

Then Valentine’s Day had felt a bit cliché and not really them and he still wasn’t entirely sure what Dylan’s answer would be. This though, this felt right. They’d been talking for weeks about whether Dylan would move in, both to help with Apollo after the surgery and to save money while he did the master’s degree program, but Apollo didn’t want practicality to be the only reasons Dylan came to live with them this time.

Dylan knelt down to the level of the girls. “Yes,” he said, voice breaking. “Yes, I will.”

Then he rose, leaning to kiss Apollo quickly, then putting his lips near Apollo’s ear, “You know I’ll move in regardless, right? I don’t need this.”

“Yeah, well maybe I do,” Apollo whispered back. “Maybe I need you to know that I love you and that I want you in my life—in our lives—permanently. So say yes and mean it.”

“Is that an order?” Dylan laughed against his mouth.

“Absolutely.” Apollo kissed him soundly as everyone clapped for them. The big public proposal thing wasn’t necessarily his style, but he’d known Dylan would love this, would love having their closest people to celebrate with, even if Apollo would rather have done this closer to a bed. And forget steak, he was going to spend the next three hours counting down to when he could feast on Dylan.

“Then yes, yes, I’ll marry you,” Dylan said louder this time so everyone could hear. When the next round of cheers and congratulations died down, Dylan opened the wooden box. “It’s...a picture?”

“It’s a promise,” Apollo corrected him. “We’re going to go pick out something together. I found this gay-friendly studio out in Liberty Station that fuses different recycled golds together for a custom look, but I want you to help choose what we get.”

“You’re getting one too?” Dylan’s voice was hesitant.

“Yes.” Apollo had thought long and hard about this. Getting a new ring—marrying Dylan—was a huge step, one he’d wrestled with more than a little, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of rightness about this.

“I love you,” Dylan whispered, pulling him in for one more kiss. He wanted to be Dylan’s in all the ways that counted, wanted to publicly commit to him in front of the girls and their families because he deserved that. They both did. Just like the rings he envisioned, they deserved this shiny future with its own unique patina and etchings. He might have a history, one he dearly loved and wouldn’t change, but he also had a present, and now a future, and he met Dylan’s lips joyously, without reservations.

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