“Just looking at you.”
“A little weird to have your plane bed occupied with someone other than you?”
“Not someone.” He smiles. “You.”
“And who am I?” I tease.
“Vance Rayne. The artist. Maybe one day with a different surname.”
That makes me grin. “Which one?”
“Which one sounds good?” He smirks.
“McD, are you proposing to me?”
His face goes serious. “Would you want me to be?”
“Do you want to be?”
His eyes close. “Yes.”
“You do?” I’m fucking elated.
“Yeah. But it’s too soon, right? And maybe too much for you, anyway.”
“Too much for me? This is some proposal.”
He wraps his arms around me. “Vance. I love you. Do you want to be my husband? One day? When you’re ready?”
“Do you want to be my husband?”
He swallows. “Yes. It scares me how much.”
I laugh. “Want to do it when we land?”
“Get married?”
“If you want to.” I kiss his mouth. “If you’re sure and I’m sure—why wait? Unless you want your mom there.”
“We could do a celebration later.”
We’re kissing hard and fast. I can feel how nervous he is. He keeps pulling off my mouth to breathe.
“Is it impulsive?” he whispers.
“I don’t think so.”
We’re so good together. Even better than I’d ever dreamed we could be. I’m in San Francisco three fourths of the time now. We’re in New York some Mondays and Tuesdays. After this trip, he’ll go back to preaching again fulltime. I’ll be the church sculptor in residence for the next year. Which his just another way of saying I’ll be at the church working a few times a week, so we can see each other and the kids who tour the church can watch me work.
I kiss him again. “Kids, you said, right?”
He nods.
“Caymans for the honeymoon?” I grin. “When the plane lands, let’s do it. Do you want to pick the preacher?”
“What if it’s just me?” He looks slightly abashed at the suggestion. I kiss his mouth. “We could get married legally when we get back to California,” I say. “But this way would be the real deal. Just the two of us.”
“Married on the yacht’s deck? Under the stars?”
I nod.
“Would you want to do that?”
I pull him close. “Yes.” I kiss his cheek.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m so sure.”
“You want me and all my baggage? Never having any privacy when we’re out?”
“I want all of those things. Do you want paint on all your undershirts, and helping me get health insurance?”
“I want nothing more.”
I kiss his eyes…and then his cheeks.
We sit beside each other on the bed, looking out the windows as the plane starts to descend.
“This is my favorite part,” he says.
“The landing?”
He nods. His eyes catch mine and hold. I have the thought: His face is strange.
Then his hand grabs my hand.
“I love you,” he whispers, holding my gaze. “Vance, are you sure?”
“So sure.”
I feel something cool slip my finger. For the longest second, I can’t breathe. Then the plane dips down out of a cloud. We seem to hang over a blanket of sparkling lights. They blur, and I look at him.
He smiles, small and tentative at first, then hugely. He pulls out another ring, his lashes dark against his cheeks as he looks down at it in his palm.
I take it from him, holding it up. “This is beautiful. Where did you get these?”
“In New York.”
“When we went to get my clothes?”
His dimples peek out.
“That was more than a month ago.”
He nods. “I didn’t want to rush things.”
“I love you. I can’t wait to be your husband.” I kiss his lips and slide his ring on as we go wheels down. The plane lurches. For just a second, it feels like we’re in a free fall. Then there’s runway rising up to meet us.
Someone throws the brakes on, and we’re slowing down. We’re in the Caymans, and it’s warm, with soft air and a fairy tale sky. We say our vows up on the yacht’s deck late that night, with no one listening but the ocean waves. We go to sleep wrapped in each other’s arms and wake up the same way.
“Husbands?” he asks later, as we drink our coffee on the deck.
I grin. “Husbands.”
“The pastor and the artist,” he murmurs.
“Sky and Rayne.”
After every label that came first, and all the ones that will come after, somehow that’s exactly who we are.