“Since now,” Oscar said.
“Will you at least get up?” Aaron’s eyebrows were scrunched up, but he hadn’t walked away, and this would have to be enough for Oscar, enough to drive him forward, enough to fill his tank and keep him going. “If this is someWalk to Rememberbullshit?—”
“I’m not trying to be romantic,” Oscar said, shaking his head as he stood, “although I hope it is. I hope you like the flowers and that I got down on one knee. I wish I could afford to take you out to dinner, too, but this is what I can do right now, and I promise I will always give you everything I can for the rest of our lives.”
Oscar swallowed, and it went down easy. Oscar breathed, and the air was clear. The moths that had battered the inside of his stomach his entire grown life had turned into butterflies, their feather-soft wings tickling a warm, love-laced laugh out of him.
“Boo, I hope and dream and pray that everything will be okay, that marrying young means we get to celebrate those ridiculously expensive-sounding anniversaries like sapphire and platinum.”
“What if it isn’t like that?” Aaron’s nose twitched.
And Oscar might have slapped himself a week before for bringing it up like this after what had seemed like a good day, but not now. Oscar was ready. He didn’t need to be Papa. He only needed to be someone who would make him proud.
“Then all the more reason to say yes.”
Oscar pressed a soft dry kiss to Aaron’s forehead, staying with it a second, willing that brain of his to be kind, to rejectthis difficult possibility looming in front of them, frightening them senseless. He pulled away and knew there were tears in his eyes, but his gaze wasn’t blurred. Oscar had never seen more clearly than he did right now.
“All the legal mumbo jumbo is the reason I even thought about this. If it comes down to something…if it’s a bad result,” Oscar said, “I want to be the one.”
“The one what?” Aaron asked, swallowing, but he wasn’t saying no. He wasn’t saying no. He wasn’t sayingno.
“I want to be your legal caregiver. I don’t want anybody else to be kneeling in front of the shower washing your hair, if there ever comes a day when you forget how to do it. I don’t want anybody else making decisions you wouldn’t want them to make.” Oscar leaned in, brushing the tips of their noses together. “Aaron, I don’t trust your father or your brothers to make difficult decisions for you. If I’m your husband, I become your next of kin. And if you tell me you want a purple sky, I will get myself into a spaceship and drown the world in paint for you, even if it takes all the air from my lungs.”
Aaron found his eyes, his entire face contorting as he understood what sacrifice Oscar had promised to make. Oscar nodded, allowing the tears that had gathered along the rims of his eyes to escape through the corners.
“What if we adopt a baby, and I’m not around to help? You’d never wake up, not if it cried itself to death,” Aaron mumbled.
“Then we won’t adopt a baby,” Oscar said. “We’ll have our honeymoon years and adopt an older queer kid nobody wants to take home, a whole litter of them if you want, and give Tobe a run for their money.” Oscar kissed Aaron on the cheek.
“And what if I say something mean to you?” Aaron asked. “I never expected you to stick around if I got sick, Spike.”
“It’s not up to you whether I stick around or not. I’ve made that choice. And so what if you say something mean? Iwas forged in the fires of Marjorie Peters, Aaron. Not in the worst of your foul moods can you beat that, I assure you.” Oscar kissed Aaron on the chin. He longed to kiss him everywhere.
“And what if you end up spending the rest of your life picking me up off the floor, wiping my mouth when I can’t anymore?” Aaron’s voice wobbled.
“That’s why I have arms, so I can pick you up, and I would never let anybody else near that pretty mouth anyway,” Oscar said.
“But Oscar, what if I forget yourname?” And Aaron’s voice went down to a whisper on the last word. It tore into Oscar, cutting him like those sewing scissors his mother had locked in her drawer.
“Then I will teach it to you over and over again,” Oscar whispered back, pressing softnesses to Aaron’s temples, mapping his way to his mouth across his connect-the-dots freckles. “And I’ll fool you into thinking it’s been Spike all along.”
“Ithasbeen Spike all along,” Aaron said. His lips wobbled into a smile.
“Well, given it’s Papa’s ring I’m trying to give you, that’s rather fitting,” Oscar replied.
He pulled away, looking at Aaron’s face in full for the first time in minutes. Fuck, he was beautiful. Fuck, Oscar loved him.
“I can’t very well say no to Papa’s ring, now can I?” Aaron cocked his head to the side.
His eyes brightened, catching the light that lived between them, that breathed hope into Oscar every day he lived with him. Aaron took a step back and held out his hand, waving his fingers in invitation.
All the little bits of Aaron in Oscar’s version of the song from his parents’ wedding video came together to complete awhole as Oscar slid the ring onto his finger, lifting his hand to his lips and kissing it.
“Are we really doing this?” Aaron murmured. “You’ve just turned twenty-one. And we can’t afford anything right now. You were just saying you’re going to scrape burnt sauce off the pan and sprinkle it on your pasta like parmesan cheese.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I pictured you doing it.” Aaron’s smirk was a playground Oscar wanted to spend the rest of his life on, his scrunching nose the slide down which Oscar wanted to run his finger over and over again.
