AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And will there be stories?”
“Oh yeah.”
“It’s important to meet family, to be part of the whole of it, and the history of it. And for me, to see the smile in my mother’s eyes when she met you, and the look she gave to me that said, so clear: Aye, of course. I see why you love him.”
“She already knew why I love you.”
“Well now, of course. What’s that you say? What’s not to love?”
Laughing, Marco poured more wine for both of them.
“It’s important to make family as well. To find the one you love and want and see yourself with through the years to come. And there your own becomes a part of that whole, and that history.”
He took Marco’s hand, brought it to his lips. “Make that family with me, Marco, be a part of that whole and that history with me. Will you pledge to me here, where I was born, and take my pledge to you?”
Marco’s breath simply stopped, and everything went still. The night, the air, the world, and all the worlds beyond.
“Are you… are you asking me to marry you?”
“I am, and now all the nerves I felt on it seem foolish, as the asking is the simplest thing in all the worlds.”
Turning Marco’s hand over, Brian pressed his lips to the center of his palm. “I promise to love you and stand with you, and build a life with you that brings you joy. I know it may seem quick, but—”
“No, no, it doesn’t. Brian Kelly, my Sidhe warrior, my lover, my friend. It feels like I’ve waited for you all my life, and that night we stood by the bay, everything just clicked into place. You’re the one, and you’re always going to be.”
He all but threw himself into the kiss, into the rightness of it, the joy already begun.
“So you will? You will?” Brian said as his lips rushed over Marco’s face.
“I was going to ask you. Man, just hold on to me a minute, I’m shaking. After meeting your family, I was going to talk to Breen.”
Holding tight, holding on, Marco closed his eyes. “She’s my north star, you know? I wanted to figure out how to ask you, make it special.”
Easing back, Brian cupped Marco’s face. And saw his whole world, his entire life in those beautiful eyes. “You would ask me?”
“All my life I wanted someone to love me like you do, wanted to love someone like I love you. I wanted to ask you to marry me, but you beat me to it.”
“Say to me: Aye, Brian, I’ll pledge to you.”
“Aye, Brian, I’ll pledge to you.”
“And I say to you, aye, Marco, I’ll marry you.”
The kiss sealed the promise, and a loving step into the future.
“I found you,” Marco murmured. “I found you. All I had to do was walk into another world, and there you were.”
In the afternoon that brought more rain, Breen stepped out of her office and the work. She let Bollocks out, as rain or not, he wanted a run, then went into the empty kitchen for a Coke.
She’d have to get used to it again, she reminded herself. To the quiet and the alone, to not finding Marco at the table working, or in the kitchen cooking.
He’d have his own kitchen, his own table before too much longer. And she wanted that for him, a home of his own with someone he loved.
She wandered to the doors, looking out at the rain, the way it—and Bollocks—stirred up the bay. She loved the look of it, in the rain, in the sun, in everything between.
She’d seen it in summer, in fall, and now in winter. In a matter of weeks, she’d stand here, just like this, and watch spring come.
But no rush, she thought. With spring, she’d go through the portal again, but to Philadelphia. As much as she wanted to see Sally and Derrick, spring meant facing her mother again.
