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Lily leans in and kisses me.
At some point, her free hand drops onto the ring box, but her lips are on mine, so I don’t care if that ruins the photo. I just kiss her back.
She tastes sweet and minty and might actually be an angel.
I’m aware of the camera shutter, kind of, but I forget that my entire family is watching this until a lowholy shitreaches my ears from all the way across the grass.
Lily tips her head to the side, kisses my neck, and whispers,it’s totally fine. I think you should show me the ring now.
So I do. I hold the open ring box out to her, and she looks down at it with genuine, lovely surprise on her face.
I know she already knows.
The words come out anyway.
“This was my mom’s.” I didn’t think I was in danger of crying, so it’s a shock to feel how rough my voice has gone. “Mason’s friend resized it.”
“Which friend?” Lily whispers.
“Hades. He’s into diamonds.”
“Like your sister is into dirt?”
“Exactly.” Not exactly, but the principle is the same. Hades sells priceless jewels and other stuff. Remy finds the occasional priceless artifact. Both of them have to get things out of the ground at one point or another.
Lily looks down at the ring, and I look down at it with her.
It’s a sparkling diamond in a platinum band.
“Do you like it? For real,” I ask. “It’s simple.”
“It’s elegant.” Lily smiles even wider. “It’s perfect.”
I put it on her finger.
And then she’s just—
Smilingat me, like I’ve made all her dreams come true, and I smile back at her the same way, and shelaughsat me, like I’m hilarious and wonderful and not a human crime scene.
Somewhere in there, August appears again and leads us over to another spot in the park. He makes a gesture between the two of us with an expression on his face that I can only describe aslovesick, which makes both of us have a laughing fit. He steps in more often to pose us after that, but it’s mostly just different ways I get to touch Lily, and none of it is boring.
Finally, Julien says, “Do you have the shots you need?”
August nods, and waves to the rest of the family.
Time for a group shot.
Thatwhole process is about as funny as the engagement photos.
In the middle, my chest starts to hurt.
For a minute, I think it might be a heart attack or something, but then my throat closes up and my eyes burn, so I’m going to live after all.
It’s just emotions.
I shove those down and think of non-criminal things, like baking cake and watching Downton Abbey and working at a job with a desk and an office and keep looping back around to all the family photos we took before my parents died, because my mom loved lifestyle shoots, and how—
Fuck.
