Gordon​

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1 Year Later

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“This one,” I say, and point at it.

“Are you sure?” the gentleman asks and looks at me over his eyeglasses.

I don’t like that he questions me. I know what Beau likes. I don’t need him casting doubt on my already stressed out mind.

“Absolutely,” I reassure him before I change my mind again.

He takes the ring out of the display and rests it on his palm so I can see it up close.

It’s a gold band with a diamond cut into it at the top with a silver frame around the gem that spills on to either side, making it look like a star.

I can’t wait to see his face when I give it to him. And to see him with it on his finger.

“It’s perfect,” I tell the assistant, and he gives me a smile, showing me to the counter to take care of the check.

It takes me a couple of weeks to plan the perfect proposal and to get Beau to clear his schedule, but I’ve booked Le Prestige, like I have for all the significant moments in my adult life and we take Scarlet to the restaurant.

“Thank you so much,” Beau says as we pull up.

“What the hell for?” I ask him.

“For making me take this weekend off? I won’t admit it come Monday morning, but I needed it,” he says.

I pat his thigh and squeeze, turning to look him in the eye.

“Well, we need to get you a new Sales Manager so you don’t work yourself to the ground. I don’t like not seeing you all day.”

“Hey, you see me,” he frowns.

“Without a headset on you and a laptop in front of you. I meant see you see you.”

He bites his lip and gives me an apologetic smile and we get out of the car, handing it over to the valet.

I get him to unwind and enjoy our dinner. We have our usual order and by the time we get dessert served, I know it’s the right moment.

While our Crêpes Suzette are still flaming, I put my hand in the inside pocket of my jacket.

“Uh-oh,” Beau grabs his mouth and his eyes pop open.

I take my hand away from the ring box and reach for him across the table.

“Are you okay?”

He shakes his head, wincing.

“What’s going on?”

Beau doesn’t reply. Instead, he turns to his side and pukes his guts out.

I fly off my chair and stand next to him, rubbing his back to soothe him until he’s feeling better.

When he sits back down, our waiter stops at our table, and Beau turns to him.

“I think my salmon was way off.” Beau places his finger under his nose and tries to breathe through it.

The waiter rushes to clean up the mess and by the time it’s done, our entire meal has been comped off and our crêpes—and ring box—remain untouched.

Today was not meant to be.

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* * *

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6 Months Later

It’s been six months and I still haven’t proposed. It’s just never the right time. After Beau got sick at Prestige he was bed bound for a few days and by the time he was feeling better, he was at work literally twenty-four seven until he found a Sales Manager to take over his workload.

And when I thought of booking us a nice winter vacation in Indonesia and do it there, Elsie caught the bug at her school and was feeling poorly for a long while.

By the time the new year rolled over, Mama Hadlee had to move in with us for a few weeks, which turned into months, while her house was being fumigated and then renovated.

She finally moved back to her house a few days earlier and while Beau and I have enjoyed her company, we’ll enjoy having our privacy again a lot more.

We’re just waiting for Dolly and Zoe to arrive at the house and pick up Elsie so we can have a hard-earned fucking session. Without having to be quiet. Or quick about it.

“I’ve showered and prepped and I’ve sprayed your favorite perfume all over me,” Beau says when he comes down wearing a bathrobe. “And it’s all I’m wearing underneath.”

The way he looks at me all passionately makes my Flash Gordon hard and the only thing stopping me from tearing the robe off him and fucking him right here right now is Elsie watching TV next to me.

The doorbell rings, and Beau runs to open the door.

The girls come in all giddy and giggly and keep staring at both of us instead of grabbing Elsie’s stuff—and Elsie—and walking back right out.

“Why are you acting like your daughter when she has a secret she thinks no one else knows?” I ask both of them.

Dolly claps her hands together and throws herself on the couch next to me, draping her hands all over my chest.

“Darling Gordon,” she says.

Zoe does the same on the other side, after she asks Elsie to scooch.

“What the hell do you want?”

Dolly fakes insult and gasps. “What makes you think we want something?”

“Because I know you. And you.” I look over at Zoe.

“Well, we do need something,” Zoe says and walks her fingers from my arm all the way up to my neck.

“Hands off my boyfriend you two,” Beau complains, but they don’t listen.

Dolly turns to Elsie instead and says, “Sweetie, want to play hide and seek?”

Elsie jumps off the couch and runs upstairs to find somewhere to hide, and when she’s out of earshot, I put my mean cap on. They need to go. Stat.

“What the fuck do you want?” I ask.

“Your sperm,” Dolly says.

“And yours,” Zoe turns to Beau momentarily before turning back to me.

“What?”

Beau crosses his arms and taps his foot on the floor, waiting for them to explain themselves.

“Well, we’re ready to have another child together. As a married couple. And you know… we thought you might want to have another kid. I mean why go through all the trouble of a sperm bank when we have two very healthy sperm producers right here,” Dolly says.

“So hold on a minute. You decide you want to have a child and instead of asking us if we do too, you assume we do and jump straight to demanding the goods?” I ask.

“And why is no one clinging on to me? I thought you wanted both our sperms,” Beau adds.

“Babe, that’s the least of our worries,” I tell him.

Zoe laughs and gets up to hug her friend.

“We just know you’re easier to convince. He’s the grumpy old man,” she tells him and kisses his cheek.

“Hey,” both Beau and I yell.

We look at each other and smile.

“Don’t call my man old,” he says to her.

“Come on, boys. Wouldn’t it be fun if we had another kid together? Give Elsie a little sibling to be bossy with?” Dolly asks.

“Maybe,” I say.

“Yes!” Beau says at the same time.

And of course, instead of spending the weekend fucking, we spend the weekend discussing having a child.

So not how this was supposed to go.

​

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* * *

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3 Years Later

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I had to store the ring away in a safe deposit box in my bank because God knows with all the tests and the inseminations and the baby stuff Beau will find the ring and take the romance out of a proposal.

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When Zoe gives birth to a beautiful boy almost a year later we all get too wrapped up in life with a baby and a six-year-old.

Frankly, it’d been so long since Dolly and I had Elsie we forgot how hard those first few years are. I don’t know how we did it back then, but it takes all four of us and Mama Hadlee to raise the two and not fuck it up.

Our son, who’s got the genes of both Beau and Zoe, took the name of Beau’s late father, Mason.

He’s a little monster and a half. And Elsie of course gets jealous of how much time we all spend fawning over him and looking after him, so there’s that.

Who on Earth would propose to their boyfriend at such a crazy time?

Not this guy. That’s for sure.

It’s only when Mason turns two and Elsie has finally become a nice big sister who’s not trying to come up with ways to kill her baby brother that we finally escape to Indonesia for a week’s getaway.

The weather is nice and hot, the food is safe and delicious, and Beau manages to unwind and be himself.

Of course, the fact that we hump each other at every possible place and time helps with that.

My favorite? Fucking at the beach with the sun warming our bodies and the splash of the waves giving beat to our pounding.

It’s on our last night at the hotel when we’re having dinner at the patio by the infinity pool, with fairy lights all around and kind waiters who are too kind to a pair of hopeless Americans that I decide again to pop the question.

“You know I love you, right?” I ask him.

He smirks and reaches for my hand.

“Of course I do, silly,” he says.

“And you know you make me the happiest I’ve ever been?”

Beau rolls his eyes.

“Sweetie, I don’t think you even knew what happiness was until you met me.”

I laugh.

“It’s true. Kind of.”

Beau protests, but I remind him I had Elsie before I met him.

“Touché. You didn’t know what happiness with a man was until me. Same diff.”

I reach for my shirt pocket, but of course the ring isn’t there. It’d be too chunky to hide in there. I touch the pockets of my trousers, but the ring isn’t there either.

“Yes, that I can agree to.”

My brain goes through the mental picture of my suitcase and where I would hide it so I can ask one of the servers to get it for me.

And it’s then I realize.

The ring is still in the safe deposit box.

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* * *

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4 Years Later

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I gave up on trying to propose after that.

Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Maybe marrying Beau would ruin what we have. Surely if it was supposed to happen, things wouldn’t keep going wrong.

I tried to do it after our trip had ended and we were back in Virginia, but of course we had a hurricane alert and we had to stay indoors until it passed.

And when the hurricane passed there was a lot of repairs to be done around the house, so it all went to the back of my mind.

Then Beau’s twenty-eight birthday came around and he had his quarter-life crisis.

And with that crisis, everything came into question.

Whether he was getting old.

What he was doing with his life.

Whether we were raising our kids right.

Or if getting married—because the subject had of course come up, but I always tried to sound nonchalant so he’d be surprised when I proposed—was for us or if we were conforming to the hetero-normative standards we grew up in.

That killed all plans of a proposal for a while.

Which was fine.

At least he didn’t ask to go open with our relationship.

It’s not like we didn’t have our trials and tribulations over the years. I’ve had my insecurities about being so much older than him and people thinking Beau’s with me for the money, or people assuming I’m his father, or other bullshit.

We’ve had our fights.

About our kids, our house, our love life, work.

Life isn’t perfect, but we’re perfect with each other. For each other. And that’s all the matters.

After a while, Elsie caught on to the fact that I’ve had a ring for so long—I took out of the safe deposit box shortly after our trip to Indonesia—and she encouraged me to ask him every now and again, but the time was never right.

Hell, once she even set a romantic candlelit dinner for us to make me do it, but Mason came stomping in the room and when Elsie tried to take him away, he went all stroppy so that killed the mood.

Then, another time, we were hiking at Prince William National Forest Park. She kept nudging me to do it and I got on one knee, but Beau was attacked by a wasp so that put an end to that adventure.

Or when we went on vacation in Greece, she kept taking her cell out and asking us to pose for a picture, secretly recording us in hopes I’d do it, but the islanders would keep staring and put me off doing it.

If it weren’t for Elsie, I’d have given up a couple years ago. For good.

“Come on, Daddy. I’m gonna die of old age before you do it,” she says when Beau gets up to make some more popcorn on our movie night.

Mason is fast asleep upstairs, and we’re introducing Elsie to one of our favorite movies. Practical Magic.

“I think I’ll die before you do, honey,” I tell her.

“Exactly,” she says and slaps my chest. Like mother, like daughter.

“We’ll see,” I tell her.

“Dad. You’ve been together for almost ten years. You’ve been putting this off for eight of them. Either you’re chicken, or scared.”

I pinch her nose, and she pulls away from me.

“You need to stop hanging out with your mother,” I tell her.

“Tell me about it. She keeps telling me ‘it’s hide and seek time’ when she wants some private time with Zoe. I don’t think she gets I’m not four anymore. It’s a bit gross if I’m honest with you, Daddy. I might ask to get emancipated,” she says.

I gasp.

“Why do I have to pay for your mother’s sins?”

“Because you’re incompetent at doing the simplest of things,” she replies.

“You better watch your language, missy,” I warn her. “Besides, it’s not simple.”

“It’s very simple,” she rolls her eyes.

It’s a common look on her these days. I’m not sure if I’m a fan.

“What’s simple?” Beau walks in carrying a huge plastic bowl.

Elsie turns to her Beau-Beau—yeah, that name stuck—and flicks her hair on my face.

“Beau-Beau, will you marry Daddy already? He’s been trying to propose for eight years. And I’m almost an adult, yet you’re still not married.”

I gasp. Beau gasps. Elsie just sits there waiting for an answer.

“Is-is that true?” Beau turns to look at me.

I nod.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“It was never the right time,” I tell him.

“In eight years?” Beau laughs.

“Well, shit kept happening.”

Beau coughs.

For a guy who swears as much as I do, he hates when we do it in front of the kids.

“So you’re telling me we could have been married by now?”

“Duh! That ring has been gathering so much dust, it’s going to be an antique soon. Or is it an antique already? When does a new thing become an antique?” Elsie asks.

“There’s a ring?”

I shake my head at Elsie. “Yes. There’s a ring. Of course there’s a ring. You think I don’t know you?”

Beau crosses his hands in front of his chest and scowls.

“Then why am I not wearing it yet?”

Both my daughter and my boyfriend glare at me and don’t stop until I run out of the room and retrieve it from the pits of our closet.

When I return, Beau snatches the box out of my hands and opens it.

“Well, I’m not sure if I should be mad you waited this long, or to kiss the hell out of you because it was worth the wait.”

“Ew. Be mad at him. Definitely mad,” Elsie winces.

“You missy have done enough. Go to your room,” I order her, but as usual she doesn’t listen. “Well, this isn’t how I wanted to do this—”

“Technically, I’ve already done it, Daddy,” Elsie cuts in.

“Shhhh,” Beau tells her. “Let him think he’s doing it. He’s been putting it off for so long.”

I cough. “May I?”

“Please continue,” Beau says.

I was waiting for the right moment. But now I realize, what’s more perfect than doing this here, right now—”

“Wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for me, but okay,” Elsie mutters and Beau laughs.

“Anyway. What’s not perfect about doing this in front of our daughter, the person that brought us together in the first place?”

“Oh what my poor baby eyes must have seen. I hope I’m not scarred for life,” Elsie says.

I ignore her. She’s a teenager. I got to.

I take a closer step to Beau and take his hands in mine.

“Beau, sweetheart, love of my life. Will you marry me?”

“Of course I will, my handsome man. Of course, I will,” he smiles.

I take the ring out of the box and slip it in his finger. Then I kiss him to the objection of Elsie.

“I love you so much,” I tell him.

“Me too,” he replies. “But don’t you think I’m not gonna punish you for waiting this long.”

“TMI people. TMI,” Elsie yells.

Beau and I chuckle and while Elsie is shielding her eyes, we attack her with tickles and kisses.

She does not enjoy it. Or so she claims.

But she knows, and we know, without her, we wouldn’t be together or have the family that we have today.

“Papa?” Mason says and we turn to find him standing in the middle of the living room rubbing his eyes. “Daddy? What are you doing?”

Elsie gets up and grabs Mason’s tiny hand in hers, walking him back upstairs.

“They’re finally getting married little bro. That’s what they’re doing.”

“Ew,” we hear him say. “What is that?”

I turn to Beau and look into those eyes. The same eyes I fell in love with all those years ago.

“I’m so happy,” I tell him.

“I’m so happy, too.”

We are.

Forever after.