Page 18 of Hot Chicken
I couldn’t think of a single thing in the entire universe better than this—being naked, filthy, and sweaty as fuck, sprawled on top of the man I loved. There was not a single career aspiration or far-flung adventure that would ever compare. All I wanted from the universe was more of this exact same thing. A whole forever of this. That was something worth commemorating.
I stopped laughing abruptly.
“Gage?” Knox asked, concerned. “Are you…?”
I wriggled slightly, and his softening cock fell out of me, making all kinds of mess. My sweaty limbs flailed a little as I tried to turn over, and Knox let out an ooof when my elbow slipped and wedged itself into his ribs.
“Sorry!” I said, reaching for his neck at the same time he tried to sit up. My hand met his face in the middle.
“Goodman!” Knox clapped a hand over his eye. “Are you trying to assault me? What in the?—”
“Marry me, Knox!” I blurted. I grabbed him by the shoulders and held on tight. “I mean… I mean…”
I swallowed hard. Knox’s eyes—well, the one eye that wasn’t red and watery—went wide and shocked, which wasn’t exactly encouraging. His hair was sweat-slicked and sticking up on one side, and I couldn’t imagine what mine was doing, and I was pretty sure there’d be too much cum on the sofa to bronze it, assuming Knox hadn’t been kidding about?—
Focus, Gage. You got the man to fall in love with you. You can make this happen, too.
“Look, I know we haven’t talked about it in a long time. Years. Several years, actually. And it’s… it’s okay with me if you don’t want to anymore! I mean, obviously, people don’t have to be married in order to be committed. And I know lots of people think marriage is heteronormative and… and… they don’t need the government to sanction their partnership… and if you feel strongly about that, then I… I understand. But if you don’t feel strongly either way, then… then I do. Feel strongly, I mean. About you. About us. About… getting married.”
Knox stared at me like I was speaking some dialect of English he didn’t know… which was silly since he’d learned to speak fluent Goodman years ago. But I couldn’t turn back now, so I soldiered on.
“I didn’t think I cared,” I told him. As I perched in his lap, the fan blew on my sweaty skin, making me shiver. My fingers nervously carded Knox’s messy hair back into place. “I didn’t think I wanted the rings and the cake and the ceremony of it all. But I… I do. I want all of it. I want to stand up in front of our friends and families and promise to love you every day for the rest of our lives. I want to tell you, in front of the whole world, that I am yours, and I always will be. I want your ring on my finger because… well, because it’s more convenient than carrying this couch around as a symbol of our love.” I tried for a smile. “So, um. Will you, Edwin Knox Sunday, do me the honor of?—”
Knox silenced me with a kiss, his lips crashing into mine with a kind of desperate intensity. When he pulled back a moment later, his eyes were shiny. And then, to my shock, he wrapped his arms around me, buried his face in my chest, and laughed so hard he made the sofa protest some more.
I blinked. “Uh. Baby?” I said after a moment. I put my arms around him and patted his back gently. “I’m not surewhat’s happening right now. This particular Knox-ian stress response is kind of hard to read. The tears are giving ‘I’m trying to let you down gently’… or possibly ‘My eye injury is worse than I let on’… but the laughter is?—”
Knox lifted his head and cupped my chin in both of his hands. “Yes. Yes. Goodman.Gage. Of course I’ll marry you.”
It was only when I was able to suck in a full breath that I realized I hadn’t been breathing normally. “Oh! Right. Good.” I swallowed. “Wait, really?”
Knox’s smile was brighter than the summer sun. “Yes, really. In fact?—”
He stood quickly, nearly dumping me off the sofa and onto the rug before I scrambled to my feet. “Wait here,” he said before running up the stairs.
“You’re really giving a guy mixed messages,” I called after him.
Knox thundered down the stairs seconds later, holding a small velvet box that made my heart stop completely. He skidded to a stop in front of me.
“I’ve had this for three years,” he began. Then he opened the box to reveal a simple, elegant platinum band.
“Oh my God,” I breathed. “Is this actually happening?”
“Yes. Finally.” Knox’s hands were shaking, which was more of a reality check than his words. Not even in my wildest dreams could I imagine Knox with shaky hands. “I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to surprise you. Some grand, romantic gesture. The sunrise hike, the fireworks last summer… none of them felt right. Not special enough.”
I winced. “Ah, shit. And then I come along and ask you the first moment it pops into my head, on a random Sunday, after acting like an asshole the day before, and when both of us are…” I gestured to my stomach, which was covered in cooling jizz and low-key starting to itch, and then to his crazy, sweat-mussed hair. “Ouch.”
Knox laughed shakily even as he shook his head. Hecupped my jaw in one palm tenderly. “And then you came along,” he agreed, “and reminded me that every day, every fucking moment, is perfect when I’m with you.”
He dropped to one knee on the rug, right there by our unspeakably dirty sofa, and smiled up at me. “Gage Goodman, will you marry me? I want to spend all the rest of my moments with you, whether they’re here, or in Boston, or anywhere else you ever want to go. I promise to make you coffee every morning?—”
I sniffed a little but rolled my eyes. “Hardly an inducement since you don’t trust me to use the machine.”
Knox’s smile widened. “And I promise to let you fill our house with…” He shot a glance at the mantel over my shoulder and curled his lip a little. “Weird, possibly sentient, decorative poultry that may or may not be trying to murder me through an overabundance of sex.”
“Hey!” I laughed a little. “No such thing. And no dissing the Cock of Good Fortune, or all bets are off!”
“And I promise to love you… every perfect, ordinary day… for the rest of our lives.”
