Page 58 of Misadventures of a Curvy Girl
A few minutes later, we’re around the tree with the fire going and steaming mugs of spiked cider for us all. Greta-dog nestles on the couch next to Ireland, who’s cute as a fucking button in her flannel pajamas covered in snowmen, but Ben and I remain standing.
“I can make room,” she says, preparing to move. “Or we can put Greta on the floor?”
Greta gives a huff, as if she knows she’s about to be evicted.
“Don’t move,” Ben says in his soldier voice, and Ireland goes still, looking confused. We go over to the tree to get the two little boxes we’ve nestled in the branches. She blinks at them and then blinks at us.
They’re not wrapped, tied only with small red bows, and her breathing speeds up as we pull off the ribbons together and open the boxes together.
As we kneel together.
“Ireland,” I say, my mouth suddenly dry with nerves. “I know it’s on
ly been five months, and I know it’s all moved fast. But I’ve never been surer of anything in my entire life—that I want to spend it with the two of you.”
“We want you to be our wife,” Ben continues for me. Tears glimmer in Ireland’s eyes as he speaks. “We want to marry you and cherish you and spend forever with you. And I know there will be so much to figure out legally, and I know it will never be the easy road, but it’s the only road I want. Marry us, baby. Please.”
“Oh,” she says, starting to cry in earnest now and putting the back of her hand to her mouth. “Oh God. Yes. Yes, of course.”
My sternum cracks open and pure sunshine beams out. I’d hoped she’d say yes, of course—I wouldn’t have asked if I thought it was unwelcome, but still—to hear your woman say yes to forever is still the best kind of feeling. My own eyes are wet as Ben and I slide our rings onto her finger, each ring one half of a diamond-studded Celtic knot so that when they’re put on together, they make one whole design.
Ireland flexes her hand, enraptured by the glitter of our rings, and it’s both unbearably arousing and unbelievably—almost spiritually—gratifying to witness.
Ben is ready to fuck her again, I can tell, but we’re not quite finished. I reach into the pocket of my pajama pants and pull out another ring.
It’s made of beaten metal that’s been hammered and burnished to a dull gleam, as quiet and strong as the man it’s going to belong to. I take Ben’s hand, which is suddenly shaking, and I slide it onto his finger.
“I love you,” I tell him, my best friend and lover and weary, mysterious soldier. “I want all three of us to be married, together, in a ceremony apart from anything we do legally. Maybe only two of us can be married on paper, but in our hearts, it will be all three. Tell me yes, Ben. Tell me yes.”
The corner of Ben’s mouth hooks up in a smile at my command. “I thought I was the one who gave the orders around here.”
I kiss him. Hard. And then Ireland is joining in, and the three of us are kissing with more fierce possession than we ever have before, the firelight catching the new rings and sending beams of reflected light around the room.
“Well, then,” I finally manage. “I’m ordering you to order us around for the rest of our lives.”
“Yes,” Ben says. “Yes, of course, and fuck you, I’m crying now.”
He is.
Ireland kisses the tears off his cheeks, and somehow that turns into the three of us on the floor, kissing and grinding and eventually fucking while the fire crackles and more snow spits outside. I catch Ireland and Ben looking at their rings more than once as we make love, and if I felt eight feet tall before, there’s no telling how I feel now.
Like the luckiest man alive, the luckiest man who’s ever had the privilege of being alive. With my farm and my Clementine-cow and my Greta-dog and my truck.
With my broody ex-soldier.
With my curvy girl.
Lucky doesn’t even begin to cover it.
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Acknowledgments
