“Yeah, Baba, do the present,” Dustin teased. “Or do you need the wine first?”
“Okay, okay.” Like any mission, there was nothing gained from procrastination, and now that Apollo had his target in his sights, he wasn’t backing off just because of a few nerves.
The girls grabbed the large piece of rolled-up paper off the table and tussled over who got to take the bow off.
“Hey, shouldn’t I unwrap it?” Dylan asked, voice still shaky.
“No,” Chloe said, every bit as authoritative as Apollo with his men. She grabbed one edge of the roll and Sophia grabbed the other, revealing the sign they had painstakingly lettered and colored:
Dylan, will you marry our Baba?
Apollo fished in his pocket for the small box. He’d bought it back in December, thinking about Christmas, but things had still felt too new then, dating too much fun, and Dylan hadn’t wanted to talk about moving back in yet. Apollo had known though, even then, that this was where they were headed, something that excited him every bit as much as it terrified him.
Then Valentine’s Day had felt a bit cliché and not really them and he still wasn’t entirely sure what Dylan’s answer would be. This though, this felt right. They’d been talking for weeks about whether Dylan would move in, both to help with Apollo after the surgery and to save money while he did the master’s degree program, but Apollo didn’t want practicality to be the only reasons Dylan came to live with them this time.
Dylan knelt down to the level of the girls. “Yes,” he said, voice breaking. “Yes, I will.”
Then he rose, leaning to kiss Apollo quickly, then putting his lips near Apollo’s ear, “You know I’ll move in regardless, right? I don’t need this.”
“Yeah, well maybe I do,” Apollo whispered back. “Maybe I need you to know that I love you and that I want you in my life—in our lives—permanently. So say yes and mean it.”
“Is that an order?” Dylan laughed against his mouth.
“Absolutely.” Apollo kissed him soundly as everyone clapped for them. The big public proposal thing wasn’t necessarily his style, but he’d known Dylan would love this, would love having their closest people to celebrate with, even if Apollo would rather have done this closer to a bed. And forget steak, he was going to spend the next three hours counting down to when he could feast on Dylan.
“Then yes, yes, I’ll marry you,” Dylan said louder this time so everyone could hear. When the next round of cheers and congratulations died down, Dylan opened the wooden box. “It’s...a picture?”
“It’s a promise,” Apollo corrected him. “We’re going to go pick out something together. I found this gay-friendly studio out in Liberty Station that fuses different recycled golds together for a custom look, but I want you to help choose what we get.”
“You’re getting one too?” Dylan’s voice was hesitant.
“Yes.” Apollo had thought long and hard about this. Getting a new ring—marrying Dylan—was a huge step, one he’d wrestled with more than a little, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of rightness about this.
“I love you,” Dylan whispered, pulling him in for one more kiss. He wanted to be Dylan’s in all the ways that counted, wanted to publicly commit to him in front of the girls and their families because he deserved that. They both did. Just like the rings he envisioned, they deserved this shiny future with its own unique patina and etchings. He might have a history, one he dearly loved and wouldn’t change, but he also had a present, and now a future, and he met Dylan’s lips joyously, without reservations.
*
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Read on for a sneak preview of ON POINT, the next book in Annabeth Albert’s OUT OF UNIFORM series.
Coming soon from Carina Press and Annabeth Albert
ON POINT
When two SEALS are stranded in the jungle, long-standing friendship and simmering attraction are both put to the test.
Ben was out again. Which wasn’t a surprise, really, and Maddox refused to dwell on it as he rinsed out the bowl. He had a shiny new professional-grade stand mixer and an oven full of muffins. He didn’t need to be worried about his roommate and friend and what he might or might not be getting up to. Chances were high that Ben wouldn’t show up until morning, looking like something their old barn cat back home would have left in Maddox’s shoe. He’d be ravenous to boot and Maddox would have muffins and maybe things wouldn’t be so weird anymore.
He couldn’t blame Ben for needing to blow off steam. After all, their SEAL team was due to ship out any day, and two of their best friends had just gotten engaged, and those were both the sort of things to have Ben on edge and restless and moody as heck, although he’d never cop to it.
Maddox baked and cleaned out the fridge so they wouldn’t come back from their deployment to a science experiment’s worth of yuck. Ben went bar hopping. They each had their ways of coping—
Snick. The sound of a key in the lock made him lose his grip on the bowl, sending it clattering against the stainless-steel sink. Okay. Not out all night. This would be okay too. His stomach went as acidic as lemon zest, but he was okay. No need for the sound of Ben’s husky laugh or an answering low murmur to make his hands clench around the sponge. No need at all.
He kept his back to the living area. The way the U-shaped kitchen was set up, it opened to the dining area, not the foyer and living room, so he wasn’t surprised to hear Ben whispering, “Shh. My roommate’s probably asleep, but we can chill in here.”
“Is he a SEAL like you?” The other guy had the loose drawl and vowel shifts Maddox associated with native southern Californians like Ben, but sounded younger. No surprise there.
“Yup. Let me grab us a couple of beers.” Ben would undoubtedly argue that he didn’t have an accent, but Maddox had studied enough languages to have an ear for little details. Or maybe you’re just hyperobservant of how Ben says cool and caught. You need a new hobby. And a place to hide.
Because of freaking course Ben would pick up someone tonight who needed more seduction than “this is the way to the bedroom.” And it wasn’t like Ben was being rude—in the two years he’d been living here, he’d brought back guys plenty, but he’d asked the first few times if it was okay or if they needed some sort of rules. And back then, Maddox hadn’t needed a rule. Hadn’t wanted rules. They’d been friends well over a decade now, ever since BUD/S training. He’d known exactly what he was getting in Ben, or so he’d thought.
But this was the first time since...
No. Not thinking about that.