Everybody and anything familiar belongs to Janet. The mistakes are mine alone.
"That ring stays on your finger, Stephanie," my man in black told me.
"I know."
"Then why have you just been staring down at it for the last two minutes?"
Of course he entered the apartment like smoke again and walked into the kitchen without me hearing a friggin' thing until he spoke. Not only doesn't he make noise, he seems to be able to turn off my neck tingle whenever it suits him. Despite the small jump I did when I realized someone was standing behind me, my hips stayed plastered to the breakfast bar in our little kitchen. My elbows were on the counter, and my eyes had been glued to the clear-conscience everything diamond on my left ring finger. I'd taken it off for a grand total of five minutes earlier today while Ella showed me how to knead sweet dough for homemade cinnamon rolls, and I actually felt naked without it.
I didn't think that would happen. I'd convinced myself that getting married isn't that big a deal. Once my brain, my heart, and my reproductive chute, decided Ranger is the only guy they want inside them, that was it for me. I wasn't concerned about the details of our future once I let us have one. The ring is pretty, though. It has a way larger than I need cushion-cut diamond at the center of it. The patterned white gold band is thin, yet I'm not worried about it being damaged if I have to damage some asshole's nose with a left hook that Cal and Hector have been helping me to perfect.
One diamond should be enough for any woman, but knowing Ranger the way I do had me studying the thing thoroughly after he slipped it on me. I hadn't missed the tiny, double-stacked, overkill diamonds at each corner of the center stone. Ranger had said something to his mother about an 'art deco' design when she'd asked about it, but I'd zoned out seeing it on my finger after hearing the 'cushion-cut' part. The ring is elegant but still a little edgy. Why he picked that particular combo for me ... I don't know, but the week I've spent wearing it had me loving it almost as much as I love the guy who bought it.
He didn't get out of the surprise engagement unscathed, though. If my ring was supposed to warn off other men, then it's only fair that he wear a 'no poaching' symbol to ward off skanks like Joyce. My Batman had given up diamond studs a while ago, and I don't see him putting them on his finger in their place, so the band I got and gave him the day after he proposed at his grandparents' house ... is a plain titanium not-too-big one with the word 'TAKEN' printed boldly across it.
When I found what I was looking for at a jewelry store in Hamilton Township, I'd had serious doubts he'd humor me long enough to even put it on, never mind wear it everyday, but the way he let me slide it on his finger, and how he kissed me and promptly took me to bed right after, had me believing that he really enjoyed the fact that I wanted to publicly state that I've taken him and I never plan on giving him up.
I told him something similar to what he just said to me when he came into the kitchen. He's not allowed to take my 'Taken' ring off until I put an official husband one on him instead.
"You're staring again, Babe," he pointed out.
"What can I say ... you have good taste in jewelry, which I should question but I won't."
He gave me a playful swat on the behind. I'd moved slightly so I could look at him and my ass was stuck out in the line of fire. He picked up my cell that was lying by my elbow and checked to see what the last call I'd answered was. He wasn't surprised to find my parents' number clocking in five minutes before he scared the crap out of me by coming in without making a peep.
"What did the Monster of the Bride want this time?" He asked.
Our actual engagement had been great, but what followed after when the Burg learned about it has been a nightmare. Morelli's still bitching to anyone he can about it, my mom only got pushier, and going to the bonds office has become almost impossible, which now has me seriously thinking of making Rangeman a 'family' business.
"You won't believe the reason my mom called this time," I told him.
"Try me."
"Since she knows there's absolutely no way I'm changing my mind about the groom, she's clearly trying to make my life miserable over every other decision. This call was her reminding me that I'll have to pick a color for our invitations. She gave me two of her already okay'd options ... cream or ivory. I laughed at her because I seriously thought she was screwing with me. She wasn't. And she didn't appreciate me pointing out that they're the same fucking color! As usual, I hung up right after."
He rested his perfect, muscled ass next to where I'm still leaning. He didn't tell me to relax, that this isn't a big deal, or that I'm overreacting to something minor here. One of his concerns was how much pressure my family, my mom in particular, would put on me if they knew a wedding was going to happen. I'm not worried. Our wedding will be great because he and I will be facing it together. No one else's opinion matters.
I'd told him that after the news broke ... he really should've looked into an undercover ring instead of a spotlight if he didn't want the spotlight put on us getting married. Judging by the way his dark eyes pinned me to the bar, I'd have to say he still has some concerns about my stress level. I swear, the police department should look into hiring him on just to scare assholes into an airtight confession.
"She's not ruining this for you, too," he said after a few beats. "Are you going to shut her down for good? Or do I get to?"
"She isn't getting to me, I promise. No one else factors into our wedding. We're doing this our way. Maybe I should be having some sort of bridal meltdown, having my family and 'friends' constantly asking me what I'm thinking, planning, and doing, but none of it has penetrated. I want to be with you and that's all I'm allowing myself to care about. Whether we get married tonight or ten years from now, is fine with me because I know we'll still be together."
He reached out, curled an arm around my body, and sort of rolled me into his. "Things are turning out a little differently than I'd expected them to when I asked you to marry me."
I lifted an eyebrow at him. "You didn't expect my family and Connie and Lula to be huge pains in the asses?" I asked.
"No, that was a given. I wanted you as my wife when I asked you to be at the party my grandparents' threw for their fifty-sixth wedding anniversary ..."
The image of his family's shocked, then ecstatic, faces is something I'll remember for the rest of my life ... and long after it, since I'm hoping my afterlife includes them.
"Lester told me the other day that he threatens to turn a hose on you every time I walk into the control room, so you couldn't have changed your mind about that," I said, smiling up at him.
"If he ever pulled anything on me, he'd be swallowing it right after, which is why he only says shit like that to you. And I haven't changed my mind about anything concerning you."
"But ...?"
"I don't like how even being here, and with me, the Burg is still trying to control you."
"A blushing bride I am not ... at least when I'm talking to my mom. For those few minutes, I lean more towards being a sweating, hyperventilating, ulcerative mess, until I just hang up. Then I'm back to normal and thankful yet again that I'm not like her."
"The thought of marrying me causes ulcers?"
"Nope, not at all. Promising to be your wife was - and still is - the easy part. That's why I said yes in the first place. I didn't care about much regarding Dickie so I let everyone make the decisions for me. I didn't realize until now just how much crap there is to wade through just to say two little words."
"I do?"
"Yeah. Those I have no problem with. I've even been saying them in my sleep, but I can't get anyone to shut up and listen long enough to see that I'd much rather stop at a store and pick up a day-old sheet cake to eat in the car on our way to the airport to an undisclosed elopement site, than spend a week taste-testing frosting and cake combinations at twenty different bakeries."
His lips formed a small smile. "You love cake, and enjoy frosting even more. The thought of trying them all out shouldn't bother you in the least," he teased.
"I know! That's what it took to convince me that I need to either let the Burg or my sanity go. The day I complain about having to eat frosting, is the day either the world explodes ... or I do."
"Your world isn't allowed to explode unless I'm inside you causing the eruption. What do you say we just go-ahead and elope?"
"That was part of what I was thinking when you came in. I don't want to turn into a woman who cringes at - and tries to avoid - every phone call, conversation, or email, having to do with wedding dresses, dinner menus, or 'appropriate' bands. I want to be engaged to you and also married to you, I don't care about the length of time in between them or exactly how we go from a hot couple to a hot married one. But what about your parents? And it seems rude to leave out your grandparents since we sorta usurped their night with you popping the question as they were popping the cork on the champagne for their anniversary toast."
"Do you want them all there?"
I pictured a utilitarian courthouse room with no one we know there as we promise to love and honor each other forever. Suddenly my stomach felt like someone had scraped it raw and is now grinding salt into it.
"Your family I definitely want with us. I was all set to say let's just do this tomorrow, but I want a few people we care about there with us to celebrate something we all wondered would actually happen. Plus, Mary Lou will kill me if we do this without her."
"Alright. You know that my parents have thrown a New Year's Eve party every year since I was a child," he told me. "My mother will automatically invite Mary Lou and Lenny if she thinks their plans fell through, and since your parents don't want to have anything to do with me and mine, we can plan on an impromptu and intimate ceremony at midnight. We'll make surprising my family a regular event."
"I'm sorry my parents can't, or just refuse, to see what I do when it comes to you and the people you and I love."
"What your parents do or don't feel about me isn't something I waste time thinking about. You're the only Plum I'm interested in impressing."
"You don't have to waste time on that one, either, because you're impressive in every way and are my life in every sense of the word. You saved it tons of times, improve it every day, and have made me excited to live it. All miracles in my mind. If I haven't said it enough ... thank you for everything you've done for me and Rex."
"You being alive is the only thanks I'll ever need, Babe," he said, once again downplaying the role he's played in helping me become the woman I am today.
"Will your grandparents still be up when the clock strikes twelve?" I asked, thinking of my parents' decades-old nine-thirty bedtime.
"I'll advise them to take a nap before heading to my parents' house."
"Count me in then. I'm betting few things top ringing in the new year as a Manoso."
"There are many things I can do without, the holidays are one of them, so this will give me one to look forward to. I'm also looking forward to having a late breakfast with my wife on January first, watching her take her first sip of coffee, then with a fingertip wiping off the inevitable drop that remains on the mug ... absently licking it off her skin. It's sexy and oddly hypnotic."
"I don't do that."
"Yes you do. And you do it with everything except a to-go cup. That's only one of your many adorable quirks that makes each day one I enjoy."
I smiled up at him. "Looks like watching me do weird stuff will be a 'until death do us part' commitment really soon."
He gave me a hundred-watt grin. And when he followed it up with a mind-melting kiss, it almost wiped out my last clear thought, which was ... what a great year it's about to be.