I think we're cIose enough (I wanna lock in your love)
"You're all sweaty," Jemma wrinkles her nose even as she lets him pull her into a quick kiss as she passes off a fresh bottle of water and Baxter's leash so Grant can take him on the last mile of his run.
"Mmm," Grant hums and lets Bax tangle the leash around their legs just for the excuse to tug her in a little tighter. "I seem to recall different circumstances where you don't complain all that much."
She blushes, as he expected, even as she swats at him playfully. Baxter barks, wanting his own attention, and Grant reaches easily out of rote to find the sweet spot behind Bax's right ear even as he unwraps the leash from their legs with his other hand.
"I better get going, before he gets impatient for his R-U-N," Grant says.
"You have enough water? You won't overdo it?" Jemma frets. He smiles fondly at her.
"I have enough water," he confirms. "And you checked the research yourself, he's okay to do the mile now that he's six months old."
"I meant you, you silly git," Jemma says. "It's hot and you've already been out over an hour."
"Baby, I've literally run this distance in the desert. This is nothing."
"Well, still," she says, learning in for another quick peck. "I worry."
"You don't need to," Grant promises.
"I'll start dinner," Jemma says. "So it will be ready to eat shortly after you get home and shower."
"Or," Grant says, "we could order in and shower together."
"Grant, love," she laughs. "You know if we ordered take away every time you wanted to get into my knickers, we'd be broke."
"Fair," Grant says. "But I'm not talking about every time, I'm talking about this time."
"I've got all the ingredients for lasagne ready and I've done the sauce from scratch, but since it will take a while to cook once it's assembled, play your cards right…"
"You know I am an excellent card player, baby." Baxter barks impatiently and Grant just chuckles. "Alright, that's my cue, then. See you in twenty or so?"
She nods and waves as he and Baxter start their run, an easy pace for the happily loping dog.
In the promised time, he makes his way up the stairs to their home, since Baxter still has enough energy that he's up for the seven flights of stairs. Grant's greeted with the excellent view of Jemma's behind as he comes in the door and let's Bax of the lead, since he's apparently time his arrival perfectly to coincide with her bending to put the casserole dish in the oven. Bax lops to lap water from his dish and Grant makes his way over to give her ass a playful swat as she straightens, delighting in the surprised squeak she makes.
He lets his hand slide up across her back to loosely clasp her hand before he lets it go to grab a Gatorade out of the fridge, pops the cap and takes a swig before he sets it down and refills Bax's water dish while Jemma coos over their good boy.
"So," Grant grins, tilting his head at the oven as he takes another swig of his drink. "Dinner's in the oven for another…" he glances at the timer "forty-seven minutes before you need to check on it."
"Whatever shall we do with that time?" Jemma gives him that teasing tilt of her lips. "Scrabble, perhaps? A nice rousing game of – Grant!"
She doesn't get to finish what she was going to say, as he moves with the grace that has made him one of Shield's most in-demand specialists to catch her by the waist and throw her over his shoulder. Baxter hops around the two of them, wuffing happily as Jemma dissolves into helpless giggles as he makes his way down the hall.
"Sorry, Bax," Grant says as he closes the bathroom door behind him. "This game's just for two."
If there's a bit of whining outside the door before Baxter gives up to go lay down, Jemma's too distracted to fuss.
/
Later, Jemma hums as she putters around the kitchen, making herself a pot of tea. Dinner has been consumed and the leftovers stored in the fridge and, though he'd tried to insist that he could get the dishes since she made dinner, she'd bounced around drying and putting them away while he washed, and they've kicking back on the couch for the last hour or so, watching reruns of Battlestar Gallactica.
Baxter is curled against his side, his head in Grant's lap as he snoozes, waking up only to nudge Grant's hand if he pauses to long in petting the big suck. His other side is pleasantly warm from Jemma having been pressed against him, her small hand tucked into his free one when not playing idly with his fingers. There's something so perfect about the familiarity of it all, the ordinariness that feels anything but routine. This isn't how he'd thought he'd do it, wearing comfortable sweatpants in their living room with no flowers or big gestures, but maybe there's a reason he's scrapped every last idea he's come up with for proposing in the three months since the diamond solitaire in the tension setting has been burning hole in his proverbial pocket.
She's amazing and deserves the world, and he doesn't want to wait another minute before offering to spend his life trying to give it to her.
He uses the guise of using the washroom to sneak into the bedroom to grab the little velvet box from where he'd tucked it in a pair of socks at the back of his dresser drawer. Baxter has padded after him and stands wagging his tail, which gives Grant an idea.
He and Baxter are settled back on the couch within minutes, Jemma still humming dreamily as she waits for the kettle to boil. He settles back on the couch with Baxter, and, as impatient as he feels, waits until he knows she has started the tea steeping in the pot before he calls out to her.
"Hey, baby? Looks like something got caught in the ring for Bax's tags and I can't get at it. I think it needs a little more nail than I'm sporting at the moment."
"Oh, love," she teases in that fondly exasperated way as she makes her way over to the couch and leans down to snag the keyring that attaches the tags to the pit bull terrier's collar. "What would do without me?"
He knows the moment she sees the white gold jewelry he's affixed onto the split ring, because she freezes and her beautiful mouth drops into an "oh" of surprise. He feels, suddenly, uncommonly nervous.
"I was hoping," he swallows, his voice unintentionally husky, "that I won't have to."
"I didn't expect you to… You don't believe in ..." She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath to clear the fluster. "Grant, I know how you feel about marriage, after your parents and your brother, and I promise, you don't have to propose to keep me."
"That's the thing, though," he says, taking her hands in his, bringing them to his lips to kiss her knuckles. "I don't have to, but with you, I want to. That is, if you want to. So, will you, Jemma? Will you marry me?"
Her lower lip trembles and she covers her face, and there's a brief second of panic that she doesn't want this, after all, but then her hands are dropping and she's in his arms, laughing and crying while peppering his face with kisses in between breathlessly giving her assent. Then he's kissing her properly, deeply.
She's going to be his wife.
When they are forced to pull apart by the biological imperative to breathe, cursed need for oxygen, he presses his forehead to hers, his mouth a whisper away from hers.
"I think," she says, her own voice turned husky as well with happy tears, "that my fingernails are going to do no good here. I can't stop trembling."
"Well, good thing that was a bit of a ruse and I can manage, after all," Grant smiles, reaching over to the bemused pup to twist the ring back off. She is quivering as he slides the ring onto the third finger of her left hand. It fits just right and gleams in the waning light of the evening, but he's pretty sure he could have proposed with a rubber band with equal success by the way she doesn't even pause to admire it before she's cupping his face in her hands and kissing him again.
Poor Baxter ends ups up unceremoniously if accidentally pushed off the couch when she moves to straddle Grant's lap in her enthusiasm, but he's a good sport and a good dog, and rather used to the amorous antics of his owners by now.