I Vid. I Write. I Fangirl.

Sweat dripping down the back of his neck and the creases in his forehead, Haymitch wiped away what he could with his equally sweaty arm, defeating the purpose.

He couldn’t really help it though. It was a hot day in the middle of August, and this time of year meant lots of picking vegetables for shipping to stores and farmers’ markets, not to mention chopping up some of their finest corn for feed for their other animals. And Haymitch had spent almost a full day in the fields gathering the best of what the Abernathy farm had to offer.

Even the strongest Abernathy though needed to take a break once in a while, and what he was really craving right now was water, shade, and his wife.

They lived on several acres of land, tending to animals and crops, hiring a few workers and looping in their four children for all the chores a farm required throughout the day.

But Haymitch couldn’t do any of it without his beautiful wife, Lenore Dove. She cooked, she cleaned, she sewed, she tended to their children when he was out working, and when they had the time and the energy, she made sweet, sweet love to him.

He opened the back door to their home and reached for a towel hanging on a hook by the door to wipe down his face and neck and arms. As much as he wanted to surprise her, he didn’t particularly want her to be repulsed by his presence.

Especially when she had called him sexy exactly four days ago, and had yet to do it since.

That night he’d bounded on top of their bed in one lunge, in nothing but his underwear and a cowboy hat and twerked his hips in her direction until she laughed at him, covering her mouth to stifle the sound so their children wouldn’t come running in, wondering what all the fuss was about. Her eyes sparkled though, and they were glued to his pretty blues.

“What do you think?” he’d asked. “Am I a sexy cowboy?”

She’d curled her finger towards herself, and he dropped to his knees and crawled over to her.

“How about a sexy farmer,” she suggested, draping her arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss.

“Sexy farmer.” He pretended to ponder the endearment. “I’ll take that.”

Then he peppered her face with kisses while his hands tickled her stomach, making her squirm wildly beneath him.

“You’re wild tonight,” she told him when he finally ceased the tickle fest.

“Still sexy though, right?”

“If I had known calling you that would bring this side out of you, I’d…” she trailed off when he pouted. “Well, I’d probably do it anyway.”

He grinned, brushed his nose against hers, and kissed her softly again.

“Still sexy,” she assured him.

Remembering the exchange now, Haymitch was eager to get a little flirtation from his wife again today. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if it didn’t happen, but surely they could fit a little something in the midst of their long day farming.

Lenore Dove looked over her shoulder as she heard him kicking his dirty boots off in the entryway.

“Ah! Outside! Trying to keep the entryway clean,” she harped.

“Can I not kiss my wife first?”

“Hay,” she scolded, but there was a smile tugging at her lips already the closer he got. “Hay, what did I-”

One dramatic step at a time, and then he was wrapping his dried arms around her and kissing the side of her face.

“What did I say?” she chided.

“Kids are in the field,” he whispered into her ear, then moved around to her other ear and whispered there, “They’ll probably be occupied for a while.”

“Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m doing dishes.”

“And there will be more dishes for you to do later.”

She scoffed.

“Or for me to do,” he said, easily. “I don’t mind.”

“You are just so…so…”

And he could see it in her eyes. She wanted to say it. She wanted to say it badly.

But for whatever reason, she resisted.

“So in need of a shower!” she said instead, unwrapping his arms from her waist.

“Ouch.” He pouted.

“Don’t give me that pout. Don’t. No…no…Haymitch Abernathy!”

But it was no use. His fingers were intertwined with hers, and he was pulling her down the way he’d come.

Lenore Dove skipped onto the clean parts of the floor and went with him around the corner to the stairs and the bathroom adjoined to their bedroom there.

She unhooked his dirty overalls and pushed them to the floor once they’d closed the door behind them and locked it. He lifted his shirt off and easily discarded his underwear and socks in a designated corner of the bathroom.

Lenore Dove’s multi-patterned jumper was just as easily done away with, as were her undergarments, and finally the wrap on her head, keeping her poofy curls out of her eyes.

Haymitch cupped her face and leaned down for a kiss.

“Beautiful.”

“You’re just aching for me to say it, aren’t ya?” she asked, turning on the water in the shower.

“What?” He blinked innocently.

She laughed.

“Well, if you won’t say it, then neither will I.”

She pulled back the shower curtain and was a second away from stepping over the bathtub to climb inside before her husband picked her up and set her inside.

“Ah, Hay!”

She clutched at his shoulders, and he nearly stumbled after her, bracing his hand on the wall of the shower just in time.

Lenore Dove reached behind her blindly just as the water temperature hit a perfect warmth, and the water came pouring out of the showerhead, soaking them both.

Haymitch kissed her again and again, the dirt from his body rinsing off his skin as Lenore Dove blindly reached for the bar of soap and scrubbed his body clean.

“I love when you touch me like this,” he said, his voice low and dark.

“You have a dirty mind, Abernathy.”

He tipped her chin up, so she had to look into his eyes.

“You’re an Abernathy too, remember?”

“How could I forget? I’m the sexy one.”

His jaw dropped.

“You did not just do that.”

She turned around to start washing herself, giving him an excellent, distracting view of her behind, but he looked straight up when she looked at him over her shoulder.

“I did, and I’ll do it again.”

He took two steps so his body was flush against hers, his arms wrapping around her waist like they’d been in the kitchen downstairs.

“What do I get then? Charming? Endearing? Fetching, perhaps?”

“How about a hard worker?” she quipped. “A good provider?”

“Good?” he asked, skeptical.

“Great,” she promoted him.

He laughed and kissed her shoulder, letting his hands wander to cup the underside of her breasts.

“Hay,” she chided again, moving his hands down, but she was smiling.

“I can go south too,” he murmured, kissing his way from her shoulder to her neck, moving her wet curls to the other side.

“Ha! I bet you can, you…” She turned in his arms and waved her finger in his face for a few moments before caving. “You sexy bastard.”

“Aha! Yes! I win!”

She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t fight the smile stretching across her face.

“I love you,” he said softly, running his hands all over her back and patting her behind.

She shook her head, then laughed.

“I love you, too.”

They kissed then beneath the water, and with a plop, the bar of soap landed on the bathtub floor, sliding down until it rested by the drain just behind them.

Neither noticed.

It was only the sound of one of their children calling out Ma! that made them break apart.

Lenore Dove sighed, pressing her forehead to Haymitch’s.

“Damn kids,” Haymitch muttered, and Lenore Dove laughed and patted his chest.

“You finish washing up. I’ll go see what’s up.”

“Ma!” another child sang out, and then another, and then the last one.

Haymitch groaned, but Lenore Dove flashed him a sultry grin as she wrapped a towel around her body and stepped out of the bathroom to quickly dress for their children.

“What is it, my darlings?” Haymitch heard her ask when she was halfway down the stairs and they all started talking at once.

Sexy times would once again have to wait.

That was alright, he assured himself. He’d gotten to touch his wife’s naked body and heard that delicious endearment slip past her lips again.

I’m ovulating.

As a full-grown woman, I should be used to this by now.

The hunger, the desire rising up in my lower belly, the racing of my heart at the slightest mention of sex, the clawing need I feel whenever the bar of soap gets relatively near my pussy when I’m scrubbing in the shower.

Except now all of those little details are enhanced whenever Alex does anything.

When he stretches after coming back from a run, when he pulls his sleeves up to his elbows when he’s about to start cooking, when he foams up his face and carefully shaves across his jaw line, even when he bends down to pick something he dropped off the floor.

That ass. God.

It’s only a few more days of it this month, so I tell myself I can control it. Day 1 I was crawling all over Alex and practically humping him in his sleep. It’s something he’s used to, and something he enjoys, but I’m wondering if I’m being a little too enthusiastic, and if the man is just getting tired.

So, I try to rein it in. I do.

Right now, we’re sitting in the living room. I’m supposed to be typing up an article for my blog on my latest adventure in the city, and Alex has a book in his hands that he’s trying to read.

But my thighs are pressed together, and if I squeeze them a little tighter, I can feel my pussy actually throb with need.

As for Alex, he keeps jerking his head every couple minutes, like something in his shoulder and neck muscles must be bothering him, but he doesn’t want to bring attention to it.

I lick my lips as I watch him, and luckily, he doesn’t seem to notice that I am.

After about five more minutes of this though, I can’t stand it anymore, and I shut my laptop loudly so he can hear it, and he looks up.

“Something wrong?”

“I think I should give you a massage.”

He frowns.

“You noticed?”

“Impossible not to.” I set my laptop on the little table next to the lamp and get up. “Come on, I’ll get a couple chairs from the kitchen, and you can flip one of them around so I can get access to your back.”

“It’s not my back, Poppy. It’s my neck and shoulder mainly, maybe that space in between too.”

“Then I’ll do that too.”

“Since when are you a masseuse?” he asks, suspiciously, and I flip my hair over my shoulder flirtatiously.

“Oh, how you underestimate my many talents, Mr. Nilsen,” I say, and he snickers as I head into the kitchen to get the chairs.

It’s a bit of a struggle doing it by myself, but somehow, I manage to get the chairs through the doorway and into the living room. That’s when I see he’s taken off his shirt, and I can see it all.

His abs. His biceps. His bareback.

I visibly shiver just looking at him.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say in a shrill voice neither of us has ever heard before.

He gives me a knowing look but doesn’t comment on how clearly aroused I am just seeing him shirtless. I wonder if my nipples are pressing through my shirt because they feel harder and heavier than usual for some reason. Alex doesn’t take his eyes off mine though, so I think maybe I’m imagining things.

I situate the chairs, and he helps. When our hands brush while arranging them, I feel like I’m going to burst, but I only clear my throat instead.

“You good?” he asks, with a smug smile I only slightly catch a glimpse of.

“Yep. Great. Just, uh, I’m going to get a couple other things.”

“What else do you need?” he asks, confused.

“You’ll see,” I say in a sing-song voice as I prance out of the room.

It takes me less than five minutes to find the massage oil I purchased on our last vacation the previous summer. Then I dip into the kitchen, pull out a big bowl and dump all of our ice cubes in it.

“What’s this?” he asks, when he sees me coming in with the bowl and oil.

“Just a few things to enhance the experience.”

“For you or for me?” he teases.

“Ha. Ha. Very funny. Sit down.”

He laughs.

“Yes, your majesty.”

He sits up straight at first, so I can reach his neck and shoulders, and I set the bowl and oil on the floor to begin. He hisses when I touch his neck, and I tell him to relax, to try and not be so…tense.

“Isn’t that what the massage is for?” he asks, cryptically, and I nod.

“Point taken.”

I pick up the oil and squirt some onto my hands before placing them back on his shoulders, doing nothing but rubbing from there to his neck and a little onto his upper back.

“How does that feel?”

“Good,” he says. “Nice.”

“What is it?” he asks after a beat.

“Massaging oil,” I say innocently enough, pressing my thumbs into his skin to try and work a not. He hisses again, and I wonder if I should apply more oil or maybe use an ice cube.

“Relax,” I order again, but this time softer, more smoothly.

I wipe my hands off down the length of his back and shove them into his hair, dragging my nails lightly across his scalp.

“Ohh…fuck, Poppy.”

That makes my clit throb, but I manage to ask if it feels good without a strangled breath.

“Yeah, really good,” he says, and I kiss the middle of his back.

“Good,” I say. “Want to try the ice cubes?”

“Ice cubes?” he queries, and I nod.

“Yeah. It might help with the pain…and the flinching.”

He winces, a bit embarrassed.

“Yeah, okay.”

I pull my hands from his hair and grab two ice cubes from the bowl. Slowly, I run them down his neck and to his shoulders, pressing down a little incessantly on the sore spots, so the chill doesn’t make it hurt so bad.

He moans, and I rock a bit on my chair, trying to control what that does to me.

“I think he found the magic ticket,” I say.

“Use your hands again,” he requests. “Now that it’s wet and slick. I bet it’ll feel nice.”

I’m wet and slick, I think, but I decide not to tell him that.

“Okay,” I say, and drop the ice cubes back into the bowl, taking a few more in my hands before I start, so that my hands are cold and wet like he apparently likes.

I place my hands on his shoulders and slowly inch my way around the knots, around the spots that cause spikes of pain, and I go as gently as I can along the strong column of his neck.

He’s practically purring like a kitten.

I take a risk and deepen my pressure with my thumbs and fingertips, swiping to the left and then the right, and then giving him a bit of a break by moving down his back in the same way, giving it a scratch here and there that has him arching up.

“Ohhh, Poppy,” he moans, again and again, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up.

He grunts and groans and leans into my touch, and the sounds coming out of him are very similar to when I’m giving him a blow job, and it’s all I can think about all of a sudden. I want him inside of me in one hole or another, but I know that can’t be what he’s thinking about, so I try to keep my unravelling lust to myself.

“Hey, um, I have an idea,” I say, my voice turned kind of gravelly.

“Yeah? What’s that?” he asks, and I can tell I’ve got him eating out of the palm of my hand.

“What if you lay on your stomach, and I sit on your lower back?”

“You’re going to sit on me?” he asks, sounding somewhat alarmed.

I can’t even tell if he’s teasing me or not, because I’m trying so hard just to function.

“I’ll try not to put all my weight on you,” I tell him, in case that was the issue, and he chuckles.

“It’s okay, Poppy. I think I can handle you.”

His voice is deep and gravelly now, and I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am, but I discard the wish as quickly as I think it because it can’t possibly be true, and I’m not going to abandon the massage when he’s so clearly enjoying it.

“Right.” I clear my throat. “Well then.”

I get up, and so does he, and we move the chairs so he can lay face down on our huge ottoman.

“That’s my ass,” he says, when I sit there and not on his lower back when I told him I would.

I can’t help it. The friction of the curve of his ass with my crotch makes me feel a delicious shiver. I try very hard not to move against it and hump him because he’d definitely notice that.

“Right. Sorry.”

I move to his lower back and settle myself.

“Poppy?” he prompts, as I squeeze some more oil in my palm and then dribble more yet down the length of his back.

“Hmm?” I ask, spreading the oil over his back as I massage it.

“Do you want to have sex?” he asks, and I still, but only for a moment.

“What?” I ask, in a remarkably calm voice, which I congratulate myself on in my head. “No, of course not.”

“No?” he asks, dubiously.

“Besides,” I continue. “We’re doing this. Don’t you want to continue doing this?”

“It does feel nice,” he admits, as I move my hands up around his neck and ears.

“Well, see,” I coo. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

“It’s just-” but he drops out when my nails scratch his scalp again. “Unggh.”

I use the distraction of him in pure euphoria to inch my bottom up his back a little, pressing my covered pussy against his skin and pressing my face into the middle of his back to block out the moan it pulls out of me.

“You…do want to,” he says, hearing me somehow.

I sigh.

“I want to give you a blow job.”

“What?!”

I ignore the surprise in his voice, because I feel so utterly defeated by the lust consuming me and the sounds that have been coming out of him.

“Can I give you a blow job?” I practically whine, like the feel of his length in my mouth inching towards my throat alone would make me cum.

I feel him start to get up, and peel myself away from him, wondering if I’ve missed my chance.

He turns around and looks at me, and I can see the desire – finally – in his eyes.

“If that’s what you want, Poppy.”

I swallow and nod.

“It is.”

“You’re sure?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Alright.”

He shoves his shorts down and kicks them to the side, then sits back down on the ottoman. I kneel on the floor and spread my hands over his thighs, oil still faintly pressed to my skin, and so it spreads to his as well.

Without using my hands, I take his cock in my mouth and moan as I take more of him inside me, inch by inch, swirling my tongue, and shivering when he grabs a fistful of my hair and holds it out of my eyes.

He’s not guiding me. He knows I know what I’m doing, and I know that he’s enjoying it too, the way his lips part and moans slip past, the way his hips lift up and down against my face as I get closer to his groin.

Once I get there, I hold and suck and lap up the veins popping all around his length. Then, I pull off and start again, this time in a steadier rhythm, something delicious that has him catching his breath as I bob up and down.

Finally, I release one thigh to start to jerk him off as I flick my tongue in the slit on his tip, and he’s moaning and bucking more than I can remember seeing him do before.

I slip my thumb into his slit then and push back his chest so I can suck on his balls, drawing my teeth gently on the underside of them. He’s tight and throbbing, and I can tell he’s close. He can’t even remember that his neck and shoulders were hurting 20 minutes earlier because he’s so near his climax, it’s all that matters.

“P-P-Poppy,” he grunts and rolls his hips, and I jerk him faster.

At last, I release his balls to take his shaft in my mouth again, and my teeth there is the only spark he needs to cum inside me.

I suck him up like a popsicle and let the cum empty into my throat.

Then, I jerk unexpectedly myself, and before I can start to reach down between my legs, Alex has sat up, slid his hand beneath my shorts and panties, and I’m gripping his shoulders for dear life as I ride his fingers into oblivion, his thumb pressing in deep circles along the sides of my clit as he pumps me until I jerk and gasp.

We kiss once between heavy breaths, and again as we come down off the whirlwind ride we created.

“That was…”

“Amazing,” he finishes, then chuckles a little. “You’re amazing, Poppy Wright.”

I smile a little shyly, but my eyes are confident and smug.

“You just let me know when you want to do it again.”

He laughs louder then and kisses my nose.

I’m grumpy.

And on my period, which makes my emotions wilder than usual.

Plus, it’s the anniversary.

Not of when Alex and I first met or our first kiss or when we got together. Nothing as wonderful as all of that. No, it’s the anniversary of the day Alex proposed to Sarah and broke off our friendship.

It bothers me every year, and I always blame it on my period to make things easier. At least that’s what I did last year. This year though, it bothers me more than usual. Because it’s been two years since Alex and I have been together, dating, and I wonder if he’ll ever ask me to marry him. Or if I’m just girlfriend material but not wife material.

He told me once that he never wanted to live without me for the rest of his life. Well, did he expect us to just date until we’re old and gray? Or was he planning on starting to call me his partner instead of his girlfriend the older we got and the longer we were together?

We talked about marriage exactly one time six months ago.

I told him I thought I was ready, and he seemed pretty excited about that answer. So then, why the radio silence for all these months including now?

Each week dragged on, each day dragged on with waiting, with hoping. I’d even started to dig around the apartment in the hopes of stumbling across a little velvet box with a sparkling ring inside.

I found one once, and he caught me. We got into a fight, because it was Sarah’s ring, and I accused him of re-using it to propose to me one day.

He swore he wouldn’t, that he just hadn’t gotten rid of it yet. And I asked, given how many years had passed, if that meant he was still hung up on his ex.

He’d been pissed and hurt, and I couldn’t take it back. Because I wanted an answer that was truthful, even if it meant letting him simmer in his hurt for a while.

“No, of course not,” he’d scowled, but it took me a few days before I believed him and apologized.

So, maybe it’s my fault he hasn’t proposed yet.

But I still feel an ache in my chest, because I just feel so small. I’m able to bury it and act like everything’s fine, but it’s harder when I have cramps and bloating, even if I’m only spotting today.

I get up from my seat at the little writing desk in the kitchen to get a glass of water. I sigh dramatically when it takes too long for the water to fill the glass, and then curse when I accidentally trip over myself and the glass drops and shatters on the floor.

“Fuck!”

I step on the glass and cut my toe and whimper until I’m gripping the island table like a lifeline.

Why do I have to be such a fucking idiot sometimes?

“Everything okay in there?” Alex asks from his chair in the living room where he’s likely reading a book and probably irritated he had to pause it for his clumsy girlfriend, of all people.

I don’t answer. I can’t. I hobble over the glass as best as I can, but I end up cutting my heel instead of avoiding the shattered glass constantly, and my eyes fill with tears from the pain.

“Poppy?”

I hear him start to get up, hear him set down his book. He doesn’t sigh, doesn’t sound aggravated to see what I’ve gotten myself into, but I’ve convinced myself that he is, so the truth doesn’t really matter.

I take another step though, this time on a piece of glass so tiny I didn’t see it until it was too late. That one wrong step makes me slip until I’m a convoluted, twisted mess sitting on the floor, bleeding from both my feet and more tears streaming down my face than I care to admit.

And then, there’s…Alex.

“Oh, Poppy.”

There’s tenderness in his voice, not aggravation, but I can’t hear it.

“I’m fine,” I say, determined to not make this a big deal, but Alex looks at the trail of glass and blood behind me to the kitchen sink and does sigh then.

“Yes, I can see that,” he muses, and I tense up.

Still, he walks towards me, carefully avoiding any other pieces of glass with just his socks on. He bends down and slips his arms underneath my knees and behind my back.

“Put your arms around me,” he says, and I do, so I don’t make things harder for him.

He angles me sideways down the hallway until we reach the bathroom, and he sets me down on the closed toilet.

“How’d this happen?” he asks after taking a wet washcloth to both my feet, then digging out some band-aids and antiseptic cream for my cuts.

“I just dropped the glass after filling it up at the sink, I guess.”

“Got to be more careful, Poppy,” he gently scolds, but I hear nagging.

I hear when are you ever careful, and I decide that must be one of the reasons he doesn’t want to marry me.

I hiccup a sob, and then I’m full-on crying as all my feelings overwhelm me.

Alex is on the floor, holding my knees together, my cuts no longer bleeding but still not properly bandaged up. Apparently, he thought the crying was more important to address than the cuts, and I can’t decide how I feel about that.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?”

He wipes away my tears, and for some reason that makes me angry.

“D-don’t, no, I just…I’m fine, Alex. I’m fine!”

I try to stand up and immediately wince as my heel cut re-opens up without a band-aid to cover it.

“Poppy, you’re not.”

He grabs me and sets me back down.

“Just…wait.”

He lets go of me to grab the wet washcloth and wipe down my cuts one more time. I don’t want to, but I sit still, so he can get the Neosporin and the band-aids. I watch as he applies both, and I feel a teensy bit better, at least as far as my injuries go.

It’s not late enough for bed, so I let Alex pick me up and set me down on the couch in the living room while he goes and sweeps up the kitchen floor to get rid of the glass.

I lean back on the pillow and think about how my feelings are turning me into a different person, maybe a person that Alex doesn’t like. I think about that a little too hard, so by the time he’s cleaned up the kitchen and come back I’m convinced he’s just with me out of obligation, and because he’s made a life here in New York he doesn’t want to abandon.

I want to ask him if that’s true, but I’m scared of the answer, so I just sit there in silence, tears streaming down my cheeks again, afraid of the whole world and even the one most important to me a room away.

“Okay, all done,” he says, re-entering the living room and coming to me.

I wipe away my tears quickly, so he doesn’t see, and I force myself not to cry anymore, but he must see me because he stops walking for a beat before returning to me.

“Poppy…are you going to tell me what’s really going on?”

I shake my head quickly before I can say I’m fine again. He didn’t buy it the first time anyway.

He sighs.

“Okay, I guess I’m just going to have to guess then.”

I groan and slide deeper into the cushions.

“Ugh, Alex, no…”

“Well, then, tell me, Poppy,” he says, with a chuckle, and I wish I could show him how serious this is for me. That it’s way beyond me just being clumsy in the kitchen and not wanting help getting patched up.

I decide the best way to get him off my case is to tell him the truth, the whole world be damned.

I take a deep breath and unleash the madness swirling inside me.

“Why don’t you want to marry me?” I ask, and I hear him suck in an audible gasp.

My voice is so small when I say it, and I feel the hot tears soak my skin again.

“Is that what you think?” he asks, swiping my tears away as I seal my eyes shut. “That I don’t want to marry you?”

I try to find the part of his voice that sounds outraged or annoyed or offended or hurt, but he seems to only be hurt for my sake. Maybe. Though that seems too good to be true.

“It’s been months since I found the other ring, Alex,” I say. “And four years exactly since you proposed to Sarah, and I had to see how happy you were with someone that wasn’t me.”

He’s quiet, unbearably so, and when I open my eyes, I see that’s he left the room.

That’s it, I think. He’s mad at me, and he won’t want to sleep in the same bed as me tonight, and by morning he’ll be packing his things and moving back to Linfield where he really wants to be. Maybe Sarah’s still available.

Alex’s footsteps return to me though, and I see he’s clutching a small velvet box in one hand that he opens as soon as he’s on the floor on his knees.

“You sure have a way of ruining surprises, Poppy Wright.”

I feel gutted and like he hates me from that remark, but the diamond ring is sparkling so vibrantly in front of me I try to change my mind. It isn’t the same ring as before. It’s different and unique, so uniquely me in fact I can’t believe he got it so right.

“The jewelry store has this really weird rule that you can’t just return a ring and get a refund unless you’re picking out a different piece within 30 days. I hadn’t seen anything I liked for you, so I was hanging onto the other one until I did. Finally, I caved and reached out to an expert custom designer at the store. I had to fork out a couple thousand more to cover the cost, even after I returned the other ring, but it’s worth it, I think. It’s got you written all over it.”

It does, I agree.

“Oh, Alex, I…”

“It’s okay, Poppy. I know you’re on your period, and I know you’ve been thinking about it every day as much as I have. I just didn’t know how to address it without showing you the new ring, and that was supposed to be a surprise until I actually proposed…next Saturday.”

I gasp.

“Next Saturday?”

He nods.

“Yeah, though I might have to change the day now that I just told you.”

“No, next Saturday is fine,” I say.

He laughs.

“Oh, yeah? That works for you?”

He rolls his eyes and smiles.

“Oh, Alex, I’m such a mess, how can y-”

But he cuts me off to close the box and set it aside and kiss me.

“You don’t think I’m a mess too, Poppy?”

He nuzzles me, brushing his nose against mine and peppering kisses all over my face. I think I’m going to cry again, but this time it won’t be because I’m sad but because I’m relieved. All that nasty, negative, hateful self-talk was completely untrue.

“Can I try it on?” I ask, hopefully, and he gives me a suspicious, knowing look. “Just to see if it fits!” I insist.

He pauses, looks a little anxious now, a little uncertain, and dread starts to fill me.

Is he having seconds thoughts?

“Poppy…” he tries, then starts again after clearing his throat. “It’s just…I want the proposal to be perfect. I don’t need any bad luck leading up to it.”

I pout, but I guess I see his point.

“Alright,” I say reluctantly, and he lifts my chin up to meet his gaze.

“Hey. Hey,” he says, softly. Slowly, I look back up at him. “You think after all these years I don’t know your ring size?” he teases, and my happy tears come back. “Oh, Poppy. Of course I want to marry you. Are you crazy? You’re my dream girl.”

I choke back a happy sob and pull him in for kiss after kiss, a delicious rip traveling down my spine when I feel him smile into the kisses. It’s not long before I’m lifting his shirt off and sitting up so that I can rip mine off too. We just make out, since my current feet situation and current cramping don’t really make for great sex conditions.

But it feels good just to kiss him too, feels good to have him wanting me openly, and I realize it’s been a while since we did this when my mind wasn’t somewhere else.

“I love you,” I say. “I love you so much, Alex.”

“I love you, Poppy,” he returns. “And I’ve been dreaming of marrying you for a long time. Nothing you say or do could ever change my mind about wanting that.”

“You promise?”

I pull back and grip his face, needing a clear, honest answer.

“I swear.”

He says it so seriously, his eyes fastened on mine, that I know he means it. I know it’s the truth.

I bubble up some laughter and kiss him again and again, and he kisses me back, eagerly.

God, I love this man so much I can hardly breathe.

And I say as much to the crowded restaurant when he proposes for real the next Saturday. I had to keep the ring off for that week-and-a-half, but after that it stays on my hand forever and ever.

Alex’s smile that night makes it all worth it.