Page 13 of Glorious Ruin
I stared at him blankly as my brain tried to process the information. Silas…my Silas, who was typically terrified of his own shadow…was planning to propose tome.
“He’s going to ask me?”
“Yes! He told me back in June. We were on the porch at your house, and he looked me dead in the eye. Told me he’s waited ten years for this, and he wasn’t about to wait any longer.”
A slow smile tugged at my lips. “He really said that?”
“Yes.” Evan sighed, rubbing his temples like I’d brought on the world's biggest headache. “If you try to do this now, he is going to give me so much shit about the Man-Man conversation again. And I cannot handle that level of humiliation twice.”
I frowned. “Thewhatconversation?”
Evan flinched. “The Man-Man conversation. I…I made an ass of myself, okay? When he told me he was going to propose, I was confused. I asked him if that wasn’t the ‘Man-Man’s’ job.”
“TheMan-Man?”
“You know,” Evan whispered painfully. “Theguy. The one who like…drives the car. Ugh, I tried to use straight-people logic and it did not end well.”
Silence stretched between us as I stared at him, entirely dumbfounded, and yet my chest puffed up, proud. Lena choked on her pastry, coughing violently into her napkin, but it didn’t deter the slow, dark, incredibly satisfying smirk that spread across my face.
“You asked him that?”“I didn’t know! Silas laughed in my face and then told me entirely too much. My entire worldview shattered. I didn’t need any of that information!” I chuckled, the sound dark and rich. “So, let me get this straight. You figured the ‘Man-Man’ should be the one to propose, and since I’m theMan-Man…”
“Don’t,” Evan warned.
“So, if I’m the ‘Man-Man’, then technically I’m acting like it, right? I’ll do it first.”
“You are both insufferable,” Evan groaned.
“Google jewelers,” I told Lena, “Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later, we walked into a small, high-end jewelry shop in Old San Juan.
“I need a ring,” I told the man behind the counter. “Men’s band. Heavy, but not gold. He won’t wear gold.”
The jeweler pulled out a tray from the bottom shelf of the display. “We have platinum, white gold, and we just got in some black tungsten.”
“Tungsten,” I said without hesitation
He grabbed for a heavy-looking, matte-black ring and placed it on the counter. The band was sleek, modern, and practically indestructible. It was perfect.
“I’ll take it.”
“Size?” the jeweler asked.
I froze. My gaze stayed on the ring before flicking back to the jeweler. “Fuck.”
“You don’t know his size?” Lena gasped. “Cal! You know his coffee order, his social security number, and exactly how to press his buttons, but you don’t know his ring size?”
“He doesn’t wear rings! He wears wrist wraps and tape.” My panic rose with every second that passed. This was the last thing I needed right now. “What do I do? I can’tguess. If it doesn’t fit when I put it on him, I will literally walk into the ocean to drown.”
“His entire family lives within a hundred feet of your house. Why don’t you call someone? You can’t tell me the twins don’t have keys.”
I had my phone out instantly to FaceTime Josie. She picked up on the third ring, half asleep and very confused.
“Cal?” she rasped. “It’s… I-don’t-even-know-what-time in the morning. Is Silas dead or something?”
“He’s sleeping. I need you to go over to his house. Right now. I need his ring size. Just find a ring, any ring.”
Josie blinked, then scrambled out of bed. “On it. Let me find my ring sizer. I bought one last summer for my Etsy shop.”
