by Posy Roberts
“Okay, kiddo. Let’s go.”
Toby scoffed with indignation, so I winked at him to let him know I was playing with him. Sorta.
I got out of Dad’s car, which he’d been generous enough to let me borrow. I made a mental note of where we were parked—P2 East, Georgia Peach—and led the way through the parking ramp to the mall.
We walked in near the rotunda, which was a huge, circular open space, only interrupted by an elevator, now flanked by two gigantic lit-up Christmas trees and a stage. A children’s choir was singing. I directed Toby so he could have the most impressive view, which was on the main level, and watched as he scanned everywhere but where he was going. I held his hand so he could keep looking in awe without tripping over his own feet.
“It’s gigantic.”
I nodded, unimpressed. This building had been in existence since before I knew what a mall was and was being constructed before I was even conceived. I’d been all of two when it opened, so to me it was just a larger shopping mall than Southdale or Ridgedale or any of the other dales in the metro. But it was obvious to everyone around us that Toby was impressed. I caught a few people smirking at him. Probably jaded locals like me.
“Wanna split up for a few?” he asked.
“What? We just got here.”
“Okay…. Uh…. American Girl?”
“Seriously? You really want to do American Girl?”
Toby nodded. “Yes. Would you rather not?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not really my thing, but I’ll go with you.”
I smiled and felt butterflies soar through my belly when he tugged his pocket watch from his front pocket, chain glinting in the bright lights, and revealed the worn face to check the time. He tucked it away like checking the time on a 227-year-old watch was done every day. “Or do you want to go to the LEGO Store, and I’ll come meet you there? I know you’ll want to spend a lot more time there than I will. I’m sure you’ll get into some building contest with a seven-year-old.”
I knocked my shoulder into his and laughed, but I knew he was probably right, even if I didn’t want to let him out of my sight quite yet. “Okay.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and checked the time to make sure we were synced up, analog to digital. “Meet me there in thirty?”
“Sure. I’ll text if I get lost in the historical miniature replicas.”
“Okay, Mr. Historian.” I pulled him down for a kiss, squeezed his hip, and said, “Have fun,” before turning and walking away.
The fastest route would’ve been right through the center of the mall… errr, park, but I decided to take the scenic path instead. It didn’t take me long to find the LEGO Store, since it was only a quarter way around, and it took even less time for me to get my hands on the bricks that gave life to my artistic inspiration as a young kid, much like pixels did today.
And Toby was right. I did end up working with some kid. Her name was Tessa, and she had beautiful, red corkscrew curls that stuck out in every direction. She and her dad were trying to build a robot army, but she was very clear that each robot had to be unique. Her dad kept making the same robot over and over, so when I stuck a few blocks together and silently handed it to her, she grinned at her father and said, “See? Like this. He knows what he’s doing.”
For the next however long, I showed Tessa’s dad a few easy ways to vary his design so he could enjoy this rather than dread it, though I doubted he would have near the ball of fun she was having.
My phone dinged, and I was glad I’d turned the notification sound up because I hadn’t felt it vibrate in my deep coat pocket. I pulled it out, and a message from Toby asked me to meet him back at the entrance of American Girl near the rotunda.
Sure. See you in a few.
“Who was that? Your girlfriend?” Tessa asked, and her dad blanched, likely ready to reprimand her for being so forward.
“No, my boyfriend,” I said as I slipped my phone in my pocket again. Only then did I realize I maybe shouldn’t be so open about that to a little kid. I looked over at her dad, and he had a huge smile on his face.
“Cool.” Tessa was clearly unfazed. “My papa is the one who usually brings me here. He’s better at buildin’ than Daddy is, sorta like you.”
I smiled at both of them. “Well, maybe Daddy just needs a few more lessons from you. I gotta get going, Tessa. Thanks for letting me build robots with you and your dad. It was fun.”
I shook her dad’s hand and he said, “Thanks for helping, since I obviously wasn’t doing it right, like my husband does.”
I winked at him. “Looks like you’re doing a great job to me.” I gestured down to Tessa and stood. “Happy Holidays.”
“You too.”
I was grinning like a fool all the way back to the rotunda, and when Toby was in arms’ reach, I couldn’t help but pull him in for a fierce hug.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Nothing. Just met a little girl with two dads, and we built robots together.”
“And you’re smiling bigger than I’ve seen you smile in days because of that?”
I looked down at my shoes and felt my cheeks heat. If marriage was out of the question, kids certainly would be, but I could envision the two of us stepping in for each other like that dad had, me failing at dealing with miniature cupcakes and him failing at building dinosaur robots, but both of us trying our damnedest to make a kid happy.
“It was just fun to get out and build with plastic bricks again. Did you buy anything?”
He held up a red bag. “Samantha’s Summertime Treats.”
“What?”
He repeated himself, slower this time before adding, “Pink depression glass, flowers in a vase, a china serving plate, petit fours, a pair of napkins, and of course, a fan to help Samantha stay cool in the summer heat.”
I burst out laughing but covered my mouth to stifle it. “And you’re going to use this where?”
“I don’t really know. It was too cute to resist.” Toby pulled his pocket watch out and checked the time, then glanced around the rotunda like he was expecting someone.
“Gotta date?”
“Nah.” He pocketed his watch and unbuttoned his coat. “I need to find a toilet. Will you hold this stuff?”
“Sure.” I took his coat and the American Girl bag, then pointed the way to the closest bathroom, which was just on the other side of the elevator wall.
“Stay here.”
“I won’t leave ya hanging.”
He winked and leaned in for a kiss, and then he was off. I people-watched, moving a little closer to the open space of the rotunda to see if anyone else was performing on stage soon. The space was fairly open, unlike some times when the floor was covered in rows of chairs.
I sat on a wooden bench as a young guy came to the stage, carrying an acoustic guitar and a stool. He sat down and adjusted a mic near his mouth and one near the sound hole of the guitar. He looked young, too young to be up on stage at the Mall of America on one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Too young to have landed a solo gig like this, at least.
He played a few bars of tight, syncopated chords, and I swore I recognized the song by the third note as Auburn’s “Perfect Two.” As soon as he sang in a light but rich voice about peanut butter and jelly, my suspicions were confirmed. I beamed and tried to peek around the corner to see if Toby was headed back yet. This was our song, something we’d quoted so many times, even making up different combinations of two things that went perfectly together that had been left out of the song like mud to my pie. The only line we never sang was the one about getting married.
The kid was good. A crowd gathered around the stage. Some danced, even a few people up on the second- and third-story balcony that surrounded the rotunda moved, swaying back and forth in unison.
I allowed myself to take it in, to look at the smiling faces all around me and the joy these people obviously felt in their hearts. Then I swore I saw Stella, but she was too far away from me to clea
rly make out if it was her or not. I nearly stood and walked over to her to see, but she was joined by someone else, clearly not her husband since he was blonder than blond. It couldn’t be Stella.
I listened to the guy sing, fighting back my smile so I didn’t look like a fool sitting alone, beaming. I swore I saw more familiar faces, but I was sure my eyes were playing tricks on me, even if running into old classmates and neighbors often happened when I came home.
I quit looking at the people and focused on the singer instead. At the final bridge of the song, a disembodied voice that sounded hesitant but deeper joined in.
It sounded familiar. Very. I scanned the area and saw Toby walking up on stage holding a microphone, just in time to sing the hook, and instead of singing the lyrics I expected and skipping the line about me being the one he wanted to marry, he looked right at me and sang those words for the entire mall to hear. Sure, they didn’t know he was singing to me, but I knew he sang them to me.
Then there were hands on my shoulders, urging me to stand, and when I turned to see who they belonged to, my mom and dad were there.
“Go to the front of the stage,” they said as my mom gathered up Toby and my belongings.
I was frozen in place, stupefied, so my dad pushed me and said, “Go on, Ethan.”
I don’t know how I got there. Maybe I floated? But by the time I got near the stage, the crowd had parted like the Red Sea, drums were beating, and Toby was singing “Marry You” by Bruno Mars. He held his hand out to me, and I vaguely noticed people all around the stage and scattered throughout the rotunda on every single level dancing in some choreographed masterpiece.
Toby, the most uncoordinated man I’d ever met, was dancing too. And it was beautiful!
I couldn’t even see the stairs for the tears in my eyes, but I reached for Toby’s hand and trusted him to lead me onto the stage, unharmed, where he sang right to me. He looked in my eyes and danced around me, and when I dared pull my gaze from him, I saw just how many people had joined in. Even people who obviously weren’t in on this elaborate stunt were dancing. My mother’s eyes were filled with tears of joy as she danced just below us with her fingers pressed to her lips to keep herself from sobbing. Out of the corner of my eye, Tessa waved her arms to the beat of the music while she sat on her dad’s shoulders.
I thought Toby and I were done, considering all the space he’d been giving me, and here he’d been escaping every day to plan for this. There was no other explanation because I was standing in the middle of a stage at the largest mall in America, watching my shy, reclusive, “never will I ever get up on stage, not even to lip sync” boyfriend singing and dancing in front of thousands of strangers. And if all those people holding up their cell phones were anything to go by, this was going to be on the Internet before New Year’s, and a whole lot more people would eventually watch.
He finished singing, and the kid on the guitar went into some acoustic piece. Backup music, I realized.
I wiped the tears from my eyes, and Toby held both my hands in one of his. The crowd hushed, but there was no need because he spoke into the microphone.
“Ethan, I know we’ve always avoided the M word, never talked about it, always dismissed it as crazy talk when people asked when it was going to happen for us. ‘Never for us.’ That’s what we said, but every time those words slipped past my lips, I crossed my fingers to negate the lie. I want to marry you. I want you to put your pencil to my paper. I want to shift from analog to digital. And I want to make the messiest mud pies in the world with you. Ethan, will you marry me?”
“Yes,” I nearly shouted as I dragged him into a fierce hug so I could kiss him. He dropped the mic but must’ve caught the cord because it swung and hit my calf a few times. I lost track of it when Toby kissed me deeper, opening his mouth to me and nearly devouring me right there on stage.
People all around us cheered, and I could even make out my parents’ voices as well as Gigi and Blake’s over the roars. We were soon buried in a crush of arms, and I looked around to see friends I hadn’t seen in years, aunts, uncles, cousins, and even an ex-boyfriend. And yes, that had been Stella.
I DRAGGED Toby out of the mall and toward the parking ramp as soon as we could politely excuse ourselves. Mom had made reservations to celebrate our “long-overdue” engagement. We had less than an hour to be at 4 Bells, which wasn’t far from my parents’ house, but since they were going on ahead to do something to the private room they’d reserved, I decided Toby and I needed to be back on our queen-sized mattress, finally getting the sheets dirty rather than just sleeping in them.
“Bat out of hell” may have been an appropriate description for how I drove, but I wasn’t about to go to some public celebration of our very personal plans to join our lives without first joining our bodies.
Toby seemed to be on the same page as me because he was already kicking off his shoes and socks and jeans and boxers before we’d even hit the stairwell. He tackled me on the landing and kissed and bit at my back, so I rolled over and urged him to do the same to my neck and chest.
“Uh, yeah! But we should get to the bed, Tobes.”
“Okay, okay,” he said between panted breaths as he brought himself back to his feet, then helped me to mine.
By the time we hit the bed, we were both stripped bare, but when I tried to pull him on top of me, he resisted, instead lying down and tugging me on top of him.
“Are we seriously going to fight over who gets to bottom right now?” I asked through a chuckle.
“Yeah.” He nodded and his eyes looked fierce, wild.
“Okay, you first.”
He grinned and settled in while I hopped off the bed and found the bottle of lube I’d packed. When I turned back to the bed, Toby was already tugging on his dick, which was hard and pink, the tip wet, and he was spread so I could see all of him.
“Damn, you look good laid out and waiting for me, fiancé.” I couldn’t keep the smile from nearly breaking my face.
“Get on over here, fiancé. We don’t have all day for this.” Toby smiled his million-dollar smile that wiped every ounce of shyness from him. He was always confident in bed.
“How long were you planning this?” I asked as I dripped lube on my fingers and then started to finger him.
He huffed a breath before his body relaxed, and then he said, “About a month.”
“That long?”
“Longer, actually. Since Gigi told me she and Blake were renewing their vows, so August.”
I pulled my fingers out and rubbed the head of my dick through the slickness left behind, loving the way his pucker pulsed against my crown. Slowly I pressed in, staring into his dark eyes as I filled him. When I was fully seated, I asked, “Stealing Gigi’s thunder?”
He smirked and shook his head but then stilled when I pulled out and thrust into him again. “No. She’d never allow that, what with needing two wedding ceremonies and all.”
I chuckled and lost myself in his body, moving in and out, groaning when he gave me a tight squeeze or pinched my nipples just so. Every few thrusts I had to lean in for a kiss. I just had to. I couldn’t get enough of this man, and now I felt like I finally had all the time in the world.
“Do me?” I asked when it looked like Toby was getting close.
“I’d love to.”
We traded places, and I looked in his eyes when I told him, “I want you to fill me up. Completely.”
He slicked me and pressed in, then brushed his nose against mine. “Is that so?”
“Yeah, heart and soul.”
“Damn, I could’ve sung that instead. Would’ve been easier. I even know how to play that on the piano.”
I chuckled. “Nah. You picked two great songs. I’m glad you didn’t let me go home.”
Toby moaned and was clearly lost in his body, so I gave up words and concentrated on how we were joined, urging him deeper by opening myself up even wider for him.
“I love you so much, Ethan.”
&
nbsp; “And I love you, Toby.”
I splayed my fingers wide so he could see they weren’t crossed and said, “And I want to be your husband.”
He laced our fingers together, pressing them into the mattress so he could thrust harder. “Husband.”
“Not quite yet.”
“Yes, I can’t wait.” He groaned, and I realized he meant he was going to come.
“Don’t then, baby. Fill me up.”
He came with a strangled grunt, bringing me along with him, which made me laugh at just how perfect the two of us were for each other.
Toby pulled out and rolled to his back with an exhausted sigh, and I put two and two together. I leaned up on an elbow and pressed a kiss to his slack mouth before asking, “This is why you weren’t sleeping well, isn’t it?”
He nodded but refused to open his eyes.
“And all this time I thought you were sick of me.”
“What?” he asked as he shot up. “Sick of you? No. I was a disaster the last month trying to learn those songs and the dance moves Gigi put together. She tried giving me dance lessons via Skype, if you can believe that.”
“Really?”
“When we realized it was a lost cause, I knew I had to get more direct help. At your office party, I finally buckled and asked Stella to take over.”
“And I bet that’s why your suit doesn’t fit as well. You’ve lost weight.”
He gave me a hard look. “I’ve gained muscle.”
I nodded. “Okay, muscle.”
Toby leaned in to press a sweet kiss to my throat before he sucked. I couldn’t keep from grinning.
“Wow. You really went out of your comfort zone for this, didn’t you?”
His brows lowered, but then he smiled. “Yeah. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself and ruin your proposal.”
“You could’ve fallen off the stage, and even that wouldn’t have ruined it.”
“Glad I didn’t, and I knew after you got drunk and cried—”
“What?”
“—at the wedding reception that I couldn’t wait another day. So thank you for taking me to the mall, even if it’s your least favorite place in this metropolis.”