Fic: Unconditional Things 1/1 (Olympics, PG-13, Lochte/Phelps)
Title: Unconditional Things
Pairing: Ryan Lochte/Michael Phelps RPF
Rating: PG -13
Disclaimer: I don't own them, and don't know them. In fact, I just really love it when they swim together and then hug.
Beta/Thanks: Thanks to waterofthemoon for the beta. She's the man. Also thanks to cf33 for helping me keep this idea sane and at least semi-believable.
A/N:This fic takes place at/around the Pan Pacific Championships in August of 2006.
“So, I have an idea,” Ryan says as he climbs onto the bed where Michael is sprawled.
Ryan has his own, of course, not three feet away. He and Ryan have been roommates for every championship they’ve attended since Athens and the Pan Pacific Championships are no exception. Even so, Michael feels him shake the whole bed as he flops down, draping an arm over Michael’s waist.
Ryan’s sporting a grin that makes his blue eyes glitter almost dangerously. It makes Michael’s heart beat a little faster, partially from the heat and partially from fear. Ryan’s ideas are rarely good news for his routine.
“Don’t tell me.”
“Mike, it’s inspired.”
Michael sighs and closes his eyes, pressing his palms into the sockets. He doesn’t want to hear this. Ryan’s “ideas” usually end with someone calling security or the cops. He’s got more than three races tomorrow, and as good as it feels to have Ryan this close, he really doesn’t have the energy for Ryan’s wild child antics tonight.
“Come on, dude, hear me out. This idea is Canadian only. We can’t do it anywhere else.”
“We’re not stealing a horse from one of the Mounties, Ryan.”
Ryan wanted to try that one at Worlds in Montreal last year. He claimed he really just wanted one of those hats, but Michael still had his suspicions.
“Dude, no horses involved this time. Scout’s honor.” Michael feels Ryan’s long fingers poking into his sides and opens his eyes. “Just listen, okay? It’s a good one.”
Michael rolls onto his side and props his head up on his hand. Ryan’s smile hasn’t faded, and he shifts, pressing himself up against Michael all solid warmth. It hits Michael how much he misses Ryan when they’re not together, harder than it did earlier in the day when he first saw him after months apart.
“Does it involve eggs? Because if it does-”
Ryan laughs and shakes his head. “No.” He shakes his head again, and his laughter dies as he swallows hard a few times. Then Ryan kisses him, and Michael’s brain sort of stutters.
He scoots a little closer and slides a leg over Ryan’s. When they pull away to breathe, he’s more or less ready to hear whatever cockamamie scheme Ryan’s cooked up this time. “Okay, I’m interested. What is it?”
Ryan licks his lips and takes a deep breath. For a split second, Michael is afraid that he’s going to suggest something truly crazy-like robbing a bank or blowing up cats or something.
“I think we should get married.”
Michael blinks at him. Then he laughs. “Good one.”
But Ryan’s not smiling anymore. His face is serious, and his jaw actually looks clenched.
Michael shakes his head and laughs again, hearing the beginnings of hysteria edging into his voice. “Seriously, funny. You got me.”
“Think about it, Mike.”
Michael pulls away a little, his eyes narrowing as he tries to understand, to make sense of any of this. “You’re serious.”
“They legalized it up here last year.”
Michael sits up fast and stares down at Ryan in horror. “Oh my god, you’re fucking serious.”
“Michael,” Ryan says, sitting up. “Just think about it.”
“Yeah. I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking that I’m sleeping with a crazy person. You’ve got to be nuts if you think-”
“I’m in love with you,” Ryan says, and damn it.
Damn it.
“Ryan,” Michael says, scooting a little farther back away from him.
“You’re in love with me, too.”
“Ryan,” he says and it comes out as a plea.
“You are. You are, Michael. You’re in love with me. I know you are.”
And he is. He’s so in love with Ryan that sometimes he doesn’t know what to do with himself, but he can’t say something like that. He just can’t. So he does the best he can instead.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Ryan snaps. He rolls his eyes and runs a hand through his hair. “That’s a dream come true, man.”
Michael rubs his forehead because this really isn’t how he’d intended to spend tonight. Sleeping had been at the top of the list. He’d thought maybe there’d be time for a couple of blow jobs before they got mired down in the upcoming competition, but no. Nothing in his life is ever that simple.
“Ryan, do you know what you sound like?”
“I sound like a guy who’s sick of having a boyfriend in Michigan he can’t talk to anyone about.”
“We’re too young to even be having this conversation.”
“No, we’re not. I’m an adult. You’re an adult. Let’s have a conversation.”
“This is my life we’re talking about,” Michael shoots back, feeling a desperate ache somewhere deep in his ribcage. “Our lives.”
“Yeah. Our lives. But Mike, that’s the point. It wouldn’t be our lives if we did this, man. It’d be our life.”
This is not the Ryan that Michael is used to dealing with. His Ryan likes to give head in the shower when they’re already running late and organize games of truth or dare over group dinners and skateboard in the stands before the spectators roll in. His Ryan doesn’t look at him like he can see the next seventy years on a Wednesday night and talk about marriage like something that could actually happen to them.
“Ryan-” Michael tries as the ache in his chest spreads up and into his throat. “I can’t,” he chokes. It feels like it’s torn out of him because it is something he can see, now that he’s looking at it. He can see twenty, thirty years down the line, Ryan next to him, making him lighter and better. But… “I just can’t.”
Michael doesn’t want to be a Greg Louganis. He never has. He doesn’t want to be “the gay Olympian” in 2008 or 2012. He wants to just be the best. No strings, no bullshit, no distractions-just how good he is at what he loves. He knows that it’ll get lost if he does this.
Ryan crawls over the space Michael has put between them and straddles Michael’s legs. He takes Michael’s face in his hands, and Michael can do nothing but stare into eyes the same color as the water in the Olympic pool in Athens. For the first time in his entire life, he has the very real sensation of drowning.
“Then just tell me you want to,” Ryan says, his thumbs rubbing over the line of his cheekbones with gentle, hypnotizing pressure. “Tell me that if we could make it happen, you’d want to.”
“Ryan.”
Ryan rests his forehead against Michael’s. “Tell me.”
Michael’s eyes drift shut, and all he can do is hand himself over to Ryan. It’s been this way since the beginning, the way Ryan brings out the parts of him he tries to keep contained in a messy spill of feelings. “God, Ryan, yes.”
“Good,” Ryan murmurs, bending his head. “Gold star.” Michael can feel his smile as they kiss, and he wraps both his arms around Ryan and pushes Ryan onto his back, lying over him-his arms tight around Ryan’s back, Ryan’s legs around his waist.
~*~*~
“I’ve got it,” Ryan says. Michael doesn’t bother to argue as Ryan snatches his duffle. They’ve both got planes to catch, and he could use the help, but Ryan starts walking away from the airport shuttle and towards a small, red car.
“What’re you doing?”
Ryan pops the trunk and tosses the duffle bag in. Michael can see that Ryan’s stuff is already packed away in blue and orange bags.
“It’s a surprise.” He hits another button on the keyless entry, and the car gives a beep as it unlockes. “Get in.”
It’s time with Ryan, which he hasn’t had much of since Wednesday night, so he slides into the passenger seat with only low grade nerves, which he attributes to Ryan’s driving style. He doesn’t believe in speed limits or the concept that you have to slow down to go faster on curves.
“Do I want to know?”
Ryan climbs in behind the wheel and grins at him. “It’s a late birthday present.”
“For me?”
“Nope,” Ryan says as he slams his own door and throws the car into gear. “For me. You owe me one.”
Michael tried to get down to Florida in time for Ryan’s birthday three weeks ago. He had, but he had a meeting with the people from Visa, and as hard as he tried, he wasn’t able to get out of it. So yeah, maybe he said something like that, now that he thinks about it.
“Whatever you want, Ryan. Just so long as I don’t miss the plane.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” Ryan laughs, and he reaches over with his right hand to clap the back of Michael’s neck.
It’s only ten in the morning, but despite himself, Michael finds himself drifting off. He broke four world records in the last three days, and he’s worn out. That, combined with hum of the engine and the feeling of Ryan’s fingers on his skin, are too soothing to resist.
He opens his eyes again to the feel of Ryan’s lips sucking on the bit of skin beneath his ear. The rush of arousal makes him blink out of sleep in a fog of confusion.
“Hm?”
“Hey. We’re here.”
“Where’s here?”
Ryan just shrugs and hops out, humming a little under his breath. Michael follows him across the parking lot to Ryan’s mysterious here, which turns out to be a stuffy looking government building. Ryan’s waiting for him at the top of the stairs to the entrance, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, and Michael stops in front of him, confused.
“Your birthday present is a Canadian office building?”
“No, it’s inside. Well, it will be,” Ryan says before dropping down to one knee in front of the entrance. Michael finally reads the words on the door. Victoria City Court House.
Damn it.
“Ryan, no. Get up.”
“You said,” Ryan says, reaching up and grabbing his wrist, “if we could, you wanted to.”
“Yeah, but we can’t, so for God’s sake, Ryan, you have to get up now.”
“No. I love you, and I want to marry you, and I’m not getting up until you say yes.”
“Get up. Ryan, you have to get off the ground right now. What if someone sees us?”
Ryan tilts his head and rolls his eyes, which, okay, is fair. The street is mostly empty. There’ve maybe been two cars driving past in the last five minutes and no pedestrians. He still wishes Ryan would get the hell up because it hurts, seeing Ryan at his feet like this, offering him a life he can’t let himself think about for years yet.
“Don’t make me say no again,” Michael says. He’s never begged anyone for anything before, but he’s close to begging now. “Just get up, Ryan.”
“You can do this,” Ryan says, threading their fingers together but staying anchored to the ground. “We can do this. It’s the only thing we can do. I’m tired, Mike, aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to just be? I mean, we can’t really change anything, but we can do this. We can make it real here.”
“It’s already real. I don’t understand why this matters.”
“Because it means something,” Ryan says. “It means I’m in it for the long haul enough that I’ll say it in front of witnesses. When you’re up in Ann Arbor, and I’m down in gator country, you’ll look at your ring, and you’ll know, even if you don’t wear it. And I’ll know, too.”
It’s a nice idea. It really is, but he knows better than anyone that the vows don’t mean jack, especially when it comes to keeping people connected. People keep people together, not contracts and certainly not vows. His dad more than proved that.
He opens his mouth to tell Ryan that, but what comes out is, “You got rings?”
“Dad got ‘em for me. They should fit. Our hands are about the same size.”
“Your dad knows about this?”
“And Mom. And Debbie. And Bob. They’re inside.”
“My mom is here?” Which is funny because Michael distinctly remembers putting her on the airport shuttle earlier this morning. She should be somewhere over Minnesota by now.
“I called your sisters, too, but they couldn’t get up here in time.”
“How long have you been thinking about this?”
“Only like a week. My mom made a comment about it before I left, and it just kinda clicked. Seemed like a good idea.” Ryan pulls Michael’s hand to him and presses it against the side of his face. “It’s a good idea, Mike.”
Michael shakes his head because that’s so Ryan. It’s so Ryan to decide he wants to do something and then just do it. He makes things happen.
“It’s actually a really bad idea. It’s a media shitstorm waiting to happen.”
“There isn’t going to be an international competition in this country until after Beijing. No one who cares is going to find a piece of paper filed away in a courthouse in BC. But it doesn’t matter because this isn’t about endorsements or heats or the job or any of that. It’s about you being mine, even when you’re five hundred miles away.”
“I am.”
“I know. Which is why I know you’re not gonna leave me down here.” Ryan gives his hand a tug. “So say yes already. Your mom’s probably thinking we’ve had a wreck on the way up here or something.”
“We’re going to miss our planes.”
“There’ll be other planes.”
The silence stretches between them think and tight like a rubber band. He tries to think of any reason, even if it’s not a good one, to say no, to pull his hand away. But there aren’t any, and he wants Ryan and everything he’s offering on bended freaking knee.
“This isn’t going to change anything.”
“If you say so.”
“I can’t just move-”
“I can’t, either. That’s not what I’m asking you for.”
“What are you asking me for, then?”
“To love me till you drop dead and vice versa. Can you handle it?”
That’s the least intimidating prospect Ryan’s raised since the whole marriage thing came up. Putting it that way, it doesn’t seem so big. He can actually give Ryan that, or at least, he can try.
“Okay.”
“Dream come true.” Ryan laughs as he climbs to his feet. He doesn’t let go of Michael’s hand, though. Instead, he grabs Michael’s other hand and pulls them close. “You really suck at this, man. Let’s try one more time,” Ryan says, leaning forward so that their noses are just touching. “Marry me.”
Somehow, the muscles that have been wound so tight since Ryan dropped down release because they’re eye to eye now. He likes it better this way. He can kiss him before he gives him his answer, brushing his lips against Ryan’s as he breathes out, “Yes.”
Pairing: Ryan Lochte/Michael Phelps RPF
Rating: PG -13
Disclaimer: I don't own them, and don't know them. In fact, I just really love it when they swim together and then hug.
Beta/Thanks: Thanks to waterofthemoon for the beta. She's the man. Also thanks to cf33 for helping me keep this idea sane and at least semi-believable.
A/N:This fic takes place at/around the Pan Pacific Championships in August of 2006.
“So, I have an idea,” Ryan says as he climbs onto the bed where Michael is sprawled.
Ryan has his own, of course, not three feet away. He and Ryan have been roommates for every championship they’ve attended since Athens and the Pan Pacific Championships are no exception. Even so, Michael feels him shake the whole bed as he flops down, draping an arm over Michael’s waist.
Ryan’s sporting a grin that makes his blue eyes glitter almost dangerously. It makes Michael’s heart beat a little faster, partially from the heat and partially from fear. Ryan’s ideas are rarely good news for his routine.
“Don’t tell me.”
“Mike, it’s inspired.”
Michael sighs and closes his eyes, pressing his palms into the sockets. He doesn’t want to hear this. Ryan’s “ideas” usually end with someone calling security or the cops. He’s got more than three races tomorrow, and as good as it feels to have Ryan this close, he really doesn’t have the energy for Ryan’s wild child antics tonight.
“Come on, dude, hear me out. This idea is Canadian only. We can’t do it anywhere else.”
“We’re not stealing a horse from one of the Mounties, Ryan.”
Ryan wanted to try that one at Worlds in Montreal last year. He claimed he really just wanted one of those hats, but Michael still had his suspicions.
“Dude, no horses involved this time. Scout’s honor.” Michael feels Ryan’s long fingers poking into his sides and opens his eyes. “Just listen, okay? It’s a good one.”
Michael rolls onto his side and props his head up on his hand. Ryan’s smile hasn’t faded, and he shifts, pressing himself up against Michael all solid warmth. It hits Michael how much he misses Ryan when they’re not together, harder than it did earlier in the day when he first saw him after months apart.
“Does it involve eggs? Because if it does-”
Ryan laughs and shakes his head. “No.” He shakes his head again, and his laughter dies as he swallows hard a few times. Then Ryan kisses him, and Michael’s brain sort of stutters.
He scoots a little closer and slides a leg over Ryan’s. When they pull away to breathe, he’s more or less ready to hear whatever cockamamie scheme Ryan’s cooked up this time. “Okay, I’m interested. What is it?”
Ryan licks his lips and takes a deep breath. For a split second, Michael is afraid that he’s going to suggest something truly crazy-like robbing a bank or blowing up cats or something.
“I think we should get married.”
Michael blinks at him. Then he laughs. “Good one.”
But Ryan’s not smiling anymore. His face is serious, and his jaw actually looks clenched.
Michael shakes his head and laughs again, hearing the beginnings of hysteria edging into his voice. “Seriously, funny. You got me.”
“Think about it, Mike.”
Michael pulls away a little, his eyes narrowing as he tries to understand, to make sense of any of this. “You’re serious.”
“They legalized it up here last year.”
Michael sits up fast and stares down at Ryan in horror. “Oh my god, you’re fucking serious.”
“Michael,” Ryan says, sitting up. “Just think about it.”
“Yeah. I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking that I’m sleeping with a crazy person. You’ve got to be nuts if you think-”
“I’m in love with you,” Ryan says, and damn it.
Damn it.
“Ryan,” Michael says, scooting a little farther back away from him.
“You’re in love with me, too.”
“Ryan,” he says and it comes out as a plea.
“You are. You are, Michael. You’re in love with me. I know you are.”
And he is. He’s so in love with Ryan that sometimes he doesn’t know what to do with himself, but he can’t say something like that. He just can’t. So he does the best he can instead.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Ryan snaps. He rolls his eyes and runs a hand through his hair. “That’s a dream come true, man.”
Michael rubs his forehead because this really isn’t how he’d intended to spend tonight. Sleeping had been at the top of the list. He’d thought maybe there’d be time for a couple of blow jobs before they got mired down in the upcoming competition, but no. Nothing in his life is ever that simple.
“Ryan, do you know what you sound like?”
“I sound like a guy who’s sick of having a boyfriend in Michigan he can’t talk to anyone about.”
“We’re too young to even be having this conversation.”
“No, we’re not. I’m an adult. You’re an adult. Let’s have a conversation.”
“This is my life we’re talking about,” Michael shoots back, feeling a desperate ache somewhere deep in his ribcage. “Our lives.”
“Yeah. Our lives. But Mike, that’s the point. It wouldn’t be our lives if we did this, man. It’d be our life.”
This is not the Ryan that Michael is used to dealing with. His Ryan likes to give head in the shower when they’re already running late and organize games of truth or dare over group dinners and skateboard in the stands before the spectators roll in. His Ryan doesn’t look at him like he can see the next seventy years on a Wednesday night and talk about marriage like something that could actually happen to them.
“Ryan-” Michael tries as the ache in his chest spreads up and into his throat. “I can’t,” he chokes. It feels like it’s torn out of him because it is something he can see, now that he’s looking at it. He can see twenty, thirty years down the line, Ryan next to him, making him lighter and better. But… “I just can’t.”
Michael doesn’t want to be a Greg Louganis. He never has. He doesn’t want to be “the gay Olympian” in 2008 or 2012. He wants to just be the best. No strings, no bullshit, no distractions-just how good he is at what he loves. He knows that it’ll get lost if he does this.
Ryan crawls over the space Michael has put between them and straddles Michael’s legs. He takes Michael’s face in his hands, and Michael can do nothing but stare into eyes the same color as the water in the Olympic pool in Athens. For the first time in his entire life, he has the very real sensation of drowning.
“Then just tell me you want to,” Ryan says, his thumbs rubbing over the line of his cheekbones with gentle, hypnotizing pressure. “Tell me that if we could make it happen, you’d want to.”
“Ryan.”
Ryan rests his forehead against Michael’s. “Tell me.”
Michael’s eyes drift shut, and all he can do is hand himself over to Ryan. It’s been this way since the beginning, the way Ryan brings out the parts of him he tries to keep contained in a messy spill of feelings. “God, Ryan, yes.”
“Good,” Ryan murmurs, bending his head. “Gold star.” Michael can feel his smile as they kiss, and he wraps both his arms around Ryan and pushes Ryan onto his back, lying over him-his arms tight around Ryan’s back, Ryan’s legs around his waist.
~*~*~
“I’ve got it,” Ryan says. Michael doesn’t bother to argue as Ryan snatches his duffle. They’ve both got planes to catch, and he could use the help, but Ryan starts walking away from the airport shuttle and towards a small, red car.
“What’re you doing?”
Ryan pops the trunk and tosses the duffle bag in. Michael can see that Ryan’s stuff is already packed away in blue and orange bags.
“It’s a surprise.” He hits another button on the keyless entry, and the car gives a beep as it unlockes. “Get in.”
It’s time with Ryan, which he hasn’t had much of since Wednesday night, so he slides into the passenger seat with only low grade nerves, which he attributes to Ryan’s driving style. He doesn’t believe in speed limits or the concept that you have to slow down to go faster on curves.
“Do I want to know?”
Ryan climbs in behind the wheel and grins at him. “It’s a late birthday present.”
“For me?”
“Nope,” Ryan says as he slams his own door and throws the car into gear. “For me. You owe me one.”
Michael tried to get down to Florida in time for Ryan’s birthday three weeks ago. He had, but he had a meeting with the people from Visa, and as hard as he tried, he wasn’t able to get out of it. So yeah, maybe he said something like that, now that he thinks about it.
“Whatever you want, Ryan. Just so long as I don’t miss the plane.”
“I’m gonna hold you to that,” Ryan laughs, and he reaches over with his right hand to clap the back of Michael’s neck.
It’s only ten in the morning, but despite himself, Michael finds himself drifting off. He broke four world records in the last three days, and he’s worn out. That, combined with hum of the engine and the feeling of Ryan’s fingers on his skin, are too soothing to resist.
He opens his eyes again to the feel of Ryan’s lips sucking on the bit of skin beneath his ear. The rush of arousal makes him blink out of sleep in a fog of confusion.
“Hm?”
“Hey. We’re here.”
“Where’s here?”
Ryan just shrugs and hops out, humming a little under his breath. Michael follows him across the parking lot to Ryan’s mysterious here, which turns out to be a stuffy looking government building. Ryan’s waiting for him at the top of the stairs to the entrance, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, and Michael stops in front of him, confused.
“Your birthday present is a Canadian office building?”
“No, it’s inside. Well, it will be,” Ryan says before dropping down to one knee in front of the entrance. Michael finally reads the words on the door. Victoria City Court House.
Damn it.
“Ryan, no. Get up.”
“You said,” Ryan says, reaching up and grabbing his wrist, “if we could, you wanted to.”
“Yeah, but we can’t, so for God’s sake, Ryan, you have to get up now.”
“No. I love you, and I want to marry you, and I’m not getting up until you say yes.”
“Get up. Ryan, you have to get off the ground right now. What if someone sees us?”
Ryan tilts his head and rolls his eyes, which, okay, is fair. The street is mostly empty. There’ve maybe been two cars driving past in the last five minutes and no pedestrians. He still wishes Ryan would get the hell up because it hurts, seeing Ryan at his feet like this, offering him a life he can’t let himself think about for years yet.
“Don’t make me say no again,” Michael says. He’s never begged anyone for anything before, but he’s close to begging now. “Just get up, Ryan.”
“You can do this,” Ryan says, threading their fingers together but staying anchored to the ground. “We can do this. It’s the only thing we can do. I’m tired, Mike, aren’t you tired? Don’t you want to just be? I mean, we can’t really change anything, but we can do this. We can make it real here.”
“It’s already real. I don’t understand why this matters.”
“Because it means something,” Ryan says. “It means I’m in it for the long haul enough that I’ll say it in front of witnesses. When you’re up in Ann Arbor, and I’m down in gator country, you’ll look at your ring, and you’ll know, even if you don’t wear it. And I’ll know, too.”
It’s a nice idea. It really is, but he knows better than anyone that the vows don’t mean jack, especially when it comes to keeping people connected. People keep people together, not contracts and certainly not vows. His dad more than proved that.
He opens his mouth to tell Ryan that, but what comes out is, “You got rings?”
“Dad got ‘em for me. They should fit. Our hands are about the same size.”
“Your dad knows about this?”
“And Mom. And Debbie. And Bob. They’re inside.”
“My mom is here?” Which is funny because Michael distinctly remembers putting her on the airport shuttle earlier this morning. She should be somewhere over Minnesota by now.
“I called your sisters, too, but they couldn’t get up here in time.”
“How long have you been thinking about this?”
“Only like a week. My mom made a comment about it before I left, and it just kinda clicked. Seemed like a good idea.” Ryan pulls Michael’s hand to him and presses it against the side of his face. “It’s a good idea, Mike.”
Michael shakes his head because that’s so Ryan. It’s so Ryan to decide he wants to do something and then just do it. He makes things happen.
“It’s actually a really bad idea. It’s a media shitstorm waiting to happen.”
“There isn’t going to be an international competition in this country until after Beijing. No one who cares is going to find a piece of paper filed away in a courthouse in BC. But it doesn’t matter because this isn’t about endorsements or heats or the job or any of that. It’s about you being mine, even when you’re five hundred miles away.”
“I am.”
“I know. Which is why I know you’re not gonna leave me down here.” Ryan gives his hand a tug. “So say yes already. Your mom’s probably thinking we’ve had a wreck on the way up here or something.”
“We’re going to miss our planes.”
“There’ll be other planes.”
The silence stretches between them think and tight like a rubber band. He tries to think of any reason, even if it’s not a good one, to say no, to pull his hand away. But there aren’t any, and he wants Ryan and everything he’s offering on bended freaking knee.
“This isn’t going to change anything.”
“If you say so.”
“I can’t just move-”
“I can’t, either. That’s not what I’m asking you for.”
“What are you asking me for, then?”
“To love me till you drop dead and vice versa. Can you handle it?”
That’s the least intimidating prospect Ryan’s raised since the whole marriage thing came up. Putting it that way, it doesn’t seem so big. He can actually give Ryan that, or at least, he can try.
“Okay.”
“Dream come true.” Ryan laughs as he climbs to his feet. He doesn’t let go of Michael’s hand, though. Instead, he grabs Michael’s other hand and pulls them close. “You really suck at this, man. Let’s try one more time,” Ryan says, leaning forward so that their noses are just touching. “Marry me.”
Somehow, the muscles that have been wound so tight since Ryan dropped down release because they’re eye to eye now. He likes it better this way. He can kiss him before he gives him his answer, brushing his lips against Ryan’s as he breathes out, “Yes.”