To Live is the Rarest Thing

Chapter 18

“Nice proposal,” was the first thing Harry said once he regained his voice. He looked around pointedly at the landscape, the huge sycamore tree behind them, and Izzy panting as she stretched out before them on the grass. “I give it an 8 out of 10. Did you plan this or was it a spontaneous thing?” Harry knew that Tom usually liked to plan every little thing, but in this life he did have ADHD so who knew what spontaneous stuff popped up in his mind every now and then.

Tom’s answering grin was utterly without shame. “I was planning to propose but I hadn’t thought of an exact way to pop the question just yet.” He gestured around them to also draw attention to their amazing surroundings. “But sitting here with you seemed like a good moment. Now I’d like your answer, please, darling.”

Harry briefly shook his head but he couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across his face. “I should just say no one of these days, just to fuck with you.”

Tom snorted and gave Harry a knowing look. “Who are you trying to fool here? You always want to marry me. Especially now after we haven’t been able to get married for two lives in a row. Still waiting for your reply.”

“Yes, of course I’ll marry you, you arrogant bastard.” Harry leaned over and pressed a long, hard kiss to Tom’s lips, which turned out a bit uncomfortable because Tom couldn’t stop smirking throughout the whole thing.

“I propose we get married on the spring equinox,” Harry said once he drew back.

Tom frowned for a moment and then gave a thoughtful nod. “March 20th. Yeah, that would work.”

“The start of spring seems like a good date for a wedding,” Harry mused while he leaned against Tom. They had been married so often, to other people but mostly to each other, that a wedding didn’t really excite them as much anymore as it might other couples.

In fact, Harry and Tom had decided many, many lives ago that they would always have small weddings that didn’t cost more than the average luxury car. An exception to that were the lives when they were filthy rich and they could just hire a small army of wedding planners to organize everything for them, spare no expense. Another exception was when they were born into cultures where small weddings were absolutely unacceptable. Harry made that mistake once when they were Indian, when he suggested to his Hindu parents that perhaps they didn’t need a three day wedding. He’d come to regret that almost immediately, when his entire extended family, every fucking aunt and uncle and cousin and second cousin had reached out to him one after the other to yell at him for daring to suggest he not have a traditional wedding. Harry had quickly let his family know that the three day wedding was taking place, now please everybody stop calling.

So, yeah, occasionally they still threw a great wedding extravaganza, but mostly they were more than happy to organize a small event. Just an intimate gathering with their closest friends and family, a quick ceremony and a nice meal together with perhaps some music and drinks afterwards. The wedding venue didn’t have to be huge, and might even be held at a family member’s house if there was enough space available. As for pictures, Harry and Tom always preferred to find a nice bit of nature nearby to have some beautiful pictures taken. And that was it, really. It needn’t be more complicated than that in their opinion.

This way they saved a lot of money that they usually preferred to spend on buying a house or saving for a new car or something like that.

If there was one word that both Harry and Tom despised with a burning passion, it was the word ‘destination wedding’. Over the years they’d had their fair share of family members and friends who believed that they needed to spend many, many thousands on a wedding in the Bahamas or Jamaica or something equally tropical. The problems always arose when they expected their family to join them there, at their own cost, of course.