He Makes Me Quiet

Chapter 3

That Saturday, Tristan and Ronan had barely walked in the door before Dorian whisked Tristan off.

"Hi, Gansey. Bye, Gansey," Tristan called with a chuckle as he was pulled back out the door with nearly all of Dorian's surprising strength.

Ronan offered his fist and Gansey lightly tapped his knuckles to his friend's. Then he grinned, too excited to contain it. Ronan rolled his very blue eyes, which only served to make Gansey smile more.

The door closed behind Dorian and Tristan a little louder than Gansey felt was strictly necessary. But, Gansey took this as his cue and led the way to the bedroom, opening his sock drawer. He shuffled the contents around as Ronan wandered into the room behind him, finally locating the blue velvet box tucked into the back corner.

Ronan plucked it out of his hands and cracked it open. The ring was nestled into a white, silk covered pillow inside the box, yellow-gold and glinting with a large, circular emerald and a tiny ring of diamonds encircling it to set it into the band.

"It was my maternal grandmother's engagement ring, though it wasn't hers first. I'm fairly certain my grandfather reset the emerald from his grandmother or something like that. There was a matching wedding band but, well, she's still wearing it. Both of them requested to be buried in their rings. So I just got the engagement ring."

Ronan nodded as he studied it.

"So what do you think? It's not too much for Jack, is it?"

Ronan finally looked up. "It's beautiful, Dick."

Gansey rolled his eyes behind his glasses.

"Really, he's gonna love it. Glad it's not a diamond, though. He'd throw a fit."

"I know. Those are diamonds around the emerald, but it's an antique heirloom; I'm not going to strip it."

"Will it fit?"

Gansey nodded. "I had it resized. Took one of the rings out of his jewelry box and had them match it."

"Clever."

Gansey shrugged and took the box back, snapping it shut and tucking it back into the drawer before quietly shutting it. He grabbed a legal pad off the desk in the front room as he led the way over to the kitchen table.

"So, what do you have so far?" Ronan asked.

"Absolutely nothing," Gansey groaned and laid his head down on the table, careful not to crush his glasses into his face.

Ronan laughed, short and loud. "Nothing?"

Gansey didn't bother to look up.

"You sure you're ready for this?" Ronan asked a little more quietly, a little more gently.

"Yes," Gansey finally lifted his head and met his best friend's eyes. "I've never been more sure about anything. I just want it to be perfect, you know?"

Ronan nodded solemnly. "Alright. Let's take it from the top. Favorite flowers?"

Gansey shook his head. "He hates flowers."

"How do you hate flowers? That's a classic!"

"Correction. He likes the plants themselves, just not bouquets. The flower industry is bad for the environment."

"Okay, fine. No flowers. Unless you decide you want me to dream some. What about locations? Where would be the best place? A favorite restaurant? Or... where was your first date?"

"I don't know. I guess in the Camaro."

"You sly dog," Ronan smirked.

"Not like that!" Gansey blushed what was probably at least three different shades of pink. "We just... we used to drive around, doing nothing. Just holding hands and talking. That was most of our early dates."