Chapter Text
The third week of June comes crashing down faster than Lucy was expecting and before she realizes, she's in the reception of Kate’s – their – condo waiting for Old Pete to arrive. Unlike last year, Kate and Micah have decided to accompany her on the bus instead of driving to camp. Lucy had thought a road trip with her girl and her little guy would be nothing less than exciting and fun.
That was before she bought the god forsaken ring.
Now, the ring box feels like it's piercing a hole into the bottom of Lucy's battered backpack. Throughout the entire journey to camp, she feels the tiny specks of cold sweat down her back; a physical manifestation of the anxiety that Kate may somehow sense the ring is in there.
Half an hour in and Kate has already looked over at her with a confused expression about five times.
This time she finally asks, "Are you alright?"
"Peachy!" Says the woman who has probably never said peachy without it being a lie before. "Just excited to get there." — which isn't a lie, mind you.
Kate, bless her, just shrugs it off and resumes her conversation with Jane.
The bus ride is a pretty clear picture of how the first few weeks of camp go. If Lucy wasn't so set on proposing there because, after all, it's where it all started, she would’ve dropped that idea after the seventh failed attempt.
The first one happens almost as soon as they arrive.
Lucy and Kate walk the familiar path to their cabin together; where once hands brushed and pinkies tentatively intertwined, now they unabashedly hold on to each other. Kate drapes an arm around Lucy's shoulder and Lucy, in turn, wraps one around Kate's middle.
"Ah, yes. Our little kid-free haven," Kate says, leaving her suitcase by the door and dropping onto Lucy's designated bed. "God, I could sleep for a week."
Lucy watches as Kate closes her eyes and cradles a pillow close to her chest. It may be a scene Lucy saw more times than she could count in the past year, but it still makes her heart somersault in her chest and she almost drops on her knees right there and then.
She doesn't though. Mostly because her always on time best friend shows up making a fuss that he had to hear from Micah that they had arrived.
"Remember when you loved me?" Jesse whines, lifting her up in a bear hug.
"No. I really don't," She is mostly joking.
The second time happens around three days later and it's what one would call the perfect missed opportunity, one that will have Lucy kicking herself for days on end for having missed it.
Their schedules are busy and barely matching, the only time they actually get to see each other is when they wake up and go to bed. Since they are still getting used to the summer camp rush, they are both too exhausted to do anything besides trading some kisses here and there. So, when Lucy checks their Wednesday schedules, she is delighted to notice that the Boones left their afternoons setting up the kids/parents meeting untouched. Finally some quality time!
"Sooooooo, wanna play a game?" Lucy mimics what she had said a year ago, except this time, she doesn't wait twenty minutes to do so.
Kate looks over at her from her chair, a knowing smirk on her lips, "Twenty questions?"
Lucy pretends to think about it, "Not sure there are twenty things you don't know about me, to be honest."
"I'm sure I can think of something," Kate argues back, and so the game begins.
The first few questions are all a ruse. Things like 'Why do you never hang up your wet towels?' or 'Why do you insist on keeping the trash can inside a cabinet?' are thrown back to back, making both of them laugh and fake being mad at each other.
"Tits or ass?" Lucy asks.
"Really?"
"What? Too crass? Fine. Boobs or butts?" She knows the answer to that, but she loves how it can still make Kate blush.
"You know the answer," When Lucy doesn't even blink, Kate sighs. "Butt."
"Yup," Lucy laughs. It gets her an eye roll but she doesn’t even care, not when her mind is going back to all of the moments she caught Kate staring at her ass with a dreamy look on her face.
"Fine. What's your favorite thing about me? Physically speaking," Kate asks, lifting an eyebrow.
"You very much know I am and always will be a slave to your legs," And just like that, Kate's original intent backfires and she is the one getting red again. "That is not to say I don't appreciate all your other assets," Lucy gestures vaguely towards the entirety of Kate's magnificent being.
"OH!" Lucy jumps from her chair, slapping Kate on the arm. "Oh my God! Kate!"
"Ouch?"
"Oh my God!" Lucy repeats, her brain going too fast for her mouth to keep up. She flaps her arms excitedly and Kate looks like she is about to run for cover. "Sorority! You! Pictures! I haven't!"
"And you won't," Kate answers, somehow understanding Lucy's mumbo-jumbo of words.
"What? What do you mean I won't?"
"That is a time of my life that is going to stay where it belongs. In the past."
"What?!" Lucy repeats again. "But I saw your baby pictures!"
"Because Baby Kate was adorable," She grins. "University Kate on the other hand…"
"Prove it."
"Ha! Nice try."
Lucy pouts. She musters all the power from her big wide eyes and turns it into a killer puppy dog eye, still Kate doesn’t budge. Only falters a little. Goddamn Micah and his big deep brown eyes making Kate impervious to puppy dog eyes.
"You being adorable will do nothing but make me want to kiss you," Kate states, her face already tilting towards Lucy. "And I can prove it."
Kate closes the distance between the two of them and Lucy melts into her. They keep it chaste, not wanting to be caught doing anything that would be considered scandalous by a kid, or worse, a teenager. Jonah catching them last year and spreading it to the entire camp was enough, she is not going to be the camp's gossip hotline this year, thank you very much.
Kate breaks the kiss too soon in Lucy's opinion and she finds herself chasing Kate's lips for another taste before resting their foreheads together. Lucy nuzzles her nose against Kate and when she opens her eyes, she is met with the sight of Kate's closed eyes and dreamy smile. What she does next is simple what anyone in her situation would do: She peppers Kate's entire face with kisses until the other woman is laughing and squirming under her touch.
"I love you so much," Lucy says, squeezing Kate's face just because she can. "You are my second favorite human ever."
"Yeah, I know," Kate huffs. "I sort of love you too."
"Sort of?" Lucy pouts, faking hurt.
"Sort of," Kate says with a mischievous grin, then she kisses Lucy's pout. Once. Twice. Three times. Until Lucy is giggling. God, they are those people. "Ok. Your turn to ask a question. Make it a good one, we have five minutes."
Lucy doesn't have to think. She knows the question she wants to ask. It's on the tip of her tongue, has been this entire time. Even more now that Kate is looking at her like Lucy is everything she ever dreamed of and more.
"Will you m–" She freezes. Kate's eyes bulge and Lucy freezes. The words get stuck in her throat while she gapes at Kate like a fish. Faking a cough is the best she can do to swerve this situation. "Will you uh, will you go to, uh Disney with me?"
Kate's eyebrows furrow, "Will I… go to Disney?"
"Yes!" Lucy says, jumping off the chair. "We should go. You. Me. Micah. Has he been to Disney? It will be awesome. But like Disneyland, I don't think I want to go to Florida, you know…"
She knows she is blabbering, stalling, diverging, whatever you want to call it. She has just missed the perfect proposal opportunity and she kinda hates herself for it. But when Kate's eyes bulged, Lucy caught a glimpse of something in them, or, at least, she thinks she did. Panic. And if Kate realized where Lucy was headed and she panicked… That couldn't be a good sign, could it?
×××××
Just like that, the other four almost-proposals were all tainted by that one split second of panic. Every single time Lucy would freeze before the words even began to leave her mouth. It was pitiful and even Micah seemed to think so. The boy kept looking at her with wide and expectant eyes everytime the three of them were together as if the mere existence of his big brown eyes would spring her into action.
"Mama, don't you just loooooove Mommy?" He asks, rather unpretentiously, on a Saturday afternoon after Kate brought them both ice cream.
"I do," Lucy says, not catching onto what Micah had in store in that little, sometimes twisted, brain of his.
"I'm so happy I get to spend the rest of my life with her," Lucy almost drops her ice cream at that, eyes furtively darting over to Kate, who seemed as red as Lucy feels. "Aren't you?"
Kate's tomato face and the lack of a " oh my precious baby " comment, confirms to Lucy that the other woman really did catch Lucy's intention the other day and has probably been panicking ever since. When Kate's eyes move to Lucy, the brunette quickly looks away, focusing on her ice cream like it holds the answer to the universe's biggest mysteries.
FUUUUUUUCK.
Two days later, Lucy decides to confront Kate. Well, confront seems a little too extreme for what she has planned. She simply wants to ask some well intentioned questions and see how Kate responds.
That's how she ends up on almost-proposal number seven.
They meet at the docks after dinner like they usually do every Monday and Thursday, days when neither of them are on playtime duty. The sight of Kate glowing in the moonlight is a sight everyone deserves to witness at least once in their lifetime. She looks like what Lucy pictures Artemis’ warriors to look like: breathtaking, striking, fierce, free and everything in between. It makes her forget about anything that isn't here and now.
“What?” Kate asks when Lucy sits in the empty spot beside her.
“You're the most stunning woman I've ever seen,” The compliment falls effortlessly from her lips and it could've easily been followed by a 'and I want to spend the rest of my life with you'. Lucy wanted it to. She wanted it so bad, she felt like it was going to rip her from the inside out. But almost immediately after the first sentence is out of her mouth, Kate's lips are on hers, and afterwards, let's just say Lucy wasn't left with a lot of free time to think about proposals.
Kate's summer has been hell. It had nothing to do with camp or kids or classes and everything to do with herself being a chicken and not popping the question.
The chances were all there. Several occasions where Lucy is being so Lucy that the words almost fly out of Kate's mouth unintentionally. Why hasn't she asked then? Well, first it was the nerves. Every time she looked at Lucy the butterflies in her stomach went into a frenzy and she ended up swallowing the words without even a hint of them escaping. It annoyed her more than anything. She has braved judges that were a lawyer's worst nightmare, she has survived losing her brother and her sister-in-law at the same time and raising their baby on her own at 26 years-old, she has survived the falling out with her parents, her baby's first flu, anxiety crisis and several trips to the hospital. She has braved through so much, but somehow can't manage a single proposal to a woman she logically knows is more likely to say yes than no?
God, she feels so stupid!
Then, during the very first week of camp, things shifted.
Their silly twenty questions game was all good fun until Lucy’s entire posture changed. Kate didn’t understand it at first, but all it took was one look at her girlfriend’s face for her to just know. Her face must’ve shown her shock and slight panic because Lucy changed the topic of conversation with a nervous laugh and something about Disneyland. At that point Kate was too far gone into her thoughts to pay too much attention to the blabbering.
Lucy was going to propose.
Shit.
While it should make her happy to know that Lucy wants to propose – as that meant she would definitely say yes to Kate, she is now terrified Lucy is gonna do it first. So instead of focusing on planning her proposal, Kate is busy trying to stop Lucy’s.
“Uh, but if you are having trouble proposing and you know Lucy wants to propose… Why don’t you just let her do it?” Jane asks one afternoon while they sit together with Heather and Carla, who both nod as if what Jane is asking is extremely pertinent and not at all obvious.
“Because I wanna do it!”
“But you just said you keep losing the words…” Heather pitches in unhelpfully.
Kate only grunts. She knows they are right. She should let Lucy do it, but she has already taken so much initiative in their relationship; Kate doesn’t want it to look like she is just sitting on her ass while her girl does all the heavy lifting — though she would love to sit down and watch Lucy lift things… Not the moment! Either way, Lucy deserves someone who takes initiative and isn’t scared to show the world they love her. Kate wants to be that someone.
“Well, I think you should just do it,” Jane says.
“Thank you, Micah. That was very helpful.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, just so you know.”
Kate rolls her eyes.
“You should stop overthinking,” Carla says, speaking for the first time since Kate’s unprompted rant. She pats Kate’s arm in a comforting way, “Stop looking for the perfect moment and make a moment perfect.”
The other three women probably have the same awed expression because Carla rolls her eyes.
“What? I can give good advice too.”
“Undoubtedly,” Kate says at the same time Heather mutters, “Shocking.”
All of them laugh, but Carla’s words resonate deeply with Kate. All her life she strived towards perfection. Perfect daughter, perfect grades, perfect record, perfect lawyer, perfect mother, but if there's something that Lucy has been teaching her is that, sometimes, it's okay to just exist. It's okay not to make her bed first thing in the morning, or eat pizza for breakfast every once in a while. The world wouldn't end. It's okay if doesn’t overexert herself at work every day in order to take some time to herself. Work would still be there in the morning. It's okay to be tired and want some time for herself – just herself. It's okay to drop Micah off at Betty's for a night or an afternoon just because she needs a break, whether it may be to sleep, or to have some alone time with Lucy. Micah would still be there the next day. It's okay if she isn't in the mood to dress up, or to cook, or to go out on a date, or to have sex. Lucy would still be there in the morning. None of those things made her any less worthy.
Maybe Carla is right. Maybe for this proposal thing to work she has to learn how to lean into the moment and try not to force perfection. Maybe it should be just as simple as Micah's "get down on one knee and ask 'will you marry me?'"
“Jokes aside, I agree with Carla,” Jane says after a while. “I mean, Cole proposed before I even had coffee in my system and, somehow, I still said yes.”
“See!” Carla exclaims, happy to see her point being corroborated. “Just dive in.”
Just dive in. Sounds simple enough.
×××××
It's not simple enough. She doesn’t know how Lucy is getting the courage to almost propose to her several times. Yesterday, they were playing tag with some kids and Lucy just looked at her like she would drop to her knee right there on the clearing. With kids around! Kate couldn’t even muster the courage to do it in the safety of their cabin. God, maybe she should let Lucy do it.
She is considering that very same possibility when Micah opens his big mouth.
"Mama, don't you just loooooove Mommy?" Kate freezes. She knows this kid well enough to know that when he elongates his vowels that hard, nothing good follows.
“I do,” Lucy says, blissfully unaware.
"I'm so happy I get to spend the rest of my life with her," There you have it. "Aren't you?"
Kate watches Lucy almost drop her ice cream cone while her face begins to burn. Lucy’s eyes dart towards Kate, who quickly looks away. At that moment she is certain of two things: If there was any doubt left in Kate’s mind that Lucy is trying to propose, that doubt is gone, and Micah is a little sneaky traitor.
Later that day, she follows him out of his music lesson.
“How long have you known?” Kate asks, almost scaring an unsuspecting Micah to death.
"Known what?" He asks a second after he tries to murder her with his eyes. Funnily enough, that’s when it hits her how much older he looks, not in a bad way, just… he doesn't quite look like a baby anymore. He's a full grown kid. It makes her want to cry a little bit.
“About the proposal,” Kate says after clearing her throat.
“Since you asked me to help you pick a ring?”
“I'm not talking about my proposal. Lucy's.”
Micah's eyes bulging tells her everything she needs to know. Kate sees a mix of at least five emotions go through his face; happiness, nervousness, hope, excitement, confusion.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” He says lastly, trying to school his face in a way that reminds Kate of herself, except he hasn't come near mastering it yet.
“You little traitor… That’s why you wanted my ring size!” Kate realizes now that believing Micah wanted her ring size just for comparison when they were ring shopping for Lucy was incredibly naive of her.
Micah hesitates, considers his choice, then in one breath he says "I plead the fifth" then bolts.
Kate would chase him if she wasn’t so stunned and proud of the advocacy reference.
×××××
A few days later, after stopping at least three possible proposals from Lucy, there was progress! Kate is very pleased with herself for being able to muster the word ‘will’ out of her mouth — what came after it doesn’t matter right now, what matters is that one word at a time, she is getting there.
My moms are dumb. That’s the first thing Micah thinks of when he witnesses a couple of failed proposals coming from both of his moms. It makes him sad because he knows they are actually very smart.
Mom (Kate) is very good with English and always helps him with his homework. She paints beautiful pictures of dinosaurs for him to hang on his wall. She taught him how to speak, how to run, how to ride a bike and how to surf! She is very brave and she is not afraid of anything — except spiders. She also helps kids that need new parents like he once did! It makes him really happy to hear the stories she tells him at the end of the day, and he hopes those kids get to be as happy as he is with their new parents.
Ma (Lucy) went to the Olympics! Micah isn’t entirely sure of why this is different from all the other competitions, but everyone seems to think it is, so yey Ma! She can jump really really high and her kick is very strong. She is also very good with numbers, which impressed Mom quite a bit, and has been helping Micah with his math homework since. Like Mom, she is also very brave because when her knee hurts, she doesn’t cry like Micah does when he scrapes his. Plus, she isn’t scared of spiders.
They are so smart, so Micah really can’t understand why they are acting so dumb around each other.
“My mom said love makes us dumb sometimes,” His friend Arthur said when Micah told him what was happening.
“So will they just keep being dumb?” Micah asks, considering his friend's words. He doesn’t want them to stop being in love. Arthur just shrugs. “I can’t let that happen.”
Ever since that conversation Micah has been trying to push them into saying the magic words: Will you marry me? But all his attempts have fallen flat, much like his mothers’ proposals.
On the fourth week of camp, Micah simply cannot do this anymore. He must take matters into his own hand.
“Uncle C! Auntie Janie! I need your help,” He says one night during playtime.
Let the foolproof plan begin!
Kate is sabotaging her on purpose. Lucy has never been more sure of anything in her life. Every single proposal attempt gets interrupted somehow, and she has to give it to the woman; she’s getting creative. At first it was kisses and make out sessions – something Lucy would never complain about, then when it happened in broad daylight it was an imaginary kid calling her name, or her bumping her feet in a fallen tree trunk and the last time it happened she pretended to swallow a bug. Lucy would have to be another level of dumb to not realize something was amiss.
At first, that made her sad as she thought Kate simply did not want to get married, or at least not right now. But then, when she went to interrogate Micah about it, she overheard a conversation between the two of them about how Kate was a ‘dumdum’ (Micah’s word) for still not proposing. After that, everything clicked. Kate kept interrupting Lucy because she wanted to be the one to propose, but was apparently finding it just as hard as Lucy.
She had a laughing fit after finding that out, because of course they are going to turn a proposal into a competition. Lucy was competitive by nature, not only raised in an environment that encouraged that, but also settling into a highly competitive career, and Kate… Well, Kate was a lawyer and Lucy already had the (un)pleasure of seeing her after losing a case. That woman doesn’t rest until the odds are all in her favor.
Part of her wants to let Kate do it, see how she’ll master the courage to do it, what she’ll say, what her face will look like while saying the words Lucy so desperately wants to say herself. But at the same time, Lucy has never dreamt of being proposed to when she was little. She always dreamt of doing the proposing, of getting down on one knee and uttering her love to the most beautiful woman in the world.
Truth is, judging by her incredible ability to choke on her own words, it’s anyone’s game. If Lucy wants to win, she’ll have to put on her big girl pants and get creative. She either surprises Kate or dies trying.
Kate doesn’t know what’s going on, but she feels like something is going on.
It’s all the small things that she probably would’ve brushed off if it wasn’t for how they were seemingly piling up on top of each other. Kids whispering when she walked by, hiding whatever was on display on tables, changing the topic of the conversation brusquely and scurrying away when she approached. Ever since she began noticing these things, she’s been searching her brain for something she could’ve done to grant such a response, but she found nothing so far.
“Are kids acting weird around you?” She asks Cole at lunch.
“Kids are always weird, so yes.”
“No, like… avoiding you,” But the moment she said it she knew it wasn’t it. They weren’t avoiding her. Not really. They act normal around her more often than not, it’s more like… “It feels like they are hiding something?”
Cole freezes, a sandwich halfway from their mouth, “Capture the Flag is two weeks away. I think a little weirdness and avoidance is normal,” Okay. Logically, that makes sense. “Especially after what Ernie pulled last year.”
A feeling of pride makes Kate momentarily forget what this conversation was originally about. She still can’t believe her baby boy won the battle during his very first camp at five years old.
“Do you think they are going to win again this year?”
“Oh, hell no!” Cole exclaims louder than necessary. “I am not losing to babies again!”
Kate only chuckles and pats their back.
It isn’t until her first class the next day, that the tingling sensation that something is happening creeps back in.
During said class, a little girl, Lottie, calls out to her, "Miss Kate?"
"Yes, honey. How can I help?" She smiles at the girl fondly. She is one of her best students. From the first time Kate saw her holding a brush, she knew she had a mini artist on her hands.
"What is your favorite flower?" The question is definitely not what Kate was expecting, but I guess it tracks since today's prompt was favorites.
"Sunflowers," She answers without having to think. "I like how they always follow the sun."
Lottie smiles at her, "I'll paint you a sunflower!"
Then somehow, the entire class ended up painting her sunflowers. It was cute. Adorable even, and it wouldn't have been weird if every other class she taught that week hadn't ended up in a similar fashion: with her showered in a bunch of sunflower paintings, but alas…
She told Lucy about it at the end of the week, but her girlfriend is infuriating with her lack of detective skills sometimes.
“They painted you sunflowers!” She melts, then pouts. “No one has ever painted me a sunflower. I think I might be in the wrong business.”
"You really don't think it's weird that all my classes painted me sunflowers?"
Lucy shrugs, "Maybe yes, or maybe they are all just the teacher's pet."
Kate responds by throwing a pillow at Lucy's face. But the next day, when Kate has some time off from classes and overseeing duty, she paints a tiny sunflower on canvas and gives it to Lucy at the end of the day. She almost follows it with a proposal, but Lucy interrupts her, kissing her senseless before she’s able to.
×××××
“Mommy, I feel weird,” That is the last thing she needed to hear today. After two failed attempts of proposing to Lucy and a crushing headache looming over her head, Micah getting sick really could've waited another day.
Still, that’s her baby, so Kate crouches down in front of him. She places a hand on his forehead, glad to not feel it hot under her palm, “What’s wrong, baby?”
“I don’t know, but my tummy hurts,” He throws himself into Kate’s arms, clutching to her like a koala.
“Did you eat lots of candies?” She asks, knowing very well that the little party Jesse randomly decided to throw to celebrate the kids whose birthdays were in June and July went a little overboard with all the food and sugary drinks.
“Yeah,” Kate can't help but chuckle at the honesty. “Can I stay with you and Mama tonight? Please?”
His words are muffled by Kate's neck. How can she say no to that little voice?
“Sure. Let’s find Mama and get ready for bed.”
“Glad to see you’re feeling better already,” Lucy says at the sight of Micah filling his plate with bread, cake, malasadas and eggs after he spent the previous night whining about his stomach.
“So am I!” He says happily, moving to pick up another slice of cheese.
Lucy watches in awe as he jogs to his cabin’s table and shoves an entire malasada into his mouth. She is glad Kate isn’t around to see that because she’d definitely use big words like epigenetics to blame this on Lucy somehow.
Shaking her head, she walks to her own table. Her thoughts veering into another direction. Micah hasn't gotten sick a lot during the year she has known him. A bug that lasted for a week or so and an earache somewhere along the way, but she had noticed things on both of those occasions. Things about how Micah acted when he was feeling off. One, he was clingy, pretty much attached to Kate’s hip the entire time; Two, that kid had a flair for the dramatics and would turn the smallest inconveniences into a tantrum; Three, when that bug made him sick, he refused to eat anything else for the rest of the day afraid his tummy would hurt again.
Maybe she is overthinking it, or maybe it’s because she, herself faked being sick way too many times growing up and is able to catch the telltale signs more clearly, but she can’t shake the feeling that last night was just a ruse.
“Why would he fake being sick, Luce?” Kate asked when she brought it up later. “If he wanted to sleep with us, he could’ve just asked like he always does.”
Kate did have a point, she still can’t shake the feeling that something is off and Kate’s claim that the energy of the camp is different is starting to make sense.
×××××
“Luuuuuuuuuuce,” Jesse calls, running after her. It’s 10AM, but he already looks disheveled. Like he’d been battling three kids who didn’t want to go to bed. “I need a super huge favor.”
“Sure.” She was overseeing lake time with Kai, Jane and Ernie. Anything that pulled her out of her misery would be welcomed with open arms.
“Can you drive into town and get some balloons?” Of all the emergencies crossing Lucy’s mind, it’s safe to say lack of balloons wasn’t one of them.
“Balloons?” She repeats just to make sure her ears aren’t playing tricks on her.
“Yes! Pink, Red, Orange and White.” He says reading from a small list scribbled on his hand. “Different hues for each if possible.”
“Different hues?” She repeats again, this time out of amusement. Given his fashion sense, Lucy had no idea Jesse knew what hues meant.
“I don’t know, man. Heather wrote it,” That would explain. “Can you get them or not?”
Lucy chuckles, “Yeah, sure. I can get you your balloons.”
“You are the best!” He says, engulfing her in a hug before tossing her his car keys. “Here. Take my car.”
×××××
“Shit. Shit. Shit!” Lucy curses. Where the fuck did she leave it?
Lucy knew that walking around with an engagement ring in her pocket was a bad idea… but she has been so careful! Always patting her trousers to make sure it was still there and always gently placing it back in its case at the end of another day of failed proposals. She is so sure she left it nestled between her shirts last night, and she didn’t take it with her this morning since she was overseeing lake time. Then she spent the entire afternoon looking for Jesse’s goddamn balloons.
A wave of panic starts to surface. She couldn’t have lost it. Or worse. Kate couldn’t have found it. Could she?
Oh, God. No. No. No.
She is seconds away from a ugly cry when Kate reappears from the bathroom, her eyebrows furrowing immediately.
“What happened?” Kate asks.
“N-nothing,” It sounds fake even to her ears. “Just feeling weird.”
Kate’s brows furrow further, “Do you need to go to the infirmary?”
“No. No. I’m alright. Don’t worry,” She pauses. Here goes to nothing, “Did you uh– did you happen to find something?”
Kate looks at her, head tilting sideways and lips pursing like a puppy, "No?"
"Are you asking or stating?" A weak smile comes to Lucy's lips at the memory of their very first interaction. At that moment she decides she hasn't lost the ring, she has merely misplaced it. She'll find it. She will. She just has to take a breath and retrace her steps.
"Neither," Kate answers. "Are you sure–"
A knock on the door startles both of them.
"Emergency meeting at the pavilion at five," Jesse voice warns them as if Lucy's personal emergency wasn't enough.
They stare at each other, both wearing similar worried expressions. It's too early in the week to be the annual Capture the Flag meeting, and Jesse wouldn't consider that an emergency.
"Are you ok to go?" Kate asks gently.
"Yeah. C'mon," Lucy says, because what else can she do.
The walk to the pavilion is quiet. If Lucy wasn't so busy trying to come up with places she could've left the ring, she would’ve realized that it was too quiet. Not just between the two women, but the entire camp.
Kate's hand squeezes her arm as she comes to a halt, the sudden lack of movement breaks Lucy out of her thoughts. She looks up and has to blink a couple of times, her brain having a hard time processing what is in front of her.
The pavilion is empty with the exception of Micah standing on the podium with his hand behind his back and a nervous smile on his lips. The entire place is lit by twinkling fairy lights, on the side of the benches there are several drawings of sunflowers glued together as if they were forming little bouquets, and above Micah’s head is an archway made of pink, orange and white balloons – with different shades of each. Lucy wants to laugh, so that’s what the balloons were for.
"Hi," Micah says. "Can you guys come here?"
Micah’s so so so so nervous. He didn’t think he would get this nervous, I mean, those were his Mommies, but he felt his little body shake in anticipation. He almost wants to cry, but he remembers what his Mama told him about controlling his breath and tethering himself to things he can see and/or feel.
I see Mama, Mommy, the benches, the sunflower drawings… I feel my heart, the wind, the little boxes in my hands…
It does help make him feel calmer. He’s still worried they won’t like it though, or that they will get mad at him.
“What’s going on?” Mom asks when she stops right in front of him. She doesn’t sound mad, but still, Micah stutters a bit.
"I– We– Well… You two love each other very much and I know that's why you two have been acting dumb this summer," His mom scoffs at that. He has a feeling she wouldn’t appreciate that particular comment, but he continues, “But some of us, well, me, got impatient because at the rate you two were going, you wouldn’t get married before I’m thirty.”
He sees both of their mouths open in shock. They look very funny.
His Ma starts shaking her head, but he stops her before she can protest, “What? I know you two know you were both trying to propose. I’m a double agent, remember?”
Mom and Ma look at each other, both of their faces looking very red, but when their eyes meet they begin to laugh. It makes Micah very happy, this means it’s working!
Then he realizes something very important is missing.
"Oh! Before we start. Here," He extends his arms, a red velvet box in each hand. It would be so much cooler if they were dinosaur boxes…
Ma squeals, "Where did— How did— Ohh, you were actually faking it you little sneaky human."
Micah shrugs. Means to an end , Uncle E had said when he suggested it. He even gave Micah a tiny flashlight to rummage through his mothers’ things in the middle of the night. He felt like a spy, it was super cool.
The sunflowers were Auntie Jane’s idea and Auntie Heather suggested the balloons with Uncle Kai pitching in the colors. Some kids helped decorating and Uncle Jesse was the mediator.
“It was a group effort,” Micah says eventually.
Both of his Moms still look a bit red and shocked, but he continues.
“Auntie Jane explained to me that this isn’t as simple as I thought it was and that it was normal to be nervous, but she also said a little push wouldn’t hurt. So we all came up with this! The perfect proposal moment, so you two can now stop second guessing yourselves." Mom looks over at Ma, smiling sheepishly at her. "I know the future is scary, but it’s okay. It’ll still be just the three of us! Well, four of us, Piffles counts too.”
Neither of them says anything for what seems like forever. They just stare at him, Micah can't read their expressions so he starts to get nervous again.
Then the worst thing happens. His Mom starts crying.
The only time he has seen his Mom cry was during Noah’s, his bio dad, birthday when she was very sad and missing him. Micah’s own eyes bulge, welling up with tears, but before he starts crying too, Mom pulls him into her arms.
“I love you so much,” She whispers into his ear. He squeezes her as tightly as he can, shoving his face into the crook of her neck. He feels Mom pull Ma into the hug as well and now he’s being sandwiched between his two favorite people. “I can’t believe you set us up.”
“Are you mad?” He whispers after a while.
“At you? No. At myself for needing my six year old to be my wingman? Maybe.” He feels Ma laughing, then he starts laughing too. “I don’t know what you’re laughing about, Miss I-Also-Failed-To-Propose.”
“I only failed because you kept sabotaging me!” She argues.
“Well, yeah! I wanted to do it first!”
“Yeah? How did that work?”
Micah is pretty sure that if he still wasn’t being sandwiched, Mom would’ve called Ma an asshole.
“I was getting there, ok?”
When they finally let go of each other, his Moms keep smiling at each other in that mushy, weird way they always do.
“Alright!” Micah says, “Who is doing it then?”
“You do it,” They both say at the same time. They laugh, then add “I’ll do it.”
Micah has to fight the urge to roll his eyes.
“I’ll do it,” He clears his throat and squares his shoulders, he has seen a lot of weddings on TV. He can do this. “Lucy, Kate loves you very very much, so will you make her the happiest woman and marry her?”
“I will,” She answers easily and Mom lets out a cute giggle.
Micah nudges Lucy with his foot, “The ring!”
“Right!” She turns away from him to open the box and pulls the ring out, before closing the box back up.
He watches in delight as she nervously places the ring on Mom’s finger. It's finally happening!
“It’s a flower,” She whispers to Mom who still hasn’t looked at the ring. Mom has a silly smile on still tear-streaked face, and it kinda makes Micah want to cry. She looks so happy. “I thought it would be fitting.”
When Mom’s eyes finally move from Ma’s face to the ring, her eyes soften, “It’s perfect.”
They look entranced by each other, so Micah has to clear his throat twice to get their attention.
“Moving on," He says, earning some laughter from his Moms. “Kate, Lucy loves you very very much, so will you make her the happiest woman and marry her?”
“I will,” She picks up the ring from her own box, placing it gently on Ma's finger. “It’s a leaf, I thought it would be fitting.”
Now Micah is the one who can hold back his giggle. He still can't believe they both chose a camp related ring without him needing to steer them towards it.
“You may kiss the bride!”
“Not how that works, kid,” Mom says at the same time Ma says, “We’re still in the proposal, kid.”
He ignores them.
“Go on, kiss. I’ll look away,” He does what he says he will. He hears them murmuring something to each other then laughing.
They are cute , he thinks.
He yelps when Ma wraps her arms around his middle and lifts him up, covering his cheek with kisses.
“I love you, you little mastermind.”
“I love you too, Mama.”
“Did you happen to open the ring boxes earlier?”
“Nope.”
“Good,” She says, she places Micah back on the podium and looks at him. “I’m marrying your Mom, but you two are a package deal. A great one, if I may add. So I thought, you deserved something nice too.”
“What do you mean?” He asks, very confused.
Ma opens her ring box again and pulls another ring out of it, a tiny one this time, and hands it to him.
“AAAAAAAAAAAA,” Micah screams. He jumps up and down, unable to contain his joy. “A dinosaur ring!”
Both of his Moms are laughing as he throws himself in Ma’s arms, “I love it. I love it. I love it.”
“I had a feeling you would,” She says, kissing the side of his head.
Suddenly, he is being sandwiched between the women again. He is so happy, he never wants today to end.
“Wait! I gotta let everyone know!” Micah jumps out of their arms and runs to the other side of the podium. He picks up a little walkie talkie his Uncle Jesse gave him. “Uncle Jesse, The Parent Trap mission was a success! Over.”
He runs back to his Moms, who are looking at him amusedly, and throws himself back into their arms. They have approximately thirty seconds before everyone swarms to the pavilion and get the party started.
“I’m so happy!” He squeals. “We'll have a big wedding and live together forever! And then, in a few years I can finally have a sibling!”
"WHAT?" His Moms say at the same time. They are both holding Micah at an arm’s length now.
"What?" Micah parrots, not understanding the reaction. Grown ups are so weird.