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A whirlwind of a year had gone by, and here they were living yet another autumn.
It was Nathalie’s favorite season. He knew that now, and so many more things about her he never would have guessed. She liked the color green, because of Adrien’s eyes. She was a cat person. Her shampoo smelled like strawberries. She liked bagels, but only the one kind from that one specific bakery if they had made them fresh. She liked it when he came up behind her and ran his hands down her sides and kissed her ear and called her beautiful. A goddess, because that’s what she was.
He wanted to propose this fall, and for it to be a casual affair. He had painstakingly chosen a ring, which he kept tucked into his jacket pocket in case of a perfect opportunity. He wasn’t sure why, but he had a strange fear of losing it. Perhaps it was the absence of other, equally magical jewelry he had once possessed that taught him the behavior. He had been able to get over that with time, but now he was afraid of losing something else.
Some one else.
What if she didn't actually want to marry him?
The door to the mansion banged open and Adrien lumbered into the foyer where he stood, bearing the weight of an enormous orange gourd wider than he was. “Look at how big this pumpkin is!” He was grinning from ear to ear.
The corner of Gabriel’s mouth quirked up at his son’s obvious excitement as Adrien staggered away towards the kitchen, and he turned toward the woman who was just closing the door in wake of the passionate pumpkin peddler. It didn’t quite latch, but that was not what he was focused on.
His heart leapt. Should he do it now?
“Hello, my lovely,” he said, pressing a kiss to her hair. “I have something to ask you.”
She smiled. “Just a minute. I have to go make sure Adrien doesn’t stab himself when he tries to go cut open that pumpkin.” She squeezed his hand and bustled off to the kitchen.
Ah, well. The atmosphere wasn’t right, anyhow. Gabriel sighed and his hand went to pat his pocket where he held his treasure, but there was no hard little diamond-shaped lump. Panic dropped into his stomach and he dug his fingers into it, searching, and they came out the bottom.
The sin of being an impeccably-dressed fashion designer with a hole in his pocket was too much to bear. He couldn’t believe it. However, there was another matter much more pressing: where was the ring?
He frantically scanned the foyer, but it was hard to spot against the shiny white marble floor.
I’m an absolute idiot, he thought to himself as he dropped to all fours and began searching on hands and knees.
The door to the dining room opened, and Nathalie walked back in.
“What are you doing?” She frowned, and he quickly stood up.
“Nothing. I lost…a button! Yes. A button,” he said, tucking his hands behind his back in an attempt at normality.
“Okay….I came to ask you, do you know if we have any bigger knives?”
“Kn-knives….?”
“For Adrien’s pumpkin. It’s proving to have a thick skin.”
“Uh. I don’t know. You could call the kitchen staff if you needed.” His eyes darted around, still searching for the lost piece.
“Sure,” She shrugged, and then narrowed her eyes. “Gabriel? Is there something wrong? Are you sick?” She went to reach for his forehead on impulse, but he jerked away.
“Nope! Nope. Just worried about my...lost button!” He stepped back and glanced at the floor again.
He saw it. It was directly next to her foot.
“Ooookay, then. I’ll just go.” She still seemed suspicious, but he couldn’t let her find out. As she spun around to leave, the toe of her shoe knocked into the ring and it skittered across the smooth floor, popping up when it hit the threshold, and rolled through the crack of the unlatched door.
Gabriel waited a painstaking extra second to make sure the door Nathalie had left through clicked closed before he ran.
He threw open the door just in time to watch it roll off the top step and ping, ping, ping, down the rest of the front staircase, accelerating with every bounce. A strangled sound left his throat as he rushed after it, taking the stairs in two’s and three’s. It skidded under the gate and he slammed his hand on the button, squeezing through before it was fully open.
Gabriel sprinted down the sidewalk, praying nobody would recognize him as he wove around the occasional gaggle of pedestrians in hot pursuit. The gem flashed in the sun as it rotated, and he was getting so close….
“A- ha!” He shouted as he slapped his foot down on it, preventing it from going any further. However, his momentum was too great and his body continued an extra step, slamming into a signpost. He staggered back with his hand to his face, groaning, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth.
He squinted. Two of Adrien’s giant face from the perfume advert wiggled into one image, seemingly laughing at him.
But at least he had stopped the ring, right?
He turned around just to see a pigeon take off with something in its beak.
“Nonononono…!” He gasped and lunged for it. It beat its wings harder to evade him, and once again he was running.
Luckily pigeons weren’t fast birds, but wings still outpaced legs. Gabriel was falling further and further behind. In desperation he stopped, breathing hard, pulled off his shoe, and threw it.
It was a surprisingly excellent throw, but a small target. The bird squawked at its near miss with the Identified Flying Footwear and let the ring drop from its beak. Gabriel took off again, albeit with a slightly lopsided gait. The ring was more important than the shoe.
Said band fell from the sky and bounced off a passing car windshield, a rearview mirror, a trunk, and rolled into the street with Gabriel close behind. Somebody laid on their horn and he looked up and jumped back as they whizzed by, briefly losing sight of his target. He reached the sidewalk on the other side and frantically looked around again.
No ring. But horrifyingly, there was a metal drainage cover close to where he had seen it headed.
“No, please no,” he breathed, and bent down to see if he could spot a glint of polished metal at the bottom. Nothing. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes.
“Ugh, what is this?” A young female voice caught his attention, and he lifted his head, because he recognized it.
Chloe Bourgeois and her little friend, the redhead, were standing a few meters away. She held a small circular object in between her thumb and forefinger and was eyeing it with disgust.
“Seriously, look at it, Sabrina. The gemstone is so ugly. My daddy would get me a better one if I asked!”
“Oh, I’m sure he would Chloe!”
“Oh, ugh! And it’s so small,” She said as she tried to put it on her finger and had to pry it off. “Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous!” She said, and before Gabriel could say anything flung it back into the street.
He blew past them without even stopping to critique her on her horrible taste.
“Who was that, Sabrina?”
“I don’t know, but he looked like he was in a hurry.”
He most certainly was. The sparkling ring wobbled and rolled and bounced and headed towards the stairs of a nearby metro station. Gabriel upped his pace.
“Excuse me. Pardon me. There’s a fashion emergency,” he muttered as he pushed past people standing on the train platform. The ring was still going.
A train came to a stop, and the crowd started to move. It ricocheted off scuffling shoes and he lost track of it for another frightening moment before he saw it jump the gap between the car and the platform just as the doors started to close.
“Not today!” He cried, and ducked into the train just in time. The doors closed on his pants leg and ripped the seam. He bent and scooped up his prize. Finally. Overwhelmingly relieved, he slipped it back into his pocket and tried to catch his breath.
He got off at the next stop and walked up out of the underground, near the river, a peaceful end to a harrowing journey. Reaching into his pants pocket, he pulled out his phone to call Gorilla to come get him.
Wait. Pocket. He had a hole in his breast pocket….where he had out of habit replaced the ring.
Ping, went happy metal on concrete as the ring hit the sidewalk, heading towards the water’s edge. Not again…! He dropped his phone and lunged for it, and it skipped over his fumbling fingers and plunged into the murky water.
Without a second thought, he dove in after it.
Gabriel staggered through the back door of the kitchen just as Adrien pulled the top off of the pumpkin with a triumphant exclamation.
He had heaved himself out of the river with the ring clenched tightly inside his fist, and retrieved his shattered phone to call the bodyguard to come fetch him. He was more exhausted than he had ever felt, but it had been worth it.
Two jaws dropped. Adrien’s hand, holding the pumpkin lid, was suspended midair.
“...Father?”
“ Gabriel?! Why are you soaking wet?”
He suddenly remembered he looked a sight, with his bloody lip, ripped pant leg, missing shoe, and the fact that he was drenched in river water.
Good luck explaining this one, Agreste.
At that moment the Gorilla came bellowing through the doorway, waving his arms, pursued by a tiny yellow-and-black insect buzzing around his head. Gabriel saw in his mind what was going to happen the split second before one of the man’s flailing arms smacked him across the back, hard enough to send him sprawling. In an involuntary reaction to steady himself, his clenched fist flew open. He watched in horrified fascination as the ring arced high into the air and fell down, down... into the belly of the freshly cored pumpkin.
“ Noo!” he yelled, and plunged his arm into the guts of the gourd in a frantic search, and some of it splashed out and landed on Nathalie’s sweater. Adrien’s eyes got an evil glint.
“Pumpkin guts fight!” he yelled, digging his hand into the cavern and hefted a handful of orange gloop.
“Adrien, no-”
“Adrien, yes !” He replied, and prepared to throw.
...Then stopped. “Oh, hey, what’s this?” From his goo pile he plucked the still sparkling diamond ring. “Nathalie, is this yours?”
She stared at it with wide eyes, and her cheeks began to pinken in realization as she glanced back at Gabriel. “N-no…”
Ah. His secret was out. Well, it was now or never. Gabriel removed his arm from the pumpkin and sunk tiredly to one knee, his heart racing, whether from the exercise or nerves he wasn’t sure.
“Nathalie. W-will you marry me?”
A very pregnant pause. His mind raced. She didn’t want to. He was a fool, and he looked one, too, soaked to the skin and splattered with gourd guts, kneeling on a kitchen floor….he hazarded a glance at her face.
Her eyes were shining.
“Ye--”
“ Woooooo!!!” Adrien shouted and pumped his fist.
“I-”
“ WOOOOO!!!! Yeah!!! You’re getting married!” He danced around the kitchen, laughing, and Gabriel stood up, unable to keep away the smile tugging at his lips at his son’s reaction.
“Adrien, the ring.”
“Right! The ring,” he said, and handed it to Nathalie. She slipped it on her finger and looked at it blushingly, even ornamented with pumpkin fibers as it was. Adrien bounced twice on the balls of his feet in glee, and without warning threw his arms around the two of them in a crushing hug, seemingly uncaring about Gabriel’s sopping jacket.
“I’m so happy,” he sighed, face buried in Nathalie’s sweater.
“Me, too,” Gabriel breathed as he stared into her beautiful eyes, brimming as they were with love and joy. He leaned in and kissed her tenderly, wishing to never forget this moment as long as he lived.
Gabriel’s original intention was to commemorate the time he first realized he was in love with her, one year ago, with something sweet, something fall, something Nathalie. But as he looked back and remembered the dirt on his knees and the leaf crumbles in his shoes, this seemed only fitting. Love was undignified and messy sometimes. And for the first time in his life, Gabriel couldn’t wait to go all in.