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They keep making eye contact from across the aisle. He doesn’t even mean to keep watching Caleb. He should be watching Fjord hold back happy tears or the back of Jester’s head bouncing excitedly from where she stands in front of him.
But Caleb is radiant too. He’s in a suit, for one, with his hair pulled back tightly in a ponytail that’s only grown longer in the last few months. There’s no worry or pain in his eyes today, no hunch to his shoulders as his mind turns over another complex problem.
Whenever Essek steals an unmet glance, Caleb is watching the ceremony with barely restrained affection. Essek’s nearly directly behind Jester, so he’s not even sure Caleb can see him. There’s no way that soft, gooey look is directed at him, right?
But Caleb keeps meeting his gaze. He is looking at him. In the middle of a wedding ceremony. Where the bride is someone he admittedly had unrequited feelings for at some point. Caleb loves him. Caleb loves him. There’s no other word for the look.
There’s just one feeling lingering in Essek’s stomach as the realization sinks in.
He wants this.
A wedding.
Not the big showy affair this is—he’s one of sixteen in the bridal party—but something small and elegant. Maybe just the Nein and Verin? It’s never occurred to him before that he could want something like this. It just seemed so absurd that he’d ever want to promise all of his possibilities to someone else. But he wants this level of commitment to Caleb, even if he has no idea if this is a promise he can even keep.
The next time their eyes meet, Essek tries to make the same face back. He’s not sure he succeeds—his face was a mask for so long that conveying his true feelings to people through his expressions feels like hard work. But Caleb gives him a warm smile and mouths ‘I love you’ back. Essek repeats the gesture, allowing even more honesty through. He might not have much of a future, with the Dynasty hot on his trail, but oh, does he want one exactly like this moment.
When he gets home, mildly drunk on champagne and slow dancing, he starts the first design of the ring.