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Rebecca took great comfort in the certainty that she’d never marry again.
Single? That was fine by her; it wasn’t as if she wanted to get married.
Sleeping around? She was perfectly satisfied with that.
Coupled up? It took a great deal of the pressure off the relationship, knowing she wasn’t going to end up legally bound to the guy. She had no children of her own. No shared property beyond the two football teams which she owned alongside hundreds of minority owners. And she was out of the marital danger zone; Rupert had tormented any matrimonial urges right out of her.
If she really thought about it, it was clear that the utter dearth of pressure she felt in the marriage department was what made it possible to leap into the life she fell into with Ted and Keeley and Roy. She’d already set herself free from expectation. She could simply be. There was nothing to decide about anything. It was mostly a secret anyway, which felt exciting. The days spent in some combination of togetherness could keep going as long as it kept making sense. She’d genuinely gotten to a place where she knew she didn’t owe anyone anything she didn’t want to give, and that included her hand in marriage.
▦
Out at dinner one night, distracted by the crooked angle of the framed photograph above Ted’s head, Rebecca made a joke about how it made sense that she was especially bothered by it, considering she was the token straight person at the table.
“So you’ve said,” replied Keeley.
“Well, so sorry my material isn’t fresh enough for you,” Rebecca said, laughter in her voice.
“No, it’s just…are you really? Even with all this?”
Rebecca thought about it. It made her say less for the rest of the meal—not silent like something was wrong, but quiet enough to think. She loved the others’ queerness. She felt tender towards it; it made her feel safe. Ted had talked to her about it the most, in a string of lovely late-night rambles—how he hadn’t known, how there was the feeling not of something being wrong, but of something missing somewhere, and now that he better understood this part of himself he could take deeper breaths. Rebecca could feel how he was settled into his skin in a way he hadn’t been before. The last time he lived in England, the anxiety had been ever-present, and now it simply wasn’t there as much of the time. Sometimes she watched Ted and Roy together and felt waves of relief and adoration pouring from their bodies, capable of warming her up even from across the room.
She kissed Keeley sometimes, because their partners were together, because they were together. It felt nice, to a point, but until now Rebecca had never dwelled on the way she closed her mouth to deeper kisses, the way she angled her body away from Keeley and towards the men as if to preserve the sanctity of their friendship, the way she could attribute her arousal to a zillion inputs other than the perfect girl in her bed. Kissing Keeley made her squirmy, like all the effort to keep still and focused during hour three of a meeting but condensed into a single moment. She listened to that discomfort and kept shutting her mouth and angling away and moving on to something else.
They left the restaurant after an Irish coffee apiece and chocolate mousse split four ways (Rebecca resisted the urge to adjust the orientation of the picture frame on the way out). On the drive home, she told herself it might be interesting to experiment, next time she had the opportunity. She wanted to be around Keeley all the time; trying something she might not like wouldn’t change that.
Opportunity knocked within the hour. On the sofa in the TV room, she opened her mouth to Keeley’s kiss, and in flooded all the sensations she’d been dulling on her own behalf.
▦
Being with Keeley—really, truly, completely being with her—was a revelation. Of course, Keeley herself had been a revelation for the entirety of her existence, and for the entirety of their relationship—ever since she handed Rebecca a cactus and told her in so many words that she thought they ought to be friends. But now that Rebecca had space in her mind to comprehend wanting to be with Keeley, and now that she got to have precisely what she wanted? Well, Keeley was everything.
She was easy where Rebecca was difficult, and difficult where Rebecca was easy. They found many of the same things funny but Rebecca liked it nearly as much when Keeley had to explain something that had gone over her head, or when she could feign utter dismay at the references Keeley missed because she was too young. She was so small, but her size didn’t make Rebecca feel overgrown or clumsy. Rebecca felt strong, solid, compelled to wrap Keeley up in her arms and never let anything bad happen to her. Keeley made her laugh in big, honking, gasping-for-breath spells of complete and total hysteria. They loved each other completely.
Keeley moved in with her practically without trying. It was on some level intentional, the way all her things migrated to Rebecca’s house over the course of months, and very intentional when Keeley put her house on the market, but it had felt like a gradual slide. Roy had moved in with Ted and Henry. Rebecca’s house was close to Ted’s flat. It made sense that the four of them gravitated to the same part of town. It was a point of pride for Rebecca that Keeley slept well at her house, looked at home in every room, wasn’t shy about laying her things about and brightening up all the neutrals with color and texture and love.
For as long as this makes sense, she thought, as she often did, and hoped that meant it would never stop.
▦
Rebecca could pinpoint the exact moment the notion slammed into her with all the subtlety of The Gherkin. They were at a house party at Beard’s, all four of them, and Rebecca had gone to refill her drink and when she came back to the living room the song changed to something vaguely familiar, and though Rebecca couldn’t place exactly what it was she felt the notes rush through her entire circulatory system when Keeley started to dance.
I want to marry her.
She wanted to give Keeley all of her money, she wanted her to be taken care of forever, she wanted to say my wife eight times in a single conversation even if it was gauche to be smug about such things, she wanted to hear herself referred to as Keeley’s wife. She thought she might even want to hyphenate. Goddamn.
▦
The café was packed with people avoiding the cold rain, and Rebecca and Sassy were part of a long and winding queue. They got through most of their catching-up well before placing their orders—Sassy’s househunt, her new and annoyingly sanctimonious colleague, Nora’s studies, Nora’s metal band, and a quick update from Rebecca on the dating dramas amongst the women’s team because Sassy always demanded the latest. They hardly had any time at all before they’d be up to the barista when Rebecca slipped in the little tidbit about being ready to propose.
Sassy squealed so loudly that multiple people looked up. Rebecca blushed practically on instinct, but she didn’t really care. She pulled her bag open wide, jostling it to reveal the ring box.
“You’ve been carrying it around with you?” Sassy exclaimed. “Aren’t you afraid she’ll find it?”
Rebecca shrugged. “It’s usually closer to the bottom of my bag.” She paused, glowered at her oldest friend, and grinned. “And believe it or not, we have boundaries. She wouldn’t paw through my purse without me knowing.”
It wouldn’t be the end of the world if Keeley found the ring, Rebecca thought. She was already well aware that Rebecca didn’t ever want to let her go. She’d want to know if the boys knew she was proposing, and she might have to think a little bit about her own relationship to marriage before rushing into a yes. But there wasn’t a reality in which Rebecca proposing could result in the end of their relationship.
“Ted’s not going to think you’re proposing to him, are you?” Sassy smirked, clearly amused by what a disaster that would be.
“No,” Rebecca said, not particularly patiently. “We’re—” She struggled, sometimes, to articulate the nuances without feeling silly and awkward about it. “Everyone’s on the same page. Well, hopefully Keeley will be. As soon as she’s caught up.”
“Secret scandalous polycule for life,” Sassy confirmed. “Now with high-society lesbian nuptials.”
“Right,” Rebecca said. “I mean—no, just—” She groaned. “You know what, fuck you,” she giggled as Sassy dissolved into giggles of her own.
“Could I see it?” Sassy murmured when she’d recovered, clearly making more of an effort to be quiet.
Rebecca appreciated the attempt at discretion. She fished for the little box she'd already let fall back down into the depths of her purse, smiling the second her fingertips hit velvet. The moment she brought it out, popping the box open in one motion, the woman behind them in line gasped, nudging her friend with her shoulder.
“Not a proposal,” Sassy said. “Move along, people.”
Suddenly Rebecca felt vulnerable, letting Sassy look at the ring. She hadn’t even let Ted and Roy see it yet. The ring was a narrow gold band, set with four small diamonds nestled around an emerald. She’d looked and looked, in shops, online, and rabbit-holed deep in the world of vintage jewelry on her quest to choose the perfect thing. This ring she ultimately chose was vintage. It had an unknown history, but it had surely signified love on at least one other person’s finger. At first, Rebecca had thought she wanted something made new, something for Keeley only. But in the end she was glad she was able to find something with some history. The ring had been migrating from purse to purse for a few weeks now, waiting to be offered as soon as she could find the words.
“It’s gorgeous, Stinks.” There was a reverence in Sassy’s voice that hadn’t been there before, and then the barista was ready to take their orders.
▦
“What a fucking rockstar!” Keeley yelled on the way out of Nora’s show.
“Right?” Rebecca said. “She was magnificent.”
They’d received sweaty hugs from Nora at the end of the band’s first-ever London set, then left her in all of her youthful euphoria to watch the other bands with her friends. Both the men’s and women’s teams had matches in the morning; Ted and Roy were probably already asleep.
It felt stark, how quickly the street grew quiet now that they were out of the cacophony of the dank little club. It felt as if Keeley wanted to say something; she kept looking at her and back down at the ground. It made Rebecca nervous. And then it was as if her hand was moving of its own accord—plunging into her purse and through the assortment of things she carried with her, a gum wrapper, the toy soldier, an origami crane Henry had made her. Fishing for the little velvet box that held her future inside it. She pulled it out in full view of Keeley, who immediately gasped. There was no one else on that stretch of sidewalk, although she could still hear the laughter of the crowd clustered outside the venue. She felt the fierce chill of the night, the glow from the street lamps, the dark winding around them as they got further from the noise.
Rebecca’s hand shook. She continued to clutch the velvet box.
“Keeley, I—” She swallowed. “I love you.”
Rebecca’s vision blurred as Keeley’s eyes filled with tears. “I love you too,” she said, a peal of laughter burbling out. She kept her eyes on the box in Rebecca’s hand as she stuck a hand past the neckline of her dress, plunging into the front of her bra. When she withdrew her hand, there was a ring pinched between her thumb and forefinger, slim and gold, stones glinting. “I told the guys I absolutely had to do this before we got home tonight.” Her voice quivered. “Because otherwise you might undress me and find it yourself.”
“Oh my god.”
“Yeah. God. So are you gonna ask me? I’ll say yes.”
“Will you marry me?”
“Course I will. How about you?”
“Course I will.”
The next few streets were a blur—kisses, cool gold sliding onto Keeley’s ring finger, warm gold sliding onto Rebecca’s, the yes of the engagement doubling and tripling and quadrupling and multiplying endlessly between them, a blurry selfie with their hands held front-and-center in the frame. When they made it back to the car, Rebecca turned the music up as noisy as Nora’s show had been. She couldn’t bear anything quiet while her heart was beating so loud.