Chapter Text
“Jesus. What the hell is in here?” Knees bent, you drag Kyle’s rugby bag into the living room. “A body?”
Between deployments, Kyle joins Johnny in recreational rugby. It’s nothing serious. No stakes. Just a local club with local men wanting to play because they enjoy it.
You make it to the coffee table and promptly collapse, falling onto your butt, sweat crowning your forehead. Wiping it away, you unzip the duffle, pulling out an item at a time. Kyle talks about cleaning it out, organizing it, setting up a small space in the mudroom to hang everything, including his bag, so it isn’t on the floor.
Kyle isn’t here. You are.
It might take a while, and there are likely things in there that need to be trashed or cleaned, but it’ll be nice to have it done, to give Kyle his own rugby space when he heads out the door.
“Oh. That’s rank,” you groan, tossing aside clothes and several pairs of shoes that have probably been in there for longer than Kyle’s been gone. “Screw it,” you mutter, upending the bag.
Everything plummets to the floor. Clothes, shoes, water bottles, empty protein bar wrappers, two rugby balls needing a desperate inflation, and—thunk. Pausing, you lift the empty rugby bag, spotting a mesh, drawstring bag. It’s not vey big, maybe about the palm of your hand, but it’s odd. There isn’t anything you can think of that Kyle would need it for.
Placing the duffle bag beside you, you snag the mesh bag, loosening the drawstring to see inside. Hand delving, you find…velvet? Bringing the object into the light, you nearly drop the small box. The base is square, but the top is smooth and rounded.
You know what this is, but—
“Oh my God,” you murmur. “Oh. Oh no.”
Three years together, and you knew it was heading this way, but this is the last thing you were expecting to find.
“I shouldn’t open it,” you say, as you open the box.
Stunning. Perfect, even. Exactly what you would have picked for yourself if given the opportunity.
Shutting the lid, you place it on the coffee table, cover your mouth with your hands, and giggle.