NOVEL NEXT Chapter 72: Knick-knack
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Harry: Proposing was sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing for me.
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Friday, November 22nd, 2090, about 6:00 am MST, Montana City
Claire was halfway through brushing the tangles from her wet hair when she heard the gentle chime of the door. She didn't look up.
"Come in," she called.
Harry stepped in quietly, holding something in his palm.
"Busy?"
She glanced at him in the mirror, toothbrush clamped in her mouth. "Mmrh."
He waited patiently. When she was done, rinsed, and had settled into the process of drying her hair with a towel, he stepped closer.
"I got you something," he said.
"You shouldn't have," she told him. Their relative income wasn't easy to ignore when one valued giving gifts and one had to think to notice them. She hated making him feel unappreciated.
He looked very confident, though.
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"I told you after the stream that no one would ever call you 'ice queen' again. And it inspired me to do something I've meant to have done a while ago."
Claire raised an eyebrow, and Harry extended his hand.
Resting in the center of his palm was a silver ring—stylized, deliberate, with a bright orange jewel set into the band.
Her expression didn't change much, but her eyes softened.
"I didn't think I could get you a diamond. Neither of us would associate something clear and crystal with our love. Most other things look kind of plastic, though. Jasper, Calcedony,—plastic. Ruby—blood, not fire. You needed fire. This is a Citrine, the nicest one I could find."
It was very nice.
She took it, rolling the band between two fingers.
"No inscription?" she asked, almost teasing.
"There's a tiny one. Inside. Says: 'Ring.' Just in case you confuse it with the one from when I proposed."
"The other one was a doughnut. I'll never forget." She fingered her necklace, where a small sterling silver doughnut dangled.
Claire smiled up at him. She didn't feel even a little bit like an ice queen right now. "You didn't have to."
"I know. I wanted to. The ring is a symbol of dignity, and my love for you—you deserved to have both."
She nodded, then—after a moment—slipped it onto her finger.
It fit.
"I'm taken," she said, finally.
Harry grinned. "Damn straight."
She ran her finger over the surprisingly sizable crystal.
"Citrine isn't exactly an EXPENSIVE stone, and I didn't want to get you just a knick knack after the doughnut, so I got it carved..."
It was a roiling flame, spiralling up the side of the ring and wrapping around the broad gem's face, coming to three tiny peaks.
"Shush, it's not romantic to talk about how much it cost. Kiss me instead."
He did.