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1.
As the proverb goes, there's a little bit of truth behind every joke. Lexi isn’t sure she totally believes this, but she tries her best not to think too hard about it as she lays in bed with Fezco one lazy morning.
“We should get married,” she blurts out in the middle of tracing patterns onto Fez’s back with her fingertips. Why or how is a mystery to her—the sentiment slips out before she can stop herself, completely out of the blue.
His back moves beneath her and he huffs out a chuckle. “Okay. I mean, yeah, I’m down. But where’d that come from?”
“I…am not sure, to be honest,” she admits. “Like, obviously not right this second. I’m kidding. But we could…hypothetically.”
He rolls over to face her, cocooned in cloudy white sheets. Lexi juts her lower lip out in a babyish pout when he obstructs her view of his freckled back. “Nah, don’t play with me. You know I wanna marry you.”
“I know,” she says. “I wanna marry you too.”
“Lex, what’s up?” Fezco smirks. “Are you doin’ that weird thing where you ask about one thing, but you really wanna talk about somethin' else?”
Her mouth drops open into a shocked expression and she shoves at his bare shoulder. “I do not do that!”
“Yes you fuckin’ do,” he teases. “You liar. Like that one time, when you started going off about our taxes, and what you really wanted was to ask me to do that thing with my tongue when I go down on-”
“Oh my god, fuck off!” Lexi squeals, giggling into the pillows. “That was one time!”
“Nah, cutie, you’ve done it a bunch.” The mattress dips next to her as Fez props himself up on his elbows, caging her in with his arms and lowering his lips to her collarbone. “But I still love you.”
She sticks her tongue out at him. “You’re asking for trouble.”
“Me? You’re the one who said we should get married out of fuckin’ nowehere, shorty.” Fez drags his lips from her left cheek to the middle of her forehead. “What’s going on in this big beautiful brain? You worried about something?”
“No,” she assures, shaking her head. “Sorry. It just sort of came out. Waking up next to you every day does things to me, I guess. I want to wake up to you for the rest of my life, that's all.”
He smiles at her, still a little groggy from the remnants of sleep. “You gonna have me whether we’re married or not, I promise you that,” he says. “But I am gonna make you my wife someday. I swear it.”
Lexi tilts her face up to kiss him, humming as the short hairs of his beard tickle her chin. “I just wanna do it right,” he continues. “No joke proposals, nothing half-assed.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What if I beat you to it first, Fez? Women can propose too, you know.”
“Yeah, but you think I’m gonna let you get down on one knee for me? That’s what I wanna be doing for you, baby.” He pauses, then looks off to the side in consideration. “But on second thought, if you wanna get down on your knees for me for other reasons-”
“Shut up, you pervert,” Lexi snickers. Fezco responds by gently attacking her face with kisses, crazed and eager, consumed by the morning light and his girlfriend’s shy laughter.
“Just you wait, Howard,” he says. “You’ll eat your words when it happens.”
Lexi was joking earlier, except she also kind of wasn’t. Not really.
2.
She’s got herself wrapped around him like a gift wrap ribbon, and he’s doing his very best to make a smoothie in peace.
“Can I have some?” Lexi asks, arms circled around his waist and her face nuzzled between his shoulder blades.
“Yes,” he answers. “Now let me make the damn thing before I throw your ass in the blender too.”
“Wow, rude,” she scoffs. “And very scary. Can’t a girl hug her boyfriend?”
Fez reaches for the chopped up chunks of strawberries and bananas on the cutting board, scraping them with a kitchen knife into the blender. He moves to grab the ice cube tray thawing out on the counter with Lexi still strapped to him like a seatbelt.
“You a big koala bear today, huh?” Fez sighs. “A man’s gotta move, Lex.”
“Too bad,” she grins wickedly. “You’re mine, and I feel like being annoying today. This is what you’re in for for the rest of our lives unless you get rid of me before then.”
He frowns, craning his neck over his shoulder to look at her. “Don’t joke about that. That ain’t happening.”
“Jeez, someone’s touchy today,” Lexi giggles. Gently, he pries her arms away from his middle and spins around to face her. He brings both of her hands up to his mouth and peppers kisses along her knuckles.
“Speakin’ of the rest of our lives, though,” he murmurs, “there is something I wanted to tell you, Lexi Howard.”
Her expression goes wide eyed and still, her dopey grin wiped clean from her face, as Fez lets go of one of her hands and slowly reaches into the pocket of his jeans. A clamminess sticks to her palms, and the sudden urge to scratch at them until she bleeds impatiently arises in her as she watches him fumble with his pocket.
“Fez, what are you-”
“Lexi,” he interjects. “Baby. Angel. Love of my absolute fuckin' life. Would you do me the honour of…”
The silence that settles in the air is enough to murder Lexi on the spot. Her heartbeat jackhammers inside her chest, threatening to shatter her bones like a fine china plate being tossed to the ground. And then, painstakingly, agonizing slowly—Fez pulls his hand out of his pocket.
Wordlessly, Fez reaches behind him without ever pulling his eyes off of his flabbergasted girlfriend and flips the blender on.
Lexi jolts like a startled kitten at the loud whirring and crunching ice and fruit. He’s unable to hold back his shit eating grin any longer, and he doubles over and erupts into a deep belly laugh.
“You asshole!” Lexi yells over the blender. She yanks her hand out of his and dramatically spins on her foot, stomping out of the kitchen. Fez flips the blender off and the room goes quiet again, save for his amused laughter.
“Wait! Lex, come back!” he calls out. “I asked you a question, didn’t you hear?”
“You’re such a little shit!”
“Wait, Lexi, please, I swear. I have somethin' to tell you, for real. Wait a minute.”
She pauses in the threshold and moves in slow motion, turning on her heel with a fiery look on her face—but she’s not as slick as she thinks she is, and Fez notices her fighting the corner of her mouth, just begging to quirk up into a little smile.
“Lexi,” he begins. “Please. Would you-”
The ghastly whirring that sounds like a trash compactor in the middle of their kitchen drowns out his voice again. Lexi’s face dissolves into a defeated grin with her brows still furrowed in annoyance. He’s smug about it, wearing it proudly like a badge of honor, and she stalks away with her middle finger thrown up in the air.
“Lexi!” Fez wheezes. “Did you hear me? What do you think?”
“I think fuck you, buddy!”
He apologizes moments later with a smoothie in a tall, frosty glass, complete with her favourite pink silly straw that she only uses for special drinks. She accepts it with an eye roll, but her lips curve into a smile around the straw as she takes her first sip.
3.
“Okay, up you go. You ready? On the count of three. One…two…”
“Three!”
“Ow, Lex, loosen up a bit, will ya?”
“Shit, sorry. I don’t know my own strength!”
“Damn, girl. You going all She Hulk on my ass.”
One too many vodka cranberries mixed with higher heels than Lexi normally goes for means Fezco is her designated piggyback ride chariot for the night. Which he loves, unmistakably—her limbs wrapped around his waist and her cheek pressed to the back of his shoulder soothes him, a healing balm traveling through his veins straight to his heart, even if he’s the one taking care of her right now. She’s still giddy as hell right now, though, excitedly waving goodbye to Maddy with the hand holding her chunky black heels and nearly clocking him in the face.
“Easy,” he laughs, narrowly dodging the shoes. “You tryna give me a second scar?”
“Oops! I’m sorry,” she squeaks, kissing the back of his head gingerly. “I’ll be more careful.”
“You guys have a ride?” Maddy asks, maneuvering her way past a giggling Kat and Jules through the hallway.
“Yeah, we got the car out front,” he replies. “This one is just too drunk to walk.”
“And my feet hurt! Don’t forget that,” Lexi adds matter-of-factly. “These heels are too high for me.”
“Yeah, but you looked hot, so who cares?” Maddy smirks. “And you’ve got a man to carry you out. Lucky Lexi.”
“Yeaaah,” Lexi slurs. Maddy and Fez exchange goofy looks before saying their goodbyes.
“Goodnight, Little Howard,” Maddy says. “Make sure you drink lots of water, and try not to kill Fezco.”
Fez carefully carries her out the door and down the porch steps. The late night air feels fantastic against her flushed skin, cheeks almost as red as the numerous vodka crans she’s thrown back in the last few hours. Fez walks down the street past the rows of cars parked along the curb.
“Aight,” he says. “I got my backpack with me? Check. She got her shoes with her? Check.”
Lexi hiccups and loses herself in a fit of giggles. “You’re corny.”
“Me? You’re the one hanging off my back right now, baby. Might not wanna start that game.”
She tightens her legs around him, and he grips her securely beneath her thighs, rubbing his thumb across her smooth, goosebump-covered flesh exposed to the breeze by her fluttery little dress. “Thanks for carrying me. You always take such good care of me.”
“That’s what I’m here for,” he tells her. “I gotchu. Even when your ass gets hella silly.”
“But I’m funner when I’m silly,” she sighs, resting her cheek against the nape of his neck. “Wait, funner? Is that a real word? It doesn’t sound like a real word. Did I make it up? Funner, funner…”
He shakes his head, in awe of his tiny, wonderful, drunk woman. “You always fun. I’ll keep remindin' you not to doubt yourself until we’re old and grey as fuck.”
“Whoops, sorry, you’re right. I’ll try to be nicer to myself.”
“Good,” he says. Lexi presses a small kiss behind his ear and whispers to him, her voice so soft that it almost tangles with the wind and blows away.
“I love you,” she tells him. “You’re my favourite person in the whole wide world. I can’t wait until we’re married one day.”
And yes, there’s a part of Fezco that knows it’s the alcohol and the relief of having been swept off of her sore feet that’s talking right now, but he also knows that it’s Lexi talking, too.
“You’re my favourite person too,” he says. “Always. Forever. I’ll be here carryin' your drunk ass out even after we're married.”
When they finally make it to the car and Fez gently deposits her into the passenger’s seat, her sleepy grin back at him is full of more softness and love than Fez thinks he deserves.
But they have forever and all the time in the world, so Fezco is more than eager to accept it from her.
4.
“Love me, love me! Say that you love me! Fool me, fool me! Go on and fool me!”
It’s a rare occurrence for Fezo to get drunk. He especially does not normally get drunk around Rue, because even though she’s been clean and sober for years now, he’s still courteous enough to not want to indulge in that kind of stuff around her.
But it’s Jules’s 25th birthday, and Rue nearly smacks him upside the head for refusing to get shitfaced at a party, and a karaoke microphone is being shoved into his hand before he has the chance to protest, and suddenly, he’s powerless to the groovy bassline of The Cardgians’s Lovefool .
Jules duets with him during the call-and-response chorus and loses stray feathers off of the dollar store tiara adoring her head every time she spins and jumps to the shitty karaoke rendition of the song. She’s sober, too—but Fez has got to hand it to her, the girl can bust a move and party hard, even without a drink in her hand.
He’s completely off key and singing too loudly into the mic, creating feedback every other line. But Maddy, Cassie, Jules, Kat, Rue, and Lexi are all too lost in the music to care, dancing beneath the twinkling rainbow disco ball and the glow from the television screen mounted on the wall, projecting a slideshow of stock image landscapes and the lyrics to the song in capital letters.
Maddy, Cassie, Kat, and Lexi all form a huddle and sway to Fez’s singing as if it’s the best cover of Lovefool they’ve ever heard in their lives. Jules grabs Fez’s hand and raises it in the air, twirling him. He’s out of breath from all the dancing and shout-singing, but Rue stands up from her comfy position on the couch and starts fist pumping in the air, encouraging him to keep going.
“Let’s go, Fez!” she shouts. “Fuck it up!”
“I dunno all the words to this fucking song,” he yells back.
“They’re on the screen!” Jules laughs.
He blinks. “Right. My bad.”
“My guy’s going fucking crazy!” Rue exclaims. “Dancing way too hard.”
He lets Jules take the lead for the next verse, and as she’s crooning about how ‘reason will not lead to solution,’ he shifts his attention to Lexi. She glitters with joy, highlighted in the darkness of the karaoke bar by flashes of light in various hues of purple, blue, and pink. Her eyes are closed, head thrown back, ruby lips mouthing along the words. Kat bumps hips with her and they laugh, giggles mingling together like additional backup vocals to the song.
He’s so wasted, and the beat of the music moves in rhythm with his heartbeat, and Lexi is so beautiful and carefree right now that he could break down in tears.
“Yo, that’s my fuckin’ girl over there!” he tells Rue and Jules. “I love that girl so fuckin’ much!”
“We know, Fez!” Jules sneaks in between lyrics. “We’re happy for you! We love her too!”
“Yo, happy birthday, Jules! I’m real glad it’s your birthday, but would you mind if I proposed to my girl real quick?”
“Yay, after all these years, you finally got my name right—wait, what?”
“I’m gonna do it,” Fez declares, a look of drunken determination setting on his face. “I’on got a ring right now, but I’mma do it. I have to, or I’ll die.”
“Fez-”
He begins to lower himself to the ground on one wobbly knee, but Rue and Jules are quick to swoop in like hawks on either side of him and lift him by his arms. The other girls don’t seem to notice that the singing has stopped and continue dancing.
“FEZ!” Rue hisses. “Stop it, man! Get the hell up! It’s Jules’s birthday, now is so not the time!”
“C’mon! Please just let me do it!” he pleads. Jules isn’t upset by Fez’s sudden urge to impulsively propose to his girlfriend at her birthday party—in fact, she’s in tears and nearly falling to the ground herself with how hard she’s laughing, still trying her best to get Fez to stand.
“Bro, get the fuck up!” Rue yells. “You don’t wanna propose this way. Do something annoyingly sweet that’s more, like, I dunno…you! Don’t hijack my girlfriend’s birthday when you’re too drunk to use your motor skills!”
“Are you sure she won’t love it?”
“I’m positive, dude. Come on.”
He finally allows the girls to hoist him up to his feet. Jules flops down onto the leather couch, gasping for breath through her laughter. Rue shakes her head in disbelief, muffling her own laughter behind her hand.
Thankfully, Fez’s clusterfuck of an almost marriage proposal to the love of his life and attempted hogging of his friend’s birthday party remained unnoticed. But later in the night, as he dances with Lexi and the girls, he hopes his own wedding night looks and feels exactly like this moment.
5.
Fezco’s favourite texture is Lexi’s silky, soft hair intertwined between his fingers. His favourite colour is the deep ripe peach shade that spreads across her skin when she blushes. His favourite sound is her gasp that bleeds into a whimper, made directly in the shell of his ear. All of these things given to him at once makes for a lethal combination, one that makes a mad, greedy man out of him.
She’s on top of him, all long limbs and bare flesh and tangled sex hair, grinding her hips into his as she rides him into the mattress. He’s sitting up on the edge of the bed, pushing off of it with his palm planted flatly behind him. Their thrusts meet each other midway, gasping and panting into each other’s open mouths. She whispers his name, a broken moan following right behind it.
His favourite way Lexi says his name is just like this.
"I fuckin' love you," he grunts.
She responds by sealing her mouth over his, gently taking his bottom lip between her teeth and rolling the soft, wet flesh. He moans, pulling apart and latching his mouth to the pulse on her neck.
“I love you,” she sighs. She leans her head back in ecstasy, granting him more access to her skin. He drinks her in hastily, ravenously, a starved man indulging in her love.
He thrusts into her, deep and slow, holding her hips down on his cock and not letting her up. It’s then that he says it, exhaling it hotly into her neck. “Marry me.”
Lexi blows out a short, exasperated laugh. “You’re crazy.”
“I’m so fuckin' serious,” he groans. “Marry me. Don’t want anyone else but you, forever.”
“Well, that’s good, considering how much I love you,” she pants. “But I think your dick buried inside of me might have something to do with the way you’re talking right now.”
“Shut up,” he laughs. “No, it isn’t. I love you, Lexi. Wanna make you my wife so bad.”
She silences his ramblings with a soft kiss to his mouth, just a small one, but it’s enough to leave him breathless. “One of us is going to have to do this properly then, hmm?” she whispers.
Lexi comes on his cock moments later, gasping for oxygen with his name on her lips. He follows soon after, slouching forward into her embrace as he fills her up. They’re slick with sweat and still in the hazy disarray of post-orgasm. Lexi softly pushes him back on the mattress. She’s hovering above him, and he’s still inside her, not yet ready to lift herself away.
The heaving of Fezco’s panting chest while he tries to catch his breath moves her up and down. Lexi kisses him beneath his under eye.
“Fez?”
“Yeah?”
“Please don’t ever stop asking me. You know I want nothing more.”
But she doesn’t have to tell him that for him to know. He brushes a strand of hair clinging to the side of her face behind her ear and beams.
+1.
The balcony of the Howard-O’Neill residence has blossomed into a humble little garden in the two years that Lexi and Fezco have been living there.
What was once a rusty and unkempt structure showcasing their less than stellar view of the parking lot below now flourished with plants and flowers lining the perimeter of the railing. Rich red and pink geraniums, vibrant blue and violet lobelias, and a fresh green Maidenhair fern that hangs from the ceiling in a basket decorate their balcony in lively colours and sweet aromas that wafted into the apartment during the spring and summer.
Lexi had brought up the idea of a mini garden first, but she was surprised to find that Fez enjoyed tending to it as much as she did. But really, she realizes it was silly to be surprised by such a thing—he’s a natural caregiver. It’s in his blood to look after things that need a nudge; to help them grow. Sometimes, when the sizzling heat of late summer afternoons becomes too unbearable for Lexi to move around in, she lays across the couch, fanning herself with a magazine and watching Fez water their plants though the mesh screen door of their balcony. His arm lifting the watering can over the damp soil, the sun casting long lines of light over his face.
It’s domestic. It’s everything she’s always pictured her life to be and more.
She’s in the kitchen stirring a pitcher of homemade lemonade one idle June evening when Fez calls to her from outside.
“Lex, you busy?”
“Just making lemonade,” she calls back. “Why?”
“Can you help me with the plants for a sec? I think I fucked one of 'em up.”
Lexi taps the wooden spoon against the rim of the pitcher. “Yeah, be right there.”
She’s greeted with the sight of Fez illuminated by the backdrop of a setting sun, flares of fading orange and pink clouds embellishing the sky. He points to one of the geraniums as she steps out onto the balcony.
“This one,” he says. “I think I might’ve drowned it when I was watering it. Got any remedies?”
She leans down and inspects the smooth, delicate petals of the flower. It hasn’t wilted, and it’s looking as healthy and alive as the rest of them. Lexi squints in confusion.
“It looks fine to me,” she says. “You sure there’s something wrong with it?”
“I think so,” he replies from behind her. “You don’t see it? Look closer. I swear it’s all janky and shit.”
A soft breeze gently tangles in Lexi’s curls, unstyled and natural for a quiet day at home. It rustles the little flower, but aside from that, there’s no discernable damage Lexi can find.
“Huh,” she huffs, beginning to turn around. “I don’t think there’s-”
Her voice is caught in her throat, and her body freezes solid, because Fezco isn’t standing. Instead, he’s on one knee before her with a little black box in his palm.
In the sunlight, Fez’s eyes burn a fiery blue. They’re fixated on her and only her, like she’s the only person left on the planet with him, set ablaze and engulfed whole by the summer sun. Lexi physically feels her heart grow infinitely inside of her chest. Her jaw drops, and her hands come up to clutch at her chest instinctively.
“Hi,” Fezco beams, charming as ever, even with a subtle shakiness to his voice.
Lexi forgets how to speak. “H-hi.”
“So, I know I ain't the best with words,” he tells her. “That’s your gig. I was so fuckin' worried about tryna write out some grand speech and not being able to memorize it and shit, and making a huge ass of myself in front of you. But then I remembered how much I love you, and how that would guide me to telling you how I feel about you. How much I wanna marry you, how much I wanna be with you forever.”
Lexi inhales a shuddery breath. The ground shifts beneath her, but the warm smile forming on Fez’s face stabilizes her, like magic.
“But then I thought about it more, and I realized how dumb that was. Because the truth is that I don’t think I’ll ever find all the right words in the whole damn dictionary to describe what you mean to me—what your love means to me.”
He flips open the top of the box and Lexi gasps at what’s inside—a simple but stunning silver band with a string of tiny diamonds lining the sides, snug on a velvet pillow. A larger one takes its place in the center of the band. The gems twinkle in the light, reflecting a myriad of glimmering colours.
“When we were young and stupid, and we met again on that couch on New Year’s way back when, I told you that talkin' to you was one of the best parts of my year. And I meant it."
Lexi’s vision begins to blur with tears. “You remember that?”
“I remember everythin' about that night, silly. Could never forget it.” With his free hand, Fezco reaches for hers, and she grips him back like a lifeline.
“Talkin' to you is the best part of my every day,” Fezco says, and her tears are free falling now, sliding down her cheeks. She summons all her strength to keep her sobs down until he can get the rest of his beautiful, beautiful words out.
“I wanna talk to you every day,” he tells her. “And I wanna grow with you, raise a family with you, be in love with you. I used to think that sorta thing wasn’t possible for someone like me, but you continue to show me every damn day that it is, and what you and me have is real. So real. In more ways than you know, you saved my life.”
“Fezco,” she chokes. Her hand is trembling in his, and, quick to reassure her like he always is, he strokes his thumb along her knuckles.
“I love you, Lexi,” he says, peering up at her with those gentle, caring eyes. “I’ll protect you and be there for you for the rest of my life. Will you marry me, baby?”
Lexi Howard has had a lot of doubts in her life. It’s only natural for a girl like her, raised to think promises and declarations of love were poisoned arrows in disguise.
There are no doubts in her mind when she looks at Fezco on one knee in front of her. It’s the easiest answer she’s ever had to give, and she sets her heart free, giving it to him to keep forever.
“Yes,” she cries. “Yes, yes, yes. Of course I will.”
Fezco sighs happily, releasing a tension from his body she hadn’t even noticed he was holding. He presses a long kiss to her knuckles and one to each of her fingertips, lingering on her ring finger, before sliding the band on with ease.
As soon as it’s on, Lexi doesn’t even have time to marvel at it before she drops to her knees in front of him and throws her arms around his neck. She hugs him tightly, openly sobbing into the crook of his shoulder, and he laughs, gathering her in his embrace as his own eyes begin to well with tears.
“I can’t believe it,” Lexi breathes. “You little shit. Flowers my ass. You got me so good.”
Fez laughs, low and deep, sending vibrations throughout her skin. “Did I lie? Told you I would.”
“I love you so much, Fezco,” she whispers. “I love you the most. More than anything or anyone. It’s always been you, and it’ll always be you.”
“I’m glad. You kinda stuck with me now.”
“That’s a pretty great deal on my end,” she sniffles.
“You mad silly, girl.”
“Fez?”
“Yeah?”
“I hope you know that you saved me, too,” Lexi tells him. “In more ways than you know.”
He scoops her up in one swift movement and carries her bridal style inside. “Practicin' for when I get to do this officially, with you as my wife,” he says.
Lexi sobs and laughs until they become indistinguishable from one another. All of her emotions for the quiet boy who talked to her about God at a seedy party and asked for her phone number all those years ago are just as strong now as they were then. She lets him whisk her away to the bedroom, flowers and lemonade and the fading sunset left behind in their wake.