Nervous doesn't being to cut it.

"How'd you do it?" I ask Rogue.

He laughs at me, again, and his hand lands hard on my shoulder, "Dude I was a fucking mess. I had no idea what I was doing when I bought that ring, at least you went into this knowing she expected to marry you."

I try to chuckle like that's reassuring but it gets stuck in my throat.

"You have any idea what you're looking for?" Rogue's leaning casually against one of the cases, looking like he's not at all interested in any of the little necklaces behind the glass under his hand. He and Mel have been together awhile now, they got 3 kids together, and the way he looks at her still makes me and the guys give him shit.

I know one of them little pendants is going to end up around Mel's neck. Just because.

Meanwhile, I'm sweating up a storm and feeling totally lost in here while the gal behind the counter does her best to coach me through this.

"This design is really popular right now," she tells me, trying to be helpful.

I shake my head. I don't want what's "popular," ain't nothing about Dorthy that deserves to wear what everyone else has.

I love her old fashioned name and the way she makes it something elegant and strong. I love her independent fire and the way she keeps me on me toes and keeps me in line. I love her cooking and her kissing, and every contour of her body, and I love that she's back home right now trying to turn my empty house into a home that's warm and welcoming for our friends and family when they visit-- and for our own family as soon as it starts growing.

She's a one of a kind woman and she deserves a one of a kind ring.

"Nuh," I realize it's not much more than a grunt, but I had no idea this was going to be so hard, "I need something better."

This is the 6th jewelry place I've been to in the last month. Rogue flew all the way down to Seattle with me today to help me out. Not that he's much help at all.

"Have you even asked her what she wants?" Rogue laughs at me again, lightly tapping on the glass case, directly over a little silver chain with a sparkly thing on it.

"Uh uh," I shake my head, irritated, "I want it to be a surprise."

The girl behind the counter's eyes widen but she doesn't say a damn word. I think she's scared of me or something.

"Do you have any idea what you're looking for?" Rogue's tapping turns more to pointing and the sales girl seems relieved to have an excuse to scurry away from me and rushes to pull out the little necklace that he still hasn't admitted to wanting to see.

Pulling my cell out of my pocket I pull up the last image on my screen and shove it toward him.

"Hmm," Rogue mumbles as he turns the screen toward the sales girl.

I'm barely even paying attention to the way she suddenly grins and nods even as she puts the necklace back and hands him another one. I'm too busy staring at what I'm pretty sure is about a thousand rings that all sparkle like-- well, diamonds, duh-- under the fancy jewelry store lighting. They all look the same to me.

The picture on the phone is from her nieces. They sent me a bunch of photos and designer names and shit that don't mean anything to me. The pictures are all stuff they say are what she likes and I've been trying to find something like 'em.

It's been over a month since Dorthy came up. She spent a week back home awhile back, quitting her job and packing up her apartment so she could move in permanently with me.

She's there when I get home and she's there when I get up for work in the morning. It's the best thing in the world.

I always knew I wanted a wife. My own woman to have and to hold and all that, share my life and my home with, but Dorthy's more than I ever expected.

She's more than I deserve and it kills me every day I look at her hand without my claim to her on it yet. I want a giant fucking rock that nobody's gonna miss so everyone knows she's taken.

"Dude," Rogue steps up to me and puts his hand on my shoulder. I don't miss the little box that he slips in his pocket and I wonder what he ended up picking out, "you got the girl, this is the easy part."

"Yeah?" I give him a skeptical look, "was this the easy part for you?"

He laughs as the sales girl emerges from the back room with a tray of rings, "Yeah it was. I don't even remember buying Mel's ring, I was so worried about figuring out how I was gonna convince her to stay with me instead of taking the job offer to go travel the damn world. I barely remember giving her the damn ring."

The man was a fucking mess, I remember. Joe and I thought he was just enjoying a little tourist tail on the route that summer. When Mel's job called her into the city to talk about another job, the man went ape shit, but he came back with his ring on the girl's finger and I lost a helluva bet to Joe over it.

"I think one of these might be more what you have in mind?" The sales girl's voice breaks into our conversation sheepishly as she pushes the new case across the counter toward me.

The rings look more like the ones in the photos the girls sent. They all look a lot like each other still, but they're different than the ones in the cases out in the showroom.

"We do offer a generous exchange policy," she says, her voice cracking just a tad.

"That way if she doesn't like it, or you want to put in a bigger stone or some shit," Rogue translates.

"Yeah I get it, I just want it to be perfect, you know?"

"Then you probably should have brought Dorthy," Rogue chuckles as he leans his elbow on the counter.

I'm sick of hearing it. I want to propose to her right, with one knee on the floor and a ring in my hand for her. And I want it to be a surprise. It's the least I can do considering we found each other because of a fancy match maker. We knew we were planning on getting married right from the beginning, I can at least make the proposal something special.

"What about that one?" I say to no one in particular as I point my finger at a delicate little band with a bunch of bling on the sides and big square stone on the top.

Damn, no wonder the gal behind the counter's scared of me. My hand looks like a Sasquatch paw next to all these tiny little rings.

She picks it up and hands it to me.

"You can resize it first?" I ask, seeing the little tag on it that says "6." Dorthy's file from Raven lists her ring size as a "4."

"Yes sir," the sales girl sounds so excited, "Our jeweler comes in at 8, you could pick it up by noon tomorrow?"

That's not what I want to hear and I start to grumble something about getting back home.

"That'll be great, thank you," Rogue interrupts, politely and getting a sigh of relief from the gal.

"Wanted to take it with me today," I mumble.

"Then you have to wait to get it resized," Rogue tells me. "The girls already expect us to be here a day or two, you can handle another day."

I hand over my credit card and sign the paperwork while Rogue laughs at my impatience.

"Dude," he says, waving goodbye at the clerk that looks like she just got released from a hostage situation, "she already wants to marry you, man, that's more than I knew about Mel when I took this ride."

All I can give him is another grunt.

I know we told the girls we might be a few days down here, but I was hoping to get home tonight.