Chapter Text
Friday night, when a knock sounds at his door, Caine snags the small bouquet of daisies he bought and bounds across the apartment to answer. Jupiter stands on the narrow stairs, duffel bag on her shoulder and two white Blockbuster VHS boxes in her hands.
“I brought some stuff to watch,” she says, handing them to him. He gives her the daisies, like some sort of barter, and she grins and presses them to her nose. They don’t smell like anything; it’s the heart of autumn, and he went to a dozen different florists, but no one had any daffodils. Most of the flowers were too expensive for his very modest budget. In the end, he was just pleased he managed to avoid another carnation debacle.
Sweeping into the apartment, she pulls off her coat and duffel bag and makes a beeline for Sig. He practically knocks her over as she hugs him and scratches his ears.
Caine bumps the door closed with his heel and looks down. He’s holding Oliver and Company and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
“Dead Poet’s Society was already rented out,” she says, before he can even ask. She heads into the kitchen, using a water glass as a vase for the bouquet. Then she inspects the pot of spaghetti sauce on the stove, and the pile of fresh latkes on the counter. “I couldn’t decide, so I got both. We should have plenty of time to watch them, since I’m staying the whole weekend. Did I mention that before?”
“No, but I discovered the t-shirt and socks you left last weekend. I assumed you’d need another few days to find your stuff. Again.”
Nibbling at a latke, she turns to brandish it at him accusingly. “These are perfect, just like Lyudmila’s! Did you write down the recipe?”
“No. I remembered how you made them,” he replies, putting the movies on the coffee table.
She picks up the empty jar of spaghetti sauce, then dips her pinky into the pot and sticks it into her mouth, sucking it clean. “You dumped the sauce in here all by itself?”
He follows her into the kitchen. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”
“You’re a good cook,” she replies.
Caine stares at her in surprise. “No one has ever accused me of that before.”
“I sense vast, untapped culinary potential,” she says, eyeing him thoughtfully before whirling around to open the refrigerator, pulling out containers rapid-fire. “Grab the vodka, would you? Everything tastes better with vodka.”
She shows him how to make vodka pomodoro out of canned tomato sauce. He carries the kitchen table out onto the patio, and they eat spaghetti and latkes in their coats, by candlelight. He cradles her forearm and admires her mostly-healed tattoo; it's beautiful and delicate, like a filigreed garland made up of little navy-colored stars. Afterward, she pulls him into the observatory and they spend the better part of the evening stargazing.
Caine hasn’t ever been particularly interested in the stars, aside from their usefulness in navigation, but basking in Jupiter’s enthusiasm is exhilaratingly intimate. Her sense of wonder permeates the air like perfume, heady and intoxicating. He helps her locate constellations, and she tells him about the astronomers who charted them.
Eventually they end up back inside, on the couch.
“Which movie?” she asks.
“I haven’t seen either.”
She wiggles one box in front of him. “Orphan animal finds a family, or” – the second box – “Joe Schmoes travel through time and change the fate of the universe.”
He points at the first box. “Orphan animal tonight. Joe Schmoes tomorrow.”
During the opening musical number, Caine pulls Jupiter into his arms. She hums happily and leans back into his chest, head tucked under his chin.
They watch for a while, Jupiter absently tracing patterns on his jeans, above his left knee. Her fingers gradually roam farther afield, to the back of his knee and his inner thigh. Moving in swirls, as if she’s writing cursive with her fingertip, she eases her hand up along his inseam.
Caine can’t see her face, only the crown of her head. He stares at the television, trying to regulate his breathing. She shifts in his lap, so her hand can continue its path upward. The neck of her t-shirt shifts, too, revealing a lacy red bra strap on her shoulder.
Caine closes his eyes and leans his head against the back of the couch, face tipping toward the ceiling. Jupiter’s fingers trace letters along his thigh, and he feels an O, a V, and an E before he loses concentration. Without consulting his brain, his body slumps lower against the cushions, his legs opening wider.
Jupiter’s hand eases into the warmth between his thighs, fingernails dragging across denim stretched tight. Her touch is light, gentle strokes one way and back the other, no letters this time, just steady contact.
Maybe he ought to be embarrassed by how fast she gets him hard, but he’s too distracted to care. He strokes her arm in time with her movements, shoulder to elbow and back again. On one circuit, he pauses long enough to dip into the neck of her shirt and finger her red bra strap.
Jupiter giggles. “Feeling impatient?”
“Is there an ‘oh captain, my captain’ scene in this cat cartoon? I’m just trying to gauge my wait time,” he asks, voice squeaking more than he intends. “Do I have time for snacks?”
“Remember the part of my Christmas list where you’re putty in my hands? I’m easing you into that phase.”
“I’m glad you’ve given this some thought. I really like it when you make plans,” he pants. “But it’s too late, the putty phase already happened sometime last week.”
Jupiter sits up and stares at him, crestfallen. “It’s over? I missed it?”
“It’s – ah – definitely still ongoing.” He shifts his hips, trying to ease the tightness in his jeans.
She surveys him, a calculating grin forming before she leaps off the couch and scrambles into the bedroom, calling “Back in a sec!” over her shoulder. She bounds back out with his silver-grey tie.
“Teach me how to make a knot.” She drops down on his lap, straddling him. He grunts in surprise, and she loops the tie around his neck, so it rests against his black t-shirt. Her cheeks are pale, her lips bright red from being chewed on. Bashfully adjusting the tie along his chest, she adds, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But you said you like it when I make plans, and sometimes – well, you seem happy when I tell you what to do? When I order you around a little?”
Caine’s forehead and palms feel hot, and he steadies himself with a slow breath. It’s one thing to have this realization; it’s another thing entirely to admit aloud that it turns him on, especially to the person who brought on the realization in the first place. More than a few of Caine’s flash-in-the-pan relationships ended because he was incapable of talking about all the things he needed and wanted. He’s fucked up a lot of things in his life, and he swore to himself he wouldn’t do the same with Jupiter.
“Yeah, I – I kinda do.”
“Kinda?” she says, not demanding, but careful and genuinely concerned. “Caine, it’s important to me that you’re comfortable. I wouldn’t ever want you to –”
He grasps her wrists, stilling her hands on his chest, and holds her gaze. “I like it. Sometimes – like right now – I really like it.”
The sight of Jupiter’s wickedly elated grin makes his belly tingle with anticipation. She wiggles, grinding against his lap, and says, “Call me that nickname.”
Caine’s throat tightens and his hips rock involuntarily, a tiny desperate movement. “You mean, ‘your majesty’?”
Jupiter maintains eye contact as she leans forward and rewards him with a kiss. Her mouth stays closed until the very end, when she licks his bottom lip. “That really works for me.”
“Yeah?”
“Mmm.” She shifts back again and picks up the two ends of the tie. “Now teach me how to work this thing.”
“Around my neck?”
Her eyebrows lift as she grasps all the possibilities he just laid out in front of her. “We’ll start here tonight, and branch out later.”
He walks her through the steps for a Windsor knot, hands fisted into the sofa cushions while she works. Her fingers are nimble and within a few minutes she’s delicately shifting the knot toward his adam’s apple, careful to leave it loose, so there’s no chance of him getting hurt.
She keeps hold of the long ends, giving them a few experimental tugs back and forth as she watches his face. With each pull, it feels like the tie is connected all the way through his torso to his twitching cock.
“Good?” she asks.
He manages to nod. “Good.”
Jupiter spreads her knees away from his hips, so she slides all the way onto his lap, her warm weight open against him. His chin tips up as he seeks out her mouth. Lips parted, she kisses him. At the same time she takes his hands, lacing fingers together, and pins them into the back of the couch, just above his shoulders.
“I have another order for you,” she says into the corner of his mouth, words hot across his tongue.
“Your majesty,” he replies automatically, and Jupiter makes another delighted noise. Pressing his hands deeper into the couch cushions, she licks her way down his jaw and to his throat. Her tongue flickers at his skin, and after a second she lifts her head back up, silver tie clutched triumphantly between her teeth.
She’s stunning, dark hair framing her face and hazel eyes greedy. Transferring the tie to her hand, she drags it against his neck and says, “It’s going to sound simple, but this is the most important thing I’m ever going to ask you to do, and I need you to obey me perfectly. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” he rasps, staring up at her in expectant adoration.
She places her palm on his chest, over his heart. “Here’s what I want, Caine: I want you to listen, and I want you to hear me. That’s the order.”
He can’t make any noise at all, he simply nods again, enraptured by the sight of her – he’d follow her across the universe, wage war if it pleased her. Sitting still and listening is easy.
“Are you ready to hear me, like I told you to? Are you obeying?” Jupiter leans down, so her mouth is next to his ear, and she whispers her next words like a treasured secret, just between the two of them: “You’re a good man, Caine Wise.”
He closes his eyes and tries to swallow, choking on the fullness in his throat. The first day they spent together, after the run in the park, Caine was jealous of the attention Jupiter paid to Sig, how she praised and coddled the dog. These much more profound words whispered in his own ear, meant just for him – the earnest praise from this woman who has become his everything – a lifetime of isolation and a string of professional failures flicker into a wildly different perspective, when she says those words.
“I don’t –”
“Shh.” Her lips touch his face, tender kisses on his forehead and cheeks, his chin and nose. “I see how hard you are on yourself sometimes, and I know you’ve done things you aren’t proud of. But you’re here with me now because you’re brave, and strong, and clever, because you’re more than your past mistakes. You are a good man, Caine, and I’m so proud of you.”
I don’t cry during sex, he’d told her. He swore he’d submit an affidavit to the INS, to prove it.
Technically he wasn’t a liar; they aren’t even naked yet.
“Fuck,” he gasps silently, blinking back the tears burning his eyes, his body a wild mess of sensation – howling desire, raw emotion, shame and relief and devotion. He hooks his index fingers into the belt loops on her jeans, to ground himself as Jupiter strokes his beard and brushes the tears from his eyelashes with her lips.
“I’m so glad I met you,” she whispers, the last word spoken into his mouth as she kisses him again, unhurried and soft. He tastes salt on her lips.
When she pulls away, the words burst out of him, like her mouth was the only thing holding them back: “Jupiter, I love you.”
This isn’t how it’s supposed to go; she’s supposed to say it first. But he got her daisies instead of daffodils, and Dead Poet’s Society was rented out, and they’re already so far off-script, he might as well chuck the whole Christmas-list plan out the window.
She shifts back onto his knees and stares at him in astonishment.
“Sorry – I’m sorry.” He’s gone too far; he’s freaked her out. Mortification prickling cold across his scalp, he drops his gaze and scrubs the back of a hand across his cheeks, wiping away the last of his tears. “It’s ridiculous, I’ve only known you two weeks. Normal people take months or years to say that, right? I’m sorry –”
“Look at me! Don’t be sorry!” she says, beaming. “I had an entire speech planned for later tonight, but we can do the Cliff’s Notes, to save time: I love you too.”
“No,” he whispers, without thought, before he can stop himself. The word comes from the deepest, most withdrawn part of himself, the abandoned boy who could craved family, but who could never conceive that someone he loved might love him back.
She taps his chest, over his heart. “I told you to listen, remember? You’re supposed to hear. I love you, too.” At his bewildered expression, she says, “In the interest of full disclosure, you ought to know my worst fault: I’m terrible at waiting. On Christmas Eve when I was six, after my family went to sleep, I sneaked upstairs and opened all the Christmas presents. Not just mine, but everybody’s, because I couldn’t wait until Christmas morning.”
She continues, “Since we’ve been working from our relationship Christmas list, this weekend feels like Christmas Eve. I don’t want to wait another week to finish opening our presents, so I’m going to skip ahead.” Glancing at the ceiling as though reading lines written there, she blows out an unsteady breath. “Caine, will you marry me? Again?”
That little boy inside of him still whispers no, shaking his shaggy blond head, secure in his conviction that life could not possibly turn out like this for someone like him, convinced this beautiful and fragile thing will end in a puff of smoke, like every other scrap of grace in his life so far. His destiny was so clear – serving, fighting, dying. It was all he could imagine for himself, and certainly all he deserved.
You’re a good man, Caine Wise.
How could someone like Jupiter look at someone like him, and find anything worth building a life with? Not just a life – a family, with all the trust and domesticity that sort of relationship implies. This is everything he’s always wanted, but he didn’t know it, because he couldn’t imagine a universe that might gift him with something so extraordinary. He was too dull to even conjure dreams of it.
Maybe it’s fitting for Caine to have fallen into this upside-down place, his backward life culminating in such an abrupt, backward marriage and courtship. Maybe fate is done throwing harrowing surprises his way; maybe it’s time for a string of unconventional marvels.
“Yes,” he says, arms snaking around her torso and pulling Jupiter close, his head buried in her neck to hide the tears welling in his eyes again, until he can blink them away. “God, Jupiter – yes.”
She squeals, a sound of pure joy, and squeezes him so hard his shoulders pop. “Thank you!”
Laughter bubbles out of him at that, light and exuberant, jostling his already buoyant heart until it feels like it’s going to lift out of his chest. “Thank you? Really?”
“I wasn’t assuming anything. I was hoping, but not assuming,” she replies, fingernails carding through his short hair. “Anyway, you might change your mind when you realize we’ll have to deal with another wedding ceremony. A real one where you wear a tuxedo, and a reception party afterward that Mama and Nino will insist on planning. Vladie and Vassily will probably try to take you out for a bachelor party the night before, too.”
The prospect of a Bolotnikov-run wedding is undeniably daunting, but Caine would leap through fire if Jupiter asked him to. “I don’t care. I’ll wear a tux. I’ll take the name Jones.”
Beaming ear to ear, so bright and warm it feels like the sun on his skin, Jupiter says, “Well then, you may kiss the bride.”
His other hand cups the back of her head, easing her forward, and he closes his eyes. Gently, reverently, their lips touch. Once, twice, then she leans her forehead against his.
“We keep skipping the engagement and going straight into the ‘I do,’” he murmurs.
“It’s my favorite part.” She kisses him again, then takes his tie in hand and drags the fabric back and forth across his neck, gentle and steady. “Hmm, I say that, but we haven’t tried a honeymoon yet. That might be my favorite part, I’m not sure. We’re a month and a half late giving it a try, we ought to start making up for lost time.”
Steadying himself with one hand on the couch, Caine rises to his feet with Jupiter still in his arms. She wraps her legs around his waist, to keep from falling.
“As your majesty commands,” he replies, and he carries her to the bedroom. She doesn’t weigh much, and carrying her isn’t difficult, but navigating is, especially when she’s kissing him and dragging her nails across his back, tugging his t-shirt up to get it off. When he deposits her onto the mattress, she keeps hold of his tie and pulls him down too. His t-shirt’s halfway over his head when Sig leaps onto the bed, big paws sprawling as he settles in to sleep.
“Sig, out!” Caine says, yanking his shirt the rest of the way off so he can grab the dog’s collar and haul him from the room. He deposits him in the hallway. “Stay here.”
He closes the door and turns back around to find Jupiter propped up on her elbows. “Listen, before we start the honeymoon, you should know I’m on the pill, and I’m healthy. I brought condoms, too, they’re in my bag.”
“I’m healthy, too, but I’ll use them if you want,” he says.
She shakes her head and wiggles her toes in anticipation, her gaze wandering the length of his body. “Come here.”
Sig’s distressed whimpers drift through the closed bedroom door.
“Poor thing,” Jupiter laughs.
“He’ll get over it,” Caine replies, silver tie on his neck trailing along Jupiter’s body as he crawls his way along the bed. “He’d better, because he’s going to be spending a lot of time in that hallway.”
“Maybe if Sig is patient, he’ll get a treat.” Jupiter rises up and shoves Caine’s shoulder, pushing him onto his back so she can straddle him. She strips off her shirt and reaches behind her back, unclasping her cherry red bra and tossing it onto the floor. Her long hair cascades around her shoulders, soft and enticing, and she rolls her hips forward, rocking against him. His hands splayed along her stomach, he slides them up until he’s cupping one breast, thumb tracing around her areola. Smile widening, she wraps his tie around her palm and says, “And if you’re a patient boy, I’ll give you a treat, too.”
He pushes air through his lips, but fails to make any sound.
“What sort of treat would you like?”
“To eat – eat you –”
Laughing again, Jupiter leans down over his chest, breasts cool against his skin. She kisses his collarbones and murmurs into his ear, “That’s very Big Bad Wolf of you.”
“You know what I mean,” he says.
“I’ll let you have a turn, if you’re patient and you don’t come while I take my turn,” she says, before kissing her way down his chest. She takes her time, lapping at his nipples and tracing the lines of his stomach. Taking the button on his jeans into her mouth, she stares up at him with dark, sultry promise.
Fabric in her teeth, she pulls.
The button doesn’t move.
She pulls again, eyebrow arched and face twisted into an expression of exaggerated effort. The fabric lifts off his stomach, but the button doesn’t give. Caine reaches down to help her, but she waves his hands away, redoubling her efforts.
The button gives way on the fifth tug, but the zipper is stubborn and won’t budge, either. Jupiter’s expression has shifted into determined concentration, like his jeans are a Rubik’s Cube to be solved, and he tries to choke back his laughter, but it comes out as a snort anyway.
“No making fun of my seduction techniques,” she chides, finally relenting and using her hands to deal with the zipper. He lifts his hips as she pulls the jeans down and shoves them onto the floor.
“I’m seduced, Jupiter, I swear I am,” he chuckles. Her nose wrinkles in mock exasperation.
“Black t-shirt, black jeans, black boxers, this is a pathological pattern,” she says, hooking her fingers into the elastic waistband and tugging. He lifts his hips again, and if Jupiter has anything else to say about his limited fashion palette, she loses her train of thought once Caine is wearing only the tie.
He isn’t vain … well, maybe he is. Only the tiniest bit. When it’s warranted. But the last few weeks’ worth of extra running and steamed vegetables, all in hopeful anticipation of this moment, were worth it. Jupiter’s in speechless delight over his naked body, dragging her teeth across the lines of his hipbones and licking along the lines of his abs, humming and squealing in quiet exhilaration. She takes her time, using her hands and mouth to explore. The first time he reaches out to reciprocate, she shuts him down with a tug on the silver tie, and continues to discover every inch of him with the unfettered delight of an explorer forging through unmapped territory.
When she eases her head between his legs, tongue working along his cock before she takes it into her mouth, Caine’s brain short-circuits and he sighs one of the incredibly profane epithets he learned in the service. Jupiter’s eyes snap to his face, and she’s obviously pleased with herself.
“Don’t come,” she reminds him, giving a warning pull on the tie she’s still got gripped in one hand.
His torso curves, following the movement, so he’s hunched sideways on the bed. It affords him full view of Jupiter. She’s lying on her stomach, the smooth line of her bare back and her jean-clad legs bent up into the air, ankles crossed and swaying back and forth as she works. Her loose hair tickles his belly and thighs, and her mouth doesn’t stop moving. In spite of valiant efforts to distract himself by counting cracks on the ceiling, it’s only a matter of minutes before he starts to whimper, his hips twitching and then bucking upward in rhythm with her movements.
She pulls away with a wet pop, licking her lips.
“I could keep going,” she says, eyebrows arched.
“No, please, Jupiter – my turn?” he stutters. “Please?”
Letting go of the tie, she crawls forward to kiss his mouth, fingernails dragging across his shoulder and up the back of his neck. Then she flops onto her back, hair fanning out around her head, and beams. “Okay.”
With that single word of permission, Caine’s arms unlock from where he pinned them to the mattress. He rolls onto his side and kisses her again, his itching hands finally stroking and caressing like they’ve wanted to for the last ten minutes. He kisses her neck, licks her collarbones, lavishes attention on her chest the same way she lavished attention on his.
The better part of him is frantic to rip off her jeans; he could shred them barehanded, he’s so desperate to bury himself between her legs. He keeps a chokehold on that feeling, and forces himself to go slow and savor, instead, because he’s definitely not going to come before Jupiter does.
He suckles one breast and then the other, edging one hand into the waistband of her jeans. Her knees fall open as his fingers slip further down, rubbing at the wet fabric between her legs. She groans, and he feels the sound in the base of his pelvis, warm and deep.
Caine takes his time, gradually stripping off the rest of her clothes. When he positions his head between her thighs, poised and ready, her body tenses and her legs clamp against his ears, trapping him.
Lifting her head and staring at him with wide eyes, she giggles, clearly nervous. “The beard tickles.”
“I’ll shave right now,” he replies in all seriousness. “Give me five minutes, it’ll be gone.”
“No,” she replies, taking a deep breath and dropping her head back onto the pillow. “No, it’s okay. Just hold on” – another deep breath, and the vise-like grip of her thighs eases up, freeing his head – “okay, I’m ready.”
It dawns on him, then, why she’s nervous. “Nobody’s ever –?”
“No,” she says, head still tipped back so she isn’t looking at him.
He backs up, so her knees are crooked over his shoulders and he’s perched on the edge of the bed. “You didn’t want them to? If you don’t want me to –”
Her head snaps up, and one hand darts out to snag the silk around his neck. “Nobody’s ever offered,” she replies, the words low and hoarse. “Don’t you dare stop.”
A weird burst of emotion pulses at the base of Caine’s skull: anger on Jupiter’s behalf at the selfish men who came before him; and gratification that he’s the one here and now, with the entire weekend to begin making up for the stingy pricks who preceded him.
Caine might’ve bumbled through the emotional parts of his previous relationships, but he’s never bumbled through this – he’s been told more than once that he’s really, really good at it. One arm curls around the outside of Jupiter’s hip, his hand resting atop her pubic bone, to steady her. Maintaining eye contact, he acknowledges her command with a wet, thick stripe of his tongue. She sighs, hips arching up as her head drops back onto the pillow.
He’d be smug at how quickly Jupiter comes, except he’s too distracted by way she moans his name, and the sheer bliss on her face as her body starts to twitch. Without stopping the motion of his tongue, he eases contact pressure until her back arches and she twists her hips away with another cry, thighs bumping the sides of his head.
Grinning as he licks his lips, he watches her open her eyes and stare at the ceiling in a blissed-out daze.
“Holy shit, Caine,” she pants. She tugs on his tie, urging him up alongside her and drawing him close. “That was amazing.”
Before he can reach out for his discarded t-shirt, to clean his mouth, Jupiter seizes the back of his head and drags him in for a kiss. He’s braced himself to be patient, to wait until she’s fully recovered, but she doesn’t waste any time. Rolling him onto his back, she straddles his hips and kisses him with enough brute force to bruise his lips. He holds onto her waist, and she reaches between them with one hand to guide him inside herself.
All that satisfaction he might’ve felt earlier, about how quickly Jupiter came – it’s karmic retribution, the fact that he embarrasses himself by only lasting a matter of minutes. He doesn’t even hold out long enough for her to get close to another orgasm.
He’ll just have to make it up to her later.
Jupiter rolls off of him and collapses, sweaty slick skin and giddy kisses.
“Your majesty,” he says, catching hold of the comforter and pulling it across both of them, bundling her in his arms. He wiggles his feet out of the blanket, so they’re exposed to the cool air.
"Mr Jones," she sighs contentedly, but the sigh ends in a small hiccupping sound. That hiccup turns into a giggle, and another, until laughter is cascading from her in waves, wracking her entire body. Finally she pulls in a few slow breaths to calm herself, and catches hold of his left hand, fiddling with his wedding ring. “We’ve known each other for two weeks, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. That’s completely crazy, isn’t it?”
“It’s absolutely bonkers,” he replies, unruffled. “And it’s perfect.”
“Good. Just checking.” She folds her fingers between his, palm pressed against the back of his hand. He strokes down the curve of her hip, both their fingertips grazing her skin as he guides their movement. Gradually he slips their joined hands between her legs, and she gleefully nibbles at the rounded head of his shoulder.
A second later, he crawls under the comforter again, mouth following his fingers, and she starts moaning curses in Russian. It’s the sexiest thing he’s ever heard.
~~~~~
Jupiter doesn’t mind that her internal alarm clock wakes her up at 5:45 the next morning, because it means she gets to wake Caine, too.
They hardly leave the apartment for thirty-six hours. They don’t put on clothes for about the same amount of time – only briefly getting dressed to walk Sig, and to deposit Jupiter’s completed Columbia application into the nearest postbox. On Saturday night, they venture across the patio and into the observatory, but lose their clothes again once they’re inside, and they break the rickety wooden ladder to boot. Jupiter spends a few minutes pulling splinters out of Caine's ass, but the ladder is a total loss.
On Sunday, Caine takes off his ring and rides the train with Jupiter to Vassily’s house. She assumes he must be concerned for her safety, chivalrously escorting her home like last week. She pecks him goodbye on the porch, so he can make a quick escape, before her family press-gangs him into manual labor again.
He lingers, shoulders hunched as he casts furtive glances at the door.
“Caine, do you want to come in for dinner?” she finally asks.
Anyone else would label his expression a grimace; Jupiter recognizes it as panicked longing. She doesn’t know whether he’s about to bolt down the street, or plunge into the house and beg to move more furniture. Judging from the way his entire body jitters, Caine genuinely doesn’t know either.
In a play for time, he gestures at her left hand and avoids the question. “Aren’t you going to take off your ring?”
“I’ve decided to go ahead and tell them we’re engaged.”
“Shit! I knew it! Mikka, they are getting married! You owe me ten bucks!” Vladie yells.
Caine flinches like he’s been struck, and Jupiter whips around to find that the nearby window has been open this entire time. Half-hidden by curtains, Vladie leans on the windowsill, his head craned to shout into the house.
Jupiter snatches one of Irina’s plastic herb pots from the ground and chucks it at her cousin. It thumps the back of his head in a spray of dirt and leaves, and he yelps, whirling back around to glower at her.
“Oh my god,” comes a squeal from inside the house, then a chorus of shouting, and the front door bursts wide open. The entire family crowds through, Irina hauling Jupiter inside and Vassily shaking Caine’s hand, slapping him on the shoulder with congratulations.
Nino pulls Caine down into a hug and whispers something into his ear; his eyes go perfectly round, and he straightens with the rigidity of a private up for inspection, turning toward the opposite end of the room.
Aleksa stands by the couch, hands on her hips. “Well, большой щенок?”
Jupiter dodges between Mikka and Vassily to stand beside Caine, catching his hand.
“I'm the one who asked him to marry me,” she says, before her mother has a chance to say anything wildly embarrassing. Like how Jupiter swore at sixteen years old she’d never love anyone except Tony Danza, or how Caine ought to have asked for Aleksa’s permission to get married, like Jupiter was some piece of property to be handed off from one family to another.
“And I suppose this means you’re moving to Manhattan?” Aleksa grumbles. There’s tightness around her eyes and resigned sadness in the turn of her mouth. Jupiter is Aleksa’s only child, the most tangible remnant of the great love of her life. Surely this feels not only like losing her daughter, but also like an echo of the loss of her husband.
Before Jupiter can admit to her mother that she and Caine haven’t even discussed the issue, he squeezes her hand. Glancing up, she finds his eyebrows arched. He mouths silently, “Are you?”
One corner of her mouth lifts. “Okay.”
Caine squeezes her hand again and drops his gaze to the floor, like he always does when he’s happy. Jupiter turns to her mother; Aleksa regards the two of them with an expression of knowing surrender.
“We’ll have you and Nino over to eat every week,” Jupiter says. “And we’ll always come to Vassily's for Sunday dinner, too.”
“You won’t have so far to travel for work, I suppose,” Aleksa sighs. She strides over to grasp Jupiter’s cheeks, planting a kiss on her forehead. “I am happy for you, my daughter.” She seizes Caine’s head, pulling him down and planting a kiss on his forehead, too. “And for you, my new son.”
Caine is speechless at that – he swallows, that same panicked longing on his face again, just like when he was outside on the porch.
Jupiter throws both arms around her mother. “Thank you.”
“Caine’s eyes are exactly like your father’s – the same color, and filled with the same kindness,” Aleksa murmurs into her ear, in Russian. The admission, the acceptance, it stops Jupiter’s breath in her throat. “He seems like a good boy, with a loyal heart. But if he ever makes you unhappy, I will cut off his balls.”
“I love you too, Mama,” she says, squeezing her mother tighter.
Monday is Caine’s first morning at work for the Aegis Group, but he lingers at Vassily's late into Sunday night anyway. A few days later, Aleksa and Nino help Jupiter pack up two boxes worth of clothing and trinkets, and they drive her into Manhattan, to Caine's apartment. The four of them eat dinner together, the first occasion of a new, extended family tradition.
Aleksa and Nino go back to Brighton Beach. Jupiter stays in her new home, with her new husband. There's so much to get started on - holing up in the observatory, gleefully chasing each other into the bedroom, washing their first load of laundry together, and squabbling over who gets the last bowl of Cocoa Puffs. Before any of that, though, Jupiter drags Caine onto the patio. Sig trots along beside them.
Holding hands, they stare up at the stars and take in the view. The sky is completely clear, aside from the background glow of light pollution. Pinpricks of light gleam in the darkness, dazzling against the city skyline.
"It's beautiful. Your dad was right, the sky is full of miracles," Caine says.
Jupiter leans into him. "I dunno. Earth isn't so bad. Plenty of miracles happening around here lately."
Several long seconds of silence stretch between them. He tilts his head down to stare at her, eyebrows drawn together. "That might've been - no, that definitely was - the cheesiest thing anyone's ever said to me."
"Oh, shut up," she says, rolling her eyes and elbowing him in the ribs before she hauls him toward the observatory. "For the record, that's a royal command."
He's grinning brightly. "So if I disobey, you'll have to tie me up and have your way with me?"
"Hmm, well. That's happening regardless," she replies.
"Jupiter, I'm going to need to know which of my parts you'd qualify as miraculous. Please be precise."
Caine lets her pull him into the observatory. She closes the door behind them. Sig curls up in his customary spot, beside the carefully stacked workout gear. Without being asked, because the ladder is broken, Caine stretches onto his tiptoes to shove open the observation hatch.
"Mercury's visible for the next half hour," Jupiter says to him. "And after that we'll get a Sharpie, so I can label all your parts on a miraculousness scale of one to ten."