Chapter 152: Rings
*The best thing to hold onto in life is each other. – Audrey Hepburn*
The following morning, a little before sunrise, JD left a note on the kitchen island for Dean. *Gone with Reese, be back later. Love you, JD*
Then he walked out and met Reese who was sitting in the still running Impala. Sliding into the passenger seat and pulling on his seat belt, he looked at the older man.
“So where are we going?”
“There’s a jeweler that I like. If you find something that you like, he can make it today.” Reese explained as he pulled out onto the road and headed away from Morgan City.
They rode in silence for several minutes before JD asked, “How far away?”
“About an hour. We have to stop and grab some donuts before we get there. You want coffee for the road?”
“Would love some coffee.”
“Me too.” Reese pulled into the nearly empty parking lot and aimed the car at the small building at the other side.
There were only two cars in front of them in the drive through. Reese quickly placed their order, remembering what the younger man had ordered last time. At the window, he paid with cash and left a hefty tip.
“You don’t pay it forward?” JD asked as he took the lid off to blow on the coffee.
Reese shook his head as he pulled out onto the other road. “I’d rather tip than pay for someone that has the money to pay for their own. If I have a choice, and I do, I prefer to help those who are struggling. Most of the baristas around here are college students.”
“Always trying to improve the world?”
“Just my little corner of it.” Reese grinned. “If we all make a corner a little better, the world gets better a little at a time.”
“Can do!” JD replied with the Seabee motto.
“Exactly.”
They talked about what he should expect when he shipped out later in the week and once he arrived at Naval Station Great Lakes. He was lucky in that he would be completing boot camp before it got cold and winter set in.
Reese paid the girl at the window for the donuts and then they were on their way the last little bit.
“Had a buddy do basic over Christmas and they had to take hammers to the bathroom.” Reese laughed.
“Seriously?”
“Had to bust the ice in the toilets.”
“Holy hell.” JD muttered as he thought about that.
Laughing, Reese pulled into a long driveway and drove around to a large workshop. JD followed the other man in through the door on the side of the building.
“Sy!” Reese called out.
“Donuts?” came a reply from deep inside the building.
“Yeah!” Reese replied as he topped off his coffee from the pot by the desk.
“Get your hands off my coffee.” A tall black man replied as he walked into the little office drying his hands on a black terrycloth towel.
“I brought you donuts.” Reese pointed out. “Sy, this is my son, JD. JD, this is the man who made your moms collar.”
“Could’ve lived without that thought.” The younger man grumbled before offering his hand. “JD.”
“Sy.” The other man replied shaking his hand. “You want something for Dean?”
“Yeah. I leave for the nave this week and I want her to know that I’m serious about us.”
“I can do that.” He sat down behind the desk and grabbed the box of donuts. “What he didn’t tell you was that I did their rings too.”
“That would be better to think about.” JD sat down and accepted the portfolio that the other man offered.
“I also made your sisters collar.”
“Son of a bitch.” The teen complained as the other two men laughed.
As the two men reminisced over their times on the Great Lakes, JD looked through the book of rings. There were several small ones that were pretty. Finely twisted silver or gold. Tiny gemstones. Specialty cuts of gems. Gold bands.
They were all pretty and spectacular to look at. But none of them were his Dean.
Turning the page at the end of the portfolio, he saw it.
A white pearl, carved into the shape of a skull being held between two skeleton hands and tiny diamonds in the eye sockets.
“She would like that one.” Reese said looking at the ring that JD had stopped on.
“That one’s pretty easy.” Sy nodded. He finished off his last donut and then sucked the icing off his fingers. Standing up, the jeweler grinned down at the young man. “Ready to get started?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Not yet. But I’m sure you will be.” Grabbing a leather apron, Sy tossed it at JD. “Come on, you’re going to put your blood, sweat and tears into this ring for your girl.”
And he did.
It was hot enough in the metal building that JD started to sweat almost immediately. After burning himself the fifth, or possibly the hundredth, time, tears filled his eyes. And when he stabbed his finger, blood dripped to the floor.
Reese dropped him off at the big house around nine that night. “JD.” Reese said holding out a box to the teen.
Leaning back into the car, he accepted the second box. Inside was a mans ring in gunmetal tungsten with a green malachite inlay to match the emeralds in the eyes of Dean’s ring. There was also a black silicon ring with Dean imprinted in the inside.
“Thanks. I’ll pay you back for this.”
“They’re all a gift.” Reese smiled at him.
“One four three.” JD smiled at him.
“One four three.” Reese agreed right before the car door closed and he drove away.
JD walked into what he now thought of as his home and found Dean sitting at the kitchen island.
“Hi.” Came a nervous greeting as he approached her.
Dean nodded but didn’t look up. After placing the boxes on the marble, he cupped her face and kissed her tenderly. As he moved away, he brushed the tears off her cheeks.
“I got you something today. And I want you to wear it until I give you a different one.”
She looked at him in confusion as he let go of her and opened the box with her ring in it. Then taking her left hand, JD slipped the darkened silver ring on her finger.
“I love you. I’m going to love you until my last breath. I want to marry you, but until then, I’m giving you a promise ring.” He kept his hand over hers, preventing her from seeing the ring.
“I’m making you this promise, right now. I will be faithful to you. I will return to you. I will return for you. I will always be here for you. And I will *always* be your best friend. Always. I’m yours, from now until the end of time.”
Lifting her hand, he kissed her knuckles and then slipped his own ring on.
“This says that I’m yours. Forever.”
With one more kiss to her knuckles, he released her hand and she gasped at the ring.
“Oh! JD, it’s perfect.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she made the quiet declaration.
“I’m not leaving you. I’m just going to work. Don’t leave me either.”
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