Page 108 of Bearly Out Loud

Then she gave him the full volume.

“YES.”

The sound bounced off the retractable panels, startled two pigeons on the neighboring building’s ledge, and carried into the warm spring night with the force and clarity of a voice trained to fill stadiums and recording booths and the hearts of people who loved her. The bees stirred in their hives. The string lights swayed. Triumph roared through him—not violence, not rage, but a sound that shook his bones and filled every cell of his body with heat that was bright andhers.

He lifted her off the ground. Her arms went around his neck. She was laughing and crying—the mascara holding through whatever industrial miracle Takumi had verified—and her feet were bare, and her gown was hiked up, and her face was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he was roaring, and the bees were confused, and none of it mattered because she was sayingyesand she was saying itloud.

“You proposed at the bee garden.” She was laughing into his neck, her tears warm against his skin. “Of COURSE, you proposed at the bee garden. Where else would you propose? A normal restaurant? A beach? No. The BEES.”

“The bees are important.”

“The bees arewitnessing our engagement.”

“They’re very supportive.”

“I’m marrying a man whose bees are supportive. This is my life now.” She pulled back. Looked at the ring. He slid it onto her finger and it fit—not a guess, not a lucky size. He’d asked Takumi, who’d asked Akemi, who’d measured one of Nari’s rings in a covert operation that had involved a staged jewelry shopping trip and a level of espionage that Reo had called “unnecessary but admirable.”

The amber glowed on her hand. Warm. Gold. Home.

“It’s honey-colored.”

“Amber.”

“It’s the exact color of your eyes when you look at me. You chose a ring that matches your own eyes.”

“The stone reminded me of?—"

“Youreyes, Dojin. You romantic, oblivious, beekeeping man. You gave me a ring that’s the color of you.”

He hadn’t realized. He looked at the stone on her hand. It was, in fact, the exact shade of amber that bled into his brown when he was most himself. He had chosen it because it reminded him ofher. She sawhim.

This woman. This voice. This life.

He kissed her. On a rooftop, in the spring, forty stories above Manhattan, with bees humming and string lights glowing and the ring on her finger catching every flicker of light and throwing it back in gold.

His phone buzzedin his pocket. He ignored it. She did not.

“Give me the phone.”

“It can wait.”

“Nothing about our families can wait. Hand it over.”

He handed it over.

Takumi had sent a seventeen-second voice message. She played it. It was, in its entirety, screaming. Not words. Not sentences. Pure, sustained, vocal-cord-destroying shrieking that tapered into a wheeze and then resumed at a higher pitch. At the fourteen-second mark, a cat yowled in harmony. Emi, contributing.

Then a text:I CALLED IT AT THE HONEYCOMB. EMI AND I ACCEPT YOUR GRATITUDE.

Below that, Reo to the group chat:Engaged. Ring accepted. Bees survived. Kitchen. Now. Bring champagne.

Below that, Colette:I AM ALREADY CRYING. STELLAN IS PRETENDING HE ISN’T. THE DUCK IS DEFROSTING.

Below that, Hana:I started composing your wedding march forty minutes ago. It’s already better than Mendelssohn.

Below that, Priya:Congratulations. Studio time starts 8 AM Monday. Romance is no excuse for delays.

Below that, James:I’ll draft the prenup. — That was a joke. Akemi is crying. Welcome to the family, son.