This made him pause. Where was she going with this? Harry figured there wasn't any harm in telling this woman the truth and that she'd probably see right through any lie he told. "Er, yeah- yes. I- I guess you could say that."
Sofia hummed, and it was so similar to the way Luz did when she was mildly annoyed and amused with Harry at the same time, he did a double take. Resting her purse on the table, she started fishing around for something. It wasn't until she pulled out a blue velvet box that Harry realized that Sofia wasn't wearing a ring of any kind on her left hand.
"Here," she said to him, pushing the box in his direction. "This ring has been in our family for generations. I'm hoping it will solve your problem."
Harry was speechless. Never in any of his many trips to jewelry stores or secretly looking online did he ever think that Luz's grandmother would give him her ring. He wondered why, of all the grandchildren she had, all the husbands and wives that came before him, was he the one to receive it. In any case, he was grateful. Not just for having the stress of searching for the perfect engagement ring be over and done with, but because even though they'd never met before, Sofia must've seen something in Harry that was worthy of gifting this ring to him. He took a quick look around the ballroom to make sure Luz wasn't around before he opened the box to take a look inside.
It was perfect, no other word to describe it. Harry hadn't considered outside the world of diamonds when it came to finding Luz's ring, if only because that's all there ever was in the display cases. Part of Harry's problem when he was looking was that all of them looked the same, or they seemed too sophisticated for Luz's more laid back tastes.
This ring had a sophistication to it as well, but it was offset by the sentimentality that a family ring would always have. It was a thin band with little diamonds on the sides, but the real showstopper was the center. It wasn't the biggest he'd seen, but it was still pretty large, and it was surrounded by a small halo of sapphires. The longer he looked at it, the longer he knew Luz would love it. Harry suddenly felt a rush of emotion hit him, and he had to fight the urge to cry at this wedding and in front of Luz's grandmother.
"I- thank you. This... this will mean so much to Luz, means so much to me, so thank you."
Sofia looked somewhere behind Harry, a fond smile etching her face. "You know, I used to take care of her and the rest of my grandchildren almost every day."
"Really?" Harry asked, surprised that she was sharing with him. She didn't strike him as the type to tell stories when she first sat down next to him.
"Mm. Lucero was always asking about how I met my husband, always playing with that ring when she held my hand."
Harry smiled, the image of a younger Luz with long hair and a missing tooth asking Sofia all sorts of questions. He thought of how when she held his hand, she still had a habit of twisting and fiddling with the rings on his fingers.
"You're a good boy," Sofia told him, resting a weathered hand over his. "I saw that today. You look at her like the sun doesn't rise or set without her telling it to do so. You're eyes have been searching for her since I sat down, and not just so she doesn't hear our conversation."
He felt himself blush. Harry didn't realize he had a look that intense when he gazed at Luz, but if he could sum up how he felt about her in a few words, those ones would be a good start. "I love her. And, I know what it's like to not have her in my life. I never want to feel that way again."
"You won't," Sofia said, so simply like she was telling him the sky was blue or that was her engagement ring in his hands. "Especially when you look so handsome."
The Proposal
Start from the beginning
