“You’d be pissed. You wouldn’t be talking about wanting to marry me, you’d be yelling at me about being unfaithful and?—”
“Were you?”
“I already answered that, no. And it’s not about Torin at all, not really, just me and you — we aren’t working. I don’t want you to ask me to marry you just because Jen told you that I expected you to ask. You know?”
He shook his head. “If I had come back from my meetings and Torin had never been here and I had taken you out and asked you to marry me would you have said yes?”
I nodded. “Yeah, but that seems like forever ago and a lot has happened since then. Things that clarified my mind on us. It doesn’t have anything to do with Torin, not really.”
“But Torin was here. I bet if Torin hadn’t been here and Jen had nudged me and I had asked you… I bet you would have said, yes.”
“Maybe, but we can’t turn back time, and seriously, Coop, you had just gotten bad news. Even if Jen had nudged you, you might not have done it.”
“What do you mean?”
“That this whole talk of marriage is a reaction to Torin.”
He said, “He’s not coming back, you know that right? He told me to ‘protect you’ and said he wasn’t coming back. He said he wouldn’t bother us again. He seemed pissed and like he was gone for good. I can’t believe you’re throwing everything away for a guy you barely know who you’ll probably never see again.”
“I keep saying it’s not really about Torin at all. I was thinking this, months ago. I was just trying to make it better, to ignore it, but we’re not really that great together?—”
“God damn it, Lexi, I love you! You don’t even sound like yourself. This is what I was saying, he’s gotten all up in your head and you’re letting yourself be swayed by him. The minute I saw you serving him ice cream at dinner, I knew I was losing you. I just can’t figure out why. What can I do?”
“Nothing, not really, I get that we both want different things.”
“We don’t though, we both want to live here, to make a life here. He’s not going to do that with you… I’m here, we love each other, come on, Lexi.”
“I think I made up my mind.”
He just breathed, then he said, “Dammit.”
He looked really, really sad.
He chewed his lip. “I think you need to talk to Jen, just think this through, let’s not get rash.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m not myself, literally. A week ago I was Lexi, now I’m Alexandria, some kind of princess and there’s a security guard on my porch.”
“Not yet. There will be…” He cocked his head. “You believe him?”
“I don’t know, it doesn’t make sense, but it’s the only thing thatdoesmake sense.”
He said, “When he said that the little girl had been stolen away I swear to God a chill went down my spine.”
“Mine too.”
He said, “And you never told Torin about that dream?”
“No, he had no idea.”
He leaned against the counter, and nodded, as if our conversation was done. “Can we… Can we just say we are taking a break, like we’re not together, we’re figuring it out? I would like a chance to win you back, I think I can do it. I think if you give me a chance to try to win you over…”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m thinking that it’s not really a good idea to keep living together.”
He nodded. “So, you’ve just had a kidnapping and you think I’m going to just move out and leave you here alone? This doesn’t… I’m not down with it.”
I said, “Yeah, I know, it’s…”
“Just leaving to go over to the feed store I had to ask Andrew to come over to watch over you, I just, you know… I love you. I can’t walk away and forget that you’ve got medieval asswipes trying to get at you.”
