Chapter 34
Daniel
I get home and the apartment looks lived in: Anu’s style to the letter. Never tidy—one of the things I must learn to live with. I take my shoes off and head to my room. I find her sleeping and I kiss her forehead before heading to the bathroom to shower. I return in my sleeping pants and crawl into bed with her. She’s wearing my T-shirt, and her smell fills my nostrils. I wrap my arms around her waist, and I breathe her in. She curls her body to me, and a soft moan escapes her. My whole being relaxes with her in my arms. I pull her closer to fulfill the yearn of melding her body to mine.
“Mmm, welcome back,” she groggily says.
“I missed you,” I whisper, kissing her neck.
“Missed you too,” she replies and falls back to sleep.
“Marry me,” I whisper to her.
“Too sleepy, talk in the morning.”
“Say yes.” I nuzzle her.
“Later,” she mumbles.
I kiss her neck again before falling asleep.
When I wake up, I’m alone in bed. The room is still dark: Anu’s preference. I can tell it’s daytime, though the shades darken the room. There’s sunlight fighting for a chance to get through. Pulling myself out of bed, I go out to look for her. The smell of coffee and tea hits my nostril. She has perfected how I like my coffee. I head towards the coffee smell, covering my eyes. All the curtains are pulled; it feels like the light is attacking my face. I fucking dislike how she’s a morning person.
I grab the cup that’s settled on the warmer and sip the hot creamy coffee before turning to face her. She’s still in my T-shirt that’s barely covering her ass and those ugly as hell granny panties. For someone who doesn’t wear panties most times, it never ceases to amaze me how she loves to sleep in granny panties, and she always wears the ugliest ones. Fortunately, even her ugliest panty is still a turn on for me.
“Good morning.”
“I see you made it back in one piece,” she responds.
“I was determined to sleep in our bed,” I answer, letting the coffee charge my system.
“Good, I was about to find another man to cuddle with if you didn’t show. You made it in the nick of time.”
I chuckle. She certainly has her ways of poking me. “I have to head out in a few; I have a new student,” she casually states.
“That’s good. Are we going to discuss my proposal?”
“What proposal?” She looks at me, clueless. Did she sincerely not hear me? Guess I should up my game.
“Never mind. My mind is still asleep; we can discuss later.”
“Okay.” She kisses my cheek and leaves for the bedroom. I watch her leave, and my mind is wondering if she was that sleepy, if she’s messing with me, or if she just doesn’t want to answer.
Chapter 35
Anu-Ms K
Soon as I’m out the door, I let out a loaded ton of exhale. I was happy to curl into him last night, and though sleepy, I heard him. I just thought maybe it was my mind messing with me but, this morning, with him asking, it dawned on me that he really did ask me to marry him.
How could that be possible? We are less than three months together. I feel everything about him in my bones. I know we are real, but I’m scared. It may just be a phase because the storm will come, and it just might blow us away. But if we do withstand the storm, then we are bound to last.
I once was sure no amount of storm could blow away love, but I learned the hard way when Caleb broke up with me, telling me he couldn’t handle my sickle cell. The constant hospitalization was not for him, and he broke up with me. I thought Teni might be better, but turns out he was much more annoying than Caleb was, and I soon learned to keep men at bay and out of my circle.
Now, Daniel is asking to marry me. For a woman with my condition, I should hold my heels and race to the altar, but life has taught me to pause.
Pause I will, till I see how he handles the storm that’s bound to come and test us. He has to see it, at least once.
Being an SC patient means endless hospital runs, I don’t want to get married and my husband is constantly at the hospital, there’s also the possible early death. Nope, it’s not worth it putting someone through that.
