"I'm sorry that I upset you, but Shannon needs a hard shove. She's wasting away in front of our eyes, and everyone is acting like we should watch quietly while it happens."
"I think you've forgotten how a bad breakup can wreck your life," Tiel said. "She's working herself into the ground and shutting everyone out because it's her way of grieving and coping. Stop instigating arguments with her, and tell her it's okay to feel her feelings."
"Breakup? This is about a guy?" I asked. "When? Who? No one told me."
Tiel brought her hands to my face and tugged me down for a quick kiss. "How can you be so smart and so clueless at the same time?"
"It's one of my many gifts and talents," I said.
Things got rockier after my chat with Shannon. Lauren—sweet, loving Miss Honey—called this afternoon to bust my balls about hearing the news from Matt, and not directly from me. She seemed genuinely hurt by the implication that she didn't rank high enough in my book to warrant telling her myself, and that was when I started feeling like the highest grade of asshole possible.
Or the lowest. Whichever was worse.
Riley piled on with a lecture that bordered on beat down over my discussion with Shannon. He heard about it from Tom, of course. He also felt it was necessary to remind me that she was dealing with some shit, and if I couldn't say anything nice to her, I wasn't to say anything at all.
Then, Tiel and I called her parents. Or, more accurately, Tiel called, and I listened while her parents talked over each other about her older sister, Agapi, for twenty-five minutes. They were especially pleased with Agapi for doing something miraculous with menus at the Greek restaurant they owned, and her husband was "a doll," and her infant daughter, Anatola, was the most beautiful, brilliant child ever conceived. Once Agapi Appreciation Hour was over, they turned their attention to Tiel.
I knew she spoke with her father about once a month, and she'd mentioned she was seeing someone, but she'd erred on the side of sharing less and I respected that choice. Her family situation was far too complicated for me to jump in and demand higher billing before our engagement.
When they started with their questions about whether she had a job or a place to stay, I understood why she kept these calls to a minimum. I also wanted to make sure they grasped how wrong they were about her, but her stern expression told me to stay quiet. I didn't correct their faulty assumptions, but I did growl like an irritable wolf when they invited her to "move home and start over" whenever she was ready. For some incomprehensible reason, her parents treated her prodigy-level musical talent as a burden and embarrassment.
It made no fucking sense, but who was I to point out family dysfunction?
When she announced we were engaged, there was thirty seconds of dead silence. Their disapproval dripped from every word and stilted pause, and though I still didn't grasp why they were such dickheads, I knew it was another reminder that it was time for us to shake off the dead weights of the past and build our own family.
"This is not something we're going to stress out about," I said as I moved salmon and vegetables around the grill pan. "And please clarify for me why the hell we should care what anyone thinks anyway? We're happy for us, and everyone else can fuck off."
"You don't actually believe that," she said. "The everyone fucking off part."
"I mostly do," I said. "We're going to do what makes us happy. End of story."
Tiel grabbed a set of plates and silverware and busied herself at the table. "Sam," she said, shaking her head. "You know that's not even close to the end of the story. We don't get to live happily ever after just yet. Simply because we want to get married doesn't mean that we won't deal with real life and real issues."
Recognizing she was right, I didn't say anything else as I headed toward the table.
Tiel looked around the kitchen and great room, her eyes narrowed. "Is Riley not joining us? I mean, there's food on the table and he's not here, and I can't remember a time when that's ever happened."
"The Patriots are playing in Foxboro tonight," I said as I passed Tiel a bowl of veggies. "Magnolia has season tickets."
Her eyes widened as she chuckled. "Ah, yes. Hisbro, Magnolia."
"Yeah," I murmured.
Talking about Magnolia, the landscape architect whose romantic advances I'd missed for months until she took it upon herself to kiss me while Tiel watched last winter, was akin to handling a live grenade. No matter what I did, it was ending with an explosion.
And to add a little extra boom to that explosion, Magnolia and Riley had bonded over their shared love of New England sports. If they weren't cheering on their favorite teams from the sidelines, they were doing it at Boston's best taverns and pubs. He insisted their relationship was strictly platonic, and he seized every opportunity to remind me that the disaster with Magnolia was all my fault. He didn't see any reason to refuse forty-yard-line seats because I was deaf to shameless flirting.
It wasn't that Tiel was dwelling on my massive cock-up with Magnolia. But there was some truth to the old adage about letting things heal by leaving them alone. The constant presence of Magnolia—even if only in Riley's outings and her work on the Turlan project—wore at the wound.
When we finished eating, I refilled Tiel's wine glass and elected to dive back into wedding talk. "Forget your parents, forget my siblings, forget everything," I said, wise enough not to drop Magnolia's name twice in one evening. "Tiel. I want to be married to you. I want to be yours, and I want you as mine. This is about us, and nothing else. Please, sweetheart, let's pick a date, and then we focus on the important things, like honeymoon destinations and what to name our kids."
She smiled and set her glass down, then rounded the table to nestle on my lap. Her hair was cut short, just barely brushing her shoulders, and as I buried my face there, I was hit with the delicate aroma of her shampoo. My lips trailed over her neck and collarbone, and my arms roped around her waist. There was something about her skin, her scent, her smile that grounded me.
"You and your smooth lines," she said, pulling her phone from her back pocket. "Let's take a look at—oh. Huh."
I glanced to Tiel and then her phone's screen, and found her staring at a message. "What is it?"
"An email from my father." She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth before continuing. "They—my parents—want us to spend Thanksgiving with them. They…they're looking forward to meeting you."
