His answer is immediate, amused in a way that doesn’t soften the bite of his words. “Outside of the bedroom, maybe,” he says. “But only because I’d hate to have to kill someone who mistakenly thinks they can use my nickname for you.”
Pru mouths,oh no, he did not, with breathless outrage. I close my eyes so I don’t smile. I will not smile at this man telling me murder is a boundary he’s willing to cross for me.
“I haven’t agreed to anything,” I say. “Yet, your cousin Aoife is in my dorm. She says you set a wedding date for seven days. I didn’t?—”
“You will,” he says, and the quiet lands like a hand on the small of my back, guiding, not asking. “Remember what you gave me. There’s no taking it back, and I’m not going to let you go. Doing so would insult both of our families, and it would create an unnecessary war.”
My mouth goes dry. “I didn’t give you anything.” The lie burns sweetly against my racing heart.
“You gave me your breath,” he says, “and your yes. You gave me every secret your body owns. The way your pulse stops trying to hide when I touch your hand in the dark.” A pause, the ragged shape of restraint. “Not to mention, so many of your firsts.”
The room tilts, just enough to make me reach for the desk with my free hand. Pru watches my face the way she watches a fuse.
“You don’t get to own me because I let you touch me,” I say. “That’s not how any of this is supposed to work.”
“Maybe if you weren’t you and I wasn’t me. In our world, things work differently,” he says. “I keep what belongs with me. You can argue about fairness with a priest.” The line is almost dry humor. Almost. “Go spend a fortune on a wedding neither of us will remember.”
“Excuse me?”
“Because all I’ll be thinking of,” he adds, “is taking you in the confessional again. I’ll be replaying it over and over while you become my wife.”
The sound Pru makes is the sound a cat makes when it sees a bird on TV and realizes it can’t get through glass. “Absolutely not,” she whispers, and then louder, “Absolutely not.”
“Pru says absolutely not,” I tell him.
“Prudence is welcome to say it to my face,” he says. “Tell her to put it in her calendar for five tonight. The maid of honor should probably be at the chapel walkthrough.”
“I haven’t?—”
“You’ll be there,” he says. “I’ll pick you up at two-thirty. You should wear black. You look delicious in black.”
I look down at my legs—bare, chilled, goose-fleshed—and up at Pru, whose eyebrows are climbing toward the acoustic tiles. “No.”
“Underwear optional,” he adds, like he’s talking about weather.
I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m always serious,” he says. “Hang up, Kitty. Drink your coffee. Let my cousin take your measurements and lie to you about how fun cake tastings are.” A beat. “We’ll discuss nicknames later.”
“Outside the bedroom,” I offer weakly.
“Maybe,” he says, and I can hear the smile even if no one else ever will. “Two-thirty.”
The line goes dead.
I set the phone on the desk like you set down something that might explode if you breathe on it. Pru leans her forehead against my shoulder and swears into my T-shirt.
“He is a menace,” she says. “And regardless of what you think right now… you don’t have to do any of this if you don’t want to.” Pru blinks a few times, eyes hot. “You’re a person. You’re my person.”
I cover her hand with mine. “I know.”
We stand in the middle of our ugly dorm room with its cinderblock walls and its bulletin board clutter and its laminated rules about toaster ovens, and we exist in the small, honest universe of girls who would throw themselves in front of things for each other. Then someone knocks, polite, and the universe expands to include an Irish cousin with a strict calendar and a pen she’s going to use to wrangle me into submission.
Aoife slips back in and reads the room. She doesn’t soften her voice into pity. “Right,” she says briskly. “Which one of you wants to be distracted by lace, and which one of you wants to fight with me over guest lists?”
Pru’s chin juts. “I’m fighting.”
“Brilliant,” Aoife says. “You can argue about seating arrangements while I talk Saint Caterina into not stabbing me with a safety pin. I like you.” Aoife turns to me. “Have I mentioned that I like you? If you asked me to add pockets for a weapon in your dress, I would cry happy tears and send my tailor flowers.”
