“You’ve seen what kind of state my family is in. You know I’m bringing danger down on your house just by being here.”
“So what, Cassia?”
“You barely know me,” she insisted. “You keep saying you don’t care, that you know what you want, but howcanyou? Maybe you’re just hung up on the idea of me. Or you think because we made love you don’t have a choice.”
“It’s neither of those things. But you make a good point: we don’t know each other too well, or else you wouldn’t be asking.” Aevrin leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees with a frown as he hunted for the right words.
“First of all… I’ve known you a good month,” he started. It was enough time to fall in love, but he knew better than to admit that to her yet.
“That’s not long.”
“I’ve seen you happy and sad. We’ve had deep conversations and silly ones. I’ve seen how you talk to other people, how you take your work, the way you move through the world. There might be a lot I don’t know yet, but I think I’ve got a pretty fair sense of who you are. You still feel likeI’ma stranger?”
“Of course not,” Cassia said. “But your life, well…”
“What? It’s simple? Not like your big city?” Aevrin asked with a quiet smile. He wanted to pull her against him. Cassia still looked sad. But he resisted.
“In a good way,” Cassia said. “In a way I wish I had.”
“Alright. Look.” He straightened and turned towards her. “I told you I lost my mother?”
“I’m sorry for that,” she said, as if she had anything to apologize for.
“When she got sick, it came out of nowhere. And it came at us real fast. No cure, the healers said. Even brought in one from another territory to look at her.”
“Aevrin…” he ignored the pain on her face, because it was hard enough to talk about in the first place without seeing all the pity written there.
“You’re right, my life was pretty simple, and good. And I took it for granted. I thought things would always be the way they were. But when I was 14, we lost her. I saw the woman who raised me spend her last months fighting to live, until she didn’t even look like herself, and there was nothing I could do except be grateful for the time we had and be furious it wasn’t longer. And then I watched my father… he might not show it now, Cassia, but he lost himself to grief. Dariek pretty much ran the ranch; I think it’s why he spends so much time away from it now. Mavek dropped out of school to help, and pa was so far gone he didn’t even realize. There were whole weeks he didn’t even get out of bed.”
Cassia reached over and laid her hand over his. Aevrin looked down at it for a long moment, her skin pale and warm against his workman’s hand. Slowly he turned his hand over, palm-to-palm, and wrapped his fingers back around hers.
It was an old hurt, but the kind that never really went away. It just got buried deeper, grown over by new experiences, new memories.
“I learned something from that, Cassia. Life is way too damn short and love is too damn precious to spend time hesitating over it. If you find someone you care for, you hold onto them, because none of us know how long we have. And if my father could go back in time and court my ma sooner, I know he would.”
There were tears running down Cassia’s face. She wiped them discreetly with her other hand, squeezing his tighter, and bent her head down away from him.
“So there’s things I don’t know about you. So what. I know I like talking to you. I know you make me laugh, and smile, and the thought of you hurting makes me hurt too. I know you’ve got a good heart, and a determination, and a gentle way about you. And Iknowthat if I found a woman I can have fun with, freezing cold and soaking wet, eating probably the worst flavor of custard in the back of a cart…”
“Hey,” she said, a choked laugh escaping her mouth. “Don’t bring plain custard into this.”
He squeezed her hand back and unconsciously leaned a little closer to her, continuing on.
“...I don’t have to question whether I want that woman in my life. And, fine, maybe we need to know each other better before I get down on one knee and try to make it forever—so what? You’re always learning more about the people in your life. And it doesn’t mean I’m going to hesitate. It means I’m gonna dive in head-first and spend as much time with you as I can, because I don’t intend to waste the time I have on the Saint’s good earth, wondering what’s right for me when my heart already knows.”
“You sure talk pretty for somebody with terrible taste,” she whispered. He smiled softly and reached over to tuck a strand of her hair back over her ear, letting his fingertips skim the side of her face and trace the curve of her ear. Cassia drew a breath “The thing is, Aevrin, for me… everything’s always ended. I guess I’ve learned to spend my time hunting for the signs that it’s about to fall apart… and I’ve learned not to get too attached to any one place, because the moment I do always seems to be the moment I’m being asked to leave.”
“I can’t promise you how the future will go for us,” Aevrin admitted. “I learned long ago there’s things I can’t control. But I can tell you this: if you spend your life trying to keep yourheart safe from the world, you’re gonna miss out on a lot of good things, too. And that's a shame all on its own.”
“Maybe. I dunno if I can take any more heartbreak right now, though.”
“If heartbreak’s coming for you, hiding isn’t gonna stop it. It’ll just stop the good from getting in.”
“I’m not sure that’s true…”
Aevrin shrugged.
“Well, whatever. It’s what I think. You get to make your own choices. But please, Cassia, would you stop questioning whether I’m making the wrong choices for myself, and just trust that I know me, and I know what I want?”
