I hold onto her, eventually manoeuvring to lie by my side instead of collapsed on top of me. She doesn’t respond to the change in position except for her fingers, which close around my hand, gripping tightly just as she had that first night. As though her body knew I was hers long before her mind caught up to the fact.
Listening to her snuffling breaths, lost to whatever dreams play out inside her head, I draw her closer. I drop my head to kiss the bony ridges at the base of her neck. With the darkness closing in around us, I finally tell her the thing I wanted to say, the words that are so early in our relationship that they’re ridiculous, no matter how much they feel true.
“I love you.”
Her breath hitches like even in the depths of her unconscious mind she feels the need to acknowledge the moment. Then her inhalation smooths out again as I feel contentment that I didn’t even realise could be mine.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
MICAH
My mother’s face morphs from delight, to worry, to deep concern, then back to a cheap facsimile of happy as she plasters a fake smile over her actual emotions, all within a second of me introducing her to Crimson.
“How are you, dear?” she asks, eyes furiously signalling to me over my fiancée’s shoulder. “Please call me Greta. You know, I’d given up on Micah ever introducing me to a girl.”
I try to sit so we’re either side, meaning she can only scrutinise us one at a time, but once Crimson takes a seat, my mother slides to the end of the booth, leaving me to sit on my fiancée’s other side.
Not a great situation. My mother is already attuned to me on a deeper level than everyone else. Sitting opposite her means that she’ll pick up on every nuance, no matter how hard I try to disguise my reactions.
Already, her eyes have fixed onto our joined hands, storing them away in her internal vault for later retrieval. With a hint of mischief, I release my hold only to cover Crimson’s thigh with my palm instead. It takes an act of will for my mother to jerk her gaze away.
“Now, what are you eating?” she babbles to Crimson, eyes scanning her hair, her lips, her eyes, dropping to her cleavage, then bouncing up again to catch her gaze with so much intensity I feel sorry for my intended.
She’s wearing the dress I picked out for her days earlier, in a dark forest green. Although she looks incredible, I worry that I should have left aside the micromanaging. Let Crimson present herself however she wanted.
I clear my throat and drum my fingers on the table. “Give her a chance to look at the menu.”
“Sure. But they’ll do anything in this place. You want something, I’ll make sure you get it.”
Crimson glances at me through the eyes of a drowning woman. I’d love to help but my mother is one of those natural phenomena you can’t skirt around; the only way is through.
I pick up the menu and scan the list of items to buy her time. Not that she has the chance to concentrate given the questions already firing from Mum’s mouth.
“Where did you go to school? Are you going to university? Back in my day, that was expensive, but that’s not a concern for you. Do you like the arts? I know your father used to be a collector. Is he still tight with Danilo’s men? Your dress is lovely. I must take you shopping sometime to a little boutique out on Waiheke where the local artists paint the silk. You’ll find the most divine scarves there. Go with anything. What sort of colours do you like best?”
“I’ll have the steak burger, medium-rare,” I tell the server. When I glance at Crimson, she’s staring at my mother like a snake stares at a charmer. “Make that two.”
“Make that three,” Mum says with a quick smile. “And could you roll the dessert trolley past? I like to think about that while I’m having my main meal.”
A trait that’s typical of my mother. She lives in the future, sometimes nearby, usually so far ahead you can only see her dust. Just a week ago, she expanded at length about the retirement unit she’s put a deposit on.
She’s not even fifty.
Despite her questions being unanswered, my mother embarks on another round. “Are you a foodie? There are a dozen places I can recommend. Maybe we can visit them, one a day, until you get to know them all, too.”
Trying to save her before she can be sucked into the vortex, I answer, “Crimson’s going to be working. She won’t have time to do that.”
“Pfft. There’s always time.” She elbows my fiancée in the side. “Just skip work if you need to. It’s not like you need the money.”
The mostly one-sided conversation lasts throughout the meal, my mother opting to curtail her eating to keep firing the steady bevvy of queries. Crimson only answers one in three of them but that’s a good score, considering.
“Do you have anything special planned for the wedding?”
“I selected a dress,” Crimson says with an expression of pure relief on her face. I think my mother might assign her some brownie points, but she ruins it by adding, “The personal shoppers Micah sent helped me pick it out.”
“Anything that my son hasn’t arranged?”
Crimson bites the inside of her cheek, nibbling like a hungry mouse though she barely touched her burger. “I’ve downloaded a song to play for the wedding march, if Dad doesn’t object.”
