Just when I thought we were getting to a place of peace he was sitting here asking me to do something that was so wholly against my desires that I was unsure if he was truly on my side. It felt like a setup. The last few weeks that we’d been getting along had all been an elaborate lie for him to drop this bomb on me. I was only mildly overreacting but he had to know what he was asking me was something I wouldn’t be able to do.
“True, but the lesson behind it is. You can learn just as much from fiction as non-fiction. Even more so since it’s delivered in a far more palatable way than reality could ever do.”
He sighed in that defeated way he always did when he knew he had his work cut out for him. It gave me a certain joy to know that I was hell on this man’s nerves. That I aggravated him as much as he did me. He glanced around the room, something he often did when he was reorganizing his thoughts and his argument before he rested those golden-brown eyes back on me.
“Part of me wants to argue with you but the other knows that you have far more history with her than I do. My greatest desire is to prove to you that you don’t have to fight anything alone. Not work, not people, not your past. Whatever haunts you I’m right here to fight it with you even when you don’t want me to.”
Bloody bastard. Of course he would usekindnessagainst me. I wasn’t sure if I was insulted because he thought being nice would melt my little female brain as he played on my emotions or if I was furious with myself because it was working.
Both could absolutely coexist.
“If you were trying to compromise with me, why in the world were you making demands?”
He shifted again from his spot in the door his feet soundless on the marble floor. “It wasn’t demands, it was a suggestion. Having our families here for dinner so that we could get together with one another. Did you not want to know more about me?”
It would’ve been wrong of me to say no. Part of me wanted to know more about him but I was hesitant because knowledge would mean I was invested and I was unsure of how that would continue to change the way we were supposed to move through life together.
“You, because I have to live with you. No one else matters, frankly.” Abo was the reason I was in this situation. My sister was already on board with whatever I wanted so my brother and egg donor didn’t really play into my decision-making. I had questions about his past but I knew so much of it was going to bewithheld from me. I knew it would build resentment in me since he demanded transparency.
“I’m big onohana. On family.”
He had a habit of slipping Hawaiian words into his speech but he was good about saying what the words were. Ohana was one that everyone could recognize if they’d ever seenLilo & Stitch.
I giggled as I removed the eye patches I’d been wearing before tossing them in the bin. “Really? You don’t even speak to any of them.”
Despite not giving me much information, he explicitly told me that if anyone approached me saying they were family but didn’t look like any of his friends to shoot first and ask questions later. I wasn’t sure when I was supposed to have carried a gun just because I was going to be his wife but that was obviously a part of all of this.
Should’ve asked the ladies while I was at the wedding if this was a real thing.
“And I value the ones that I have. My brothers and their wives and kids are important to me. They have expanded our family in ways I didn’t think could happen. I don’t get to spend as much time with them because of my current job but I’m hoping that it changes when I get freed from the shackles of being a government drone. Meeting with our people has to happen at some point. I thought you’d rather get it done with now before things got further along.”
“If you say so. I still don’t think that I want to break bread with someone I can’t stand. You’d be leading me to the lion’s den. What type of trust is that going to build?”
“Since when did you become a lamb, Semira?”
The smile had broken through before I could prevent it and the softness of his face showed he knew he wasn’t playing fairand he didn’t care. I should’ve been angry but this tenuous truce we had forced me to stop looking at everything so defensively.
“There you go with that again.”
“Am I not allowed to call my future wife by her name?”
He reached over and gently touched my fingers with his. Not quite holding them but allowing them to dance around each other. Tease.Connect.
Who is this man?
“How long have you been planning this out?”
“Something that I thought about when we were at the wedding. Seeing how families interact made me feel I was being disrespectful by not involving your family formally. I haven’t met your twin or your friends besides Nev. You’ve met mine so I feel as though we should even up the introductions.”
I understood his point but I was still frustrated. Not afraid, frustrated. I hadn’t pushed him for anything because mostly, I simply wanted to be left alone. Solace in this life was the biggest prize after how I’d lived. There were things he could push to know and I was sure that he could tell I had secrets of my own. His compromise was to not push for those answers so I could at least give him this.
“Fine. Just not here. I don’t want her in this house ever.”
My mother might not matter to me but to have her here nitpicking away at everything I’d created in a place I found refuge would necessitate moving because her negative spirit would linger and soak itself into the walls. There wouldn’t be enough sage on this continent to rid the walls of her taint.
“What have I told you since we met?” The question, a soft utterance, almost a plea for me to believe in him. And it felt too important to ignore.
“To trust you. You’ve got me.” My words echoed in the bathroom's silence, our conversation seemed to bounce off thewalls and echo back to us hovering protectively. They created a cocoon that allowed us to shut out the world.
