Arlo
A curse came from beside me, and I tried to hold back a smile as Ward wrestled with his tie for what might be the hundredth time.
In fact, he had been fighting with almost every piece of clothing he’d put on.
So far, he had insisted that someone must have made a mistake with his laundry after deducing that his underwear wasn’t fitting him correctly.
Then he wondered if he had gained weight when his shirt and pants refused to cooperate.
When he asked if his shoes had shrunk, I realized it wasn’t about the clothes at all.
As if sensing my thoughts, Ward turned his attention and ire on me with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. “What?”
“I’m trying to decide if I should remind you that this entire thing was your idea, or point out that the more you fuss with your clothes, the more you mess them up,” I said with a smile that I couldn’t help. “Or maybe I should point out that there is no need to be nervous.”
“I am not nervous,” Ward grumbled as he continued to tug at his tie as though it were trying to choke him. “I am perfectly fine.”
I took hold of his hand, drawing it away from his tie. He glared at me. “Sit down, with the way Will drives, you’ll end up falling into the front again.”
“Alright, don’t drag me into your bullshit,” Will quipped from the front seat. “More than you already do anyway.”
“Stop,” I said to Ward when his eyes fixed on the seat. “Don’t take your frustration out on him...think more about taking it out on me later.”
That was enough to pull his attention back to me, and I watched a smile twist the corners of his lips. “You certainly know how to distract me, don’t you? Is that all it takes, a couple of weeks, and you know me?”
“Three weeks, if we’re going to be exact,” I said with a snort as I adjusted his tie for him. “And as far as knowing that sex with me will distract you, that didn’t take more than a couple of days to figure out.”
“I suppose I am pretty easy to figure out...in that regard anyway,” he said, pulling my hand away from the tie so he could hold onto it. He spoke quietly. “And was that a note of sheer joy I heard in your voice when you said three weeks?”
“It might have been,” I said coyly, even though we both knew it had been. “Maybe it was because I realized it has only been three weeks, when it feels so much longer.”
“From the average person, that would sound like an insult. But I’m choosing to take it as a compliment.”
“It is,” I said with a chuckle. “Because I want it to feel like this in another three weeks, and then three months after that, and then—”
“Three years?” he guessed, and I could see the gleam in his eyes. “Maybe thirty?”
I hoped so. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
“That we will,” he said and nodded toward the seat. “Now sit your butt down, we don’t need any more...incidents.”
Sighing, I did as he told me and let the subject drop.
He was still a bit touchy on the subject of ‘incidents’ ever since the last one had been an almost disastrous armed robbery attempt that thankfully had been interrupted by someone passing by.
Of course, the gunman had been startled, and the gun had gone off when he whipped around to see who was behind him.
It had missed Ward completely, and if he hadn’t jerked me to the side, I would have gotten worse than a gouge out of my left arm.
The week before that hadn’t helped, although it had been vague enough to make him uneasy, but still unconvinced.
How he explained to himself that I had choked on a carrot, and his attempts to help me resulted in his food at a restaurant being dumped everywhere, was a mystery.
Of course, the mystery came from the fact that afterward, a few people had gotten sick from the soup that had been dumped.
I ended up with a scarred esophagus, and he had frowned at me for the next couple of days.
After the near miss with the robbery, though, I thought perhaps he was starting to believe me.
I hadn’t shared that I was uneasy myself.
Ever since I met him, not more than a few days passed without something happening.
It wasn’t unusual for my ‘curse’ to rebound on me rather than others, but never with the frequency that followed Ward around.
Truth be told, I was starting to feel like he was the one who was cursed, and it was just convenient that he had me around to save the day.
Of course, that saving was at my expense, and I knew full well that didn’t please him, so I avoided the subject as much as possible.
“And for the record,” he huffed. “It was your idea to include your parents.”
“I suggested that dinner with your parents might go a little smoother for you if there was someone other than me around,” I said. “And that was after you mentioned she occasionally brings regular people into her home for dinners as a show of good faith as a politician. And you agreed with me.”
“I should point out that you brought the idea up after I was exhausted from a double round of vigorous, exceptionally satisfying sex,” Ward grumbled.
He was doing his best to sound irritated, but his best wasn’t good enough, as far as I was concerned.
He was right about one thing at least; it hadn’t been difficult to realize he could be easily persuaded by sex, so it probably had played a part in his agreeing to my suggestion.
Purely an accident at the time, but still funny to think about after the fact.
“I can’t tell if you’re trying to make me sound like some manipulative seducer or if I’m just that good that it sounds like that,” I said with a chuckle as I made myself comfortable in the seat.
“Mmm, were you anyone else, I would do my best to temper that pride.”
“But?”
“But...this is you we’re talking about. I rarely hear anything resembling pride from you, so I’ll let this one pass.”
“How very generous of you.”
“Yes, magnanimous am I,” he chuckled, resting his hand on my knee. “But I’ll also admit you’re right. I did agree to this, but I am beginning to see the flaw in my logic. Or should I say, I’m beginning to see the flaw in the logic you used that night.”
We were growing closer, but even with time growing shorter, there would always be enough time to try to assuage his concerns as far as I was concerned. “Such as?”
“Really? This is my mother you’re speaking of, you already had what I’m sure in her mind counted as a polite conversation, and then you overheard her conversation with me.
Again, that constituted polite and even generous in her mind,” he said with a heavy sigh.
“And you insisted upon bringing your poor parents into this.”
I smiled. “You underestimate Matilda and Marcus. You’ve met them.”
“Yes, and they’re lovely people. And lovely people don’t deserve to be forced to deal with the likes of my mother,” he said with a wrinkle of his nose. “They deserve to have a nice dinner. One where the food and conversation are good, not where they’re potentially thrown into a minefield.”
“My idea came from the idea that your mother would behave with an audience present, one that didn’t include just me, considering she wasn’t concerned with what I thought or felt about her,” I said, keeping my voice and face as neutral as possible.
The sidelong glance that Ward gave me was enough to know he wasn’t buying it, and I smiled.
“Fine, perhaps it was, as Milo would put it, a mask’s off moment for her, and I was able to get a clear picture of what she’s like under the guise of a politician. ”
“That’s the worst part,” Ward said with a snort. “In many ways, it wasn’t exactly a moment of the mask coming off. She was clever in that she’s built her reputation as a politician so that if her unpleasant nature ever showed itself, people wouldn’t be terribly surprised.”
I thought about that for a moment and had to agree reluctantly.
I had done some research on his mother after Ward mentioned coming with him to dinner, if I thought I could ‘stomach it.’ I had watched some of her speeches and how she handled herself in public, and if I had witnessed it before I met her, I wouldn’t have been surprised by her attitude.
“And,” Ward said as the road, which had been lined with a thick cover of trees, began to thin out slightly. “I’m not so sure she’ll behave herself with only two extra people there.”
“Don’t underestimate Matilda,” I said with a chuckle. “She’s raised several children, part of the time as a single mother while mourning the loss of a husband, and running a busy and demanding hotel. You don’t manage that without having a backbone and a hard head.”
“True,” he said with a chuckle, squeezing my knee. “She’s a tough lady, which might in fact win over my mother, despite your mother being tough without being a cold-hearted bitch.”
“You win some, you lose some,” I said as we stopped and drove through a gate that opened as we drove up. The drive wasn’t nearly as long as it had been where the gala had been held, but it wound up a far taller hill to the house at the top.
“Huh,” was all I could manage as I peered at the house.
I had no clue about architecture, so I didn’t know where to begin to describe it other than ‘huge’ and.
..well, the only phrase that sprang to mind was ‘old-fashioned opulence.’ It reminded me of the spooky mansions in Scooby Doo, if better maintained.
The fact that it was positioned on a hill where the back ‘yard’ included a cliff that overlooked the sea didn’t help.
“I like how it isn’t gothic, but it still gives me a gothic feel. ”
“The worst part is,” Ward said as we pulled up to the front, and I saw the limo Ward had ordered for my parents was already there, “that I know you mean you like it.”
I smiled at him. “And I understand you have far too many unpleasant memories here to appreciate the beauty.”