25. Evelyn
The moment we got home, I busied myself toasting nuts and roasting beets. Despite the general lack of food in Laszlo’s place, it was well stocked with utensils and pans and two ovens.
I’d bought a few things since moving in as well.
The aromas, the smell of garlic and onions browning in butter and fresh tomatoes helped ease my tension.
Instead of leaving me to the women’s work, Laszlo was next to me, pulsing the fresh pesto in a food processor. The men in the Family never helped in the kitchen. They weren’t allowed.
We fell into an easy rhythm together, with me telling him what to do, or what I needed and him helping me.
He didn’t bring up what happened at the farmer’s market.
I didn’t have the words for it, grappling for the right way to explain as I breaded the chicken, wrapping it in prosciutto.
How could I tell Laszlo that the man we saw today was my spiritual soulmate, the person I was promised to at twelve?
My half-brother, Henry. When he grabbed me, I didn’t think, and acted on instinct.
The warmth of daylight was fading as I put the chicken in the oven to finish baking, and started tossing the tangy beet salad.
I tucked some hair behind my ear. I didn’t want to talk about my past, but he needed to know. He could be in danger from the Family as well, if they cared enough to return me to the flock.
“What did you do to him once I was gone?” I startled Laszlo, his eyes glinting in the kitchen lights.
“Who?”
“The guy I… tased. Uhm. Henry.”
He didn’t look surprised that it was the man I was supposed to marry, and his gaze fixated upon mine. “I told your ex-fiancé that he and the others were to never try to find you again.”
That was the short version. My words failed me, and I swallowed, finding my throat dry. He seemed to sense this, leaving me to go grab a sparkling water from the fridge. It was cold, and almost stung as it went through me, but it helped.
“Thank you.”
“Of course. Lyn, I’m proud of you. You did exactly what you needed to, in a moment of crisis. I can’t believe you remembered you had that on you, let alone how to use it. That’s… That’s amazing.”
My heart bloomed with the heat of his compliments, the sincerity of them. No one… No one but my grandmother ever dared speak about me like that. Quick thinking in girl children was something to be corrected, not lauded.
“I’m not proud that my first response was violence.”
“No. No,” Laszlo said, forceful. “His first response was violence. Your first response was disengagement. That’s good. That’s great, actually. Just like when the truck was following you. You ran, you disengaged. That’s the right instinct to have.”
My lips twitched in a smile before my brows furrowed.
“What is it?”
“Does Jimmy have a truck?”
Laszlo rolled his eyes.
“Yea, this fuck ugly thing. Got it lifted up so high that he’d probably sail right over a kid’s head without notice.
“It’s a new model?”
There was a shadow of a smile in the edge of his lips that I didn’t understand, and he nodded.
“The truck that followed me… It was old. Thirty years I’d say. It couldn’t have been him.”
“I know. You don’t have to worry about that, though. I put a tracker on Henry’s truck. If he comes back, I’ll know. Does Caleb use the same truck?”
The air was thin all of a sudden. I gripped the side of the kitchen island, and Laszlo caught me mid-swoon. The timer went off behind us, but he held me until I was steady, then took the chicken out before it burned.
“You know my father’s name?” Hearing it spoken aloud struck a nerve.
I was raised to believe he was a holy figure, someone divine.
He could have been a parent. Instead, he was everything but that to me.
It was embarrassing how much I still longed for his approval, how the thought of him following me made me feel wanted rather than terrified.
Maybe that was why I didn’t mind that Laszlo was always watching me.
“How about we finish cooking, have a nice night together? It’s been a rough day, and all our questions can wait for tomorrow, right?” Laszlo suggested.
Curiosity burned in me, but I nodded. That was what I needed. A distraction from all these racing thoughts.
By the time the creamy pesto sauce was prepared, and I was serving up the Pollo Mediterranean with a side of beet salad, my mind was tugged to other worries.
Laszlo had gotten so thin, hadn’t been eating enough, and though he was trying to stay upbeat, there was apprehension as he joined me at the long table.
It could sit a dozen, but he let me take the head of the table, and chose the chair next to me.
Lights were dimmed, candles lit, soft classical music played, and he popped open a bottle of prosecco, pouring some up for each of us.
“It’s okay if you don’t like it. I’ll learn your tastes in time,” I said, nervous.
He brought a beet to his lips, pointedly biting into it.
“Delicious,” he said, and I joined him. Funnel cake hadn’t been as filling as I’d expected, and we hadn’t eaten an actual meal all day, so I was famished. He ate slower, and I hoped he was savouring rather than choking it down. I couldn’t read his expression.
“I didn’t see Rurik today,” I mentioned, trying to keep my tone airy.
“I’ve been freed of my babysitter, so you won’t have to see Rurik again. Aleksei and Ilya will be at your beck and call. Any time you leave without me, you’re to have one of them with you. You can trust them; I vet them well.”
I exhaled, my shoulders softening from the removal of a weight I hadn’t realized I was carrying. “They were there before I noticed them. It took me a second to recognize them. That they were there to help, and not part of the Family.”
He took a bite of his chicken and moaned. “This is delicious, Lyn.”
His praise was an igniting force. He was trying to distract me, and it worked.
“It’s heavenly,” I agreed.
When we finished the meal, I reached for his hand, and he accepted it. His thumb stroked the backs of my fingers. From his pocket, he pulled out a necklace. I recognized the stone from earlier, the black and pink swirling together.
“It’s just like us,” I said, tears in my eyes, and he smiled, patient with my tender heart.
“Just like us.”
He clasped it around my neck, the stone cool as it nestled between my collarbone, a little lower than where my original necklace hung.
A classical piece was playing on the speakers, and I guided him into the main room, falling into step with him. He was an exceptional dancer, and once he found the rhythm, he took the lead on a simple waltz.
His hand was still cool against mine, but it warmed, and I hoped that the nourishment did him good. My head was on his chest, listening to the rhythmic thump of his heart, steady and strong.
When the piece ended, it was followed by a pronouncement of cello and trombone, the aggressiveness quickly followed by a lilting clarinet.
Laszlo’s steps changed, and in five paces, he took me in a half circle, then a half circle more.
We moved around the large room, his hand growing firmer and more confident in mine.
I didn’t recognize the piece, but it seemed natural for him, like a movement he learned in childhood, the muscle memory developed soon after he learned to walk.
“I should teach you Russian,” he murmured into my hair, and I smiled.
“Learning a language takes a lot longer than learning to drive.”
“It will. Much longer.”
My heart sped up, battering my ribcage. Did that mean he wouldn’t send me away? I refused to break the spell, and instead I fell into the fantasy of him keeping me with him. Building a life together.
When the music faded away, and we were left in silence, held in a comfortable embrace. Darkness had descended outside, wrapping us in a protective cocoon.
Without a word, he guided me up stairs, into the bedroom.
Despite Henry’s unwanted appearance at the farmer’s market, it was a magical day, and the veil between us had weakened. His guard had slacked, same as mine.
My hand clapped over my mouth when I saw him get down on one knee.
In his hands was a pink, velvet box.
Some memory of a movie; I was hallucinating. Just my luck that psychosis ran in my family.
“What are you—”
“Lyn,” he cut me off. “This won’t be a fairy-tale. I’m not a good man, but you’re right. I need to stop struggling against the current that brought us together. You’ve changed me. I don’t know how, but I want to find out who I could be for you.”
I faltered, grabbing the edge of the bed for support, unable to comprehend what was happening.
“You want to marry me?”
“I won’t let Henry take you.”
My heart seized, spasmed.
“That’s it?” Tears pricked my eyes. The loneliness that had built within me over the years ached like the scar tissue it was.
He rose and closed the distance between us. His hand went to my jawline, stroking back towards my hair.
“No, that’s not it. I’m not that selfless. I want to give you the life you deserve, the life Henry would never give you. Your dreams have become precious to me. I don’t want to cage you because I need to see you fly, angel.”
His smile was genuine, and it was enough to chase away the chill in my nerves.
“That sounds pretty selfless to me,” I managed, my hip leaning against the canopy post. My legs couldn’t be trusted to support my weight.
“It’s not. It’s incredibly selfish. I’m a vampire, feeding off your joy. Now I’m addicted, and I want to make you the happiest woman in the world to sustain myself.”
The edge of my lip twitched with amusement.
“Okay, maybe that is selfish.”
“It is,” he said, standing, closing the distance between us.
He set the ring box on the bed, his hand on my hip, his other on my cheek.
“Lyn, I will give you everything. No matter what happens between us. Even if you reject me now, you will never want for a single thing. I don’t want you because I want to control you or change you.
The woman you are, right now, is incredible.
But I want to know the woman you could be if you didn’t have this shadow hanging over you. ”
My lip trembled, and there his thumb was, stilling it. I kissed it, the action familiar by now. A ritual.
“I know I don't deserve you. I've been trying to buy your affection and submission just like my parents bought mine. But I’m not like them. I won't be like them.”
“Laszlo…”
He looked down, struggling to find the words.
“Lyn, I don’t know how to love anyone but the dead.” My heart broke. Of course he didn’t love me. My parents knew me better than anyone, and they never found a way to love me. I couldn’t expect him to figure that out.
“But I believe you can teach me.” His voice held the lilting promise of a songbird, his eyes gentle and filled with earnest desire.
I stared at him, confused. “I can’t teach you that.”
He winced, his breathing hitched, but he didn’t pull away.
“I understand, angel. Idaho it is, then.” He grit out the words through his pain, but he was being serious.
If I wanted to run away, he’d let me.
I wasn’t trapped.
He wasn’t offering me my mother’s life.
He was giving me my own.
“No!”
He recoiled from the force of my word, his spine straightening. His fingers tensed on my hip.
“I can’t teach you because I don’t know how to be loved,” I confessed. “What if I’m no good at it?”
“Impossible.” He brushed a tear from my cheek, his voice silken. “You’re perfect.”
He was offering me a life I was never allowed to dream of. Not one of a foretold destiny but something shared with someone who cared for me. It wouldn’t be easy. Both of us still had walls around our hearts, afraid of what it meant to let them down, but I had to be brave.
“A man who doesn’t know how to love, marrying a woman who doesn’t know how to be loved,” I sniffled. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“My sweet angel, I couldn’t keep living if I didn’t try.”
“And this means you won’t send me away anymore? I’ll be the best wife as long as you say you’ll never get rid of me.”
“Isn’t it obvious by now?”
My eyes were watering, hot tears threatening to spill as I tried to focus on his beautiful face. “What’s obvious?”
“It would kill me to let you go. I want you to be at my side. ‘til death does us part.”
The tears I was holding back finally fell, relief and excitement intertwining in me.
“I want to be at your side too! Of course I’ll marry you.”
His face lit up, his silver eyes pure and clear, his dimples deep. I hadn’t realized how nervous he’d been until it all evaporated, and he put the ring on my finger, and then his arms were around me. He moaned as he tasted my lower lip. The kiss was slow, a burning passion igniting.
Together, we would forge a new path.
We would control our destiny.