6. Rishi
6
Rishi
I don’t know what possessed me. I am a very strategic person. I have always been a very strategic person. I plan and weigh and double-check things. Sometimes that planning, weighing, and double-checking is a very fast process, but I always do it.
I didn’t do it this time.
I looked Mrs. Hallie straight in the eye and called Casimir my fiancé with barely a first thought, let alone a second, and thoroughly enjoyed the hear-a-pin-drop silence.
Cas’s eyes, the color of milk chocolate, were wide with surprise, and his mouth hung open. However, he swallowed and smiled at me when I took his hand.
“Fiancé??” his mother shrieked shrilly, and everyone else in the room winced.
“Daphne,” Cas’s father admonished. “We are in a hospital.”
Mrs. Hallie turned toward her husband, and for a minute, I wondered if she was actually going to eat the man, but then she rounded back on Cas. “You’re engaged, and you haven’t told us?!? ”
Cas drew in a breath, but I didn’t give him the chance to answer. “Yes, it’s only just happened, though. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, but as soon as I saw him, I knew he was the man for me.” Cas looked at me again, and I hoped he would stop gaping at me like that before his parents realized that I was shocking him as much as I was shocking them.
“How long have you known one another then?” Mrs. Hallie asked, narrowing her eyes at me.
“A few months. We’ve been engaged for…” I glanced at him. “What is it, darling, a week and a half?”
I actually saw Cas’s brain re-engage. “Yes, yes, um. Wasn’t it a week last Sunday?”
I smiled dreamily. “It was over dinner from a cute little place near Cas’s apartment.”
Cas was nodding. “It was really nice,” he agreed. He smiled at his mother. “So you see, Mom, I’m not alone, and this fall was just a little slip-up, literally. I’m fine. We’re fine.”
She looked between Cas and me shrewdly. “Hm.”
Mr. Hallie beamed at Cas and me. “Congratulations, my boy!” he said, taking Cas’s hand and pumping it. “And Rishi, was it? Welcome to the family!”
***
After a bit more grilling, in which I focused on my family, my younger sister, whose career as a dermatological oncologist seemed to impress Mrs. Hallie, and my honorable discharge from the Air Force. I glossed over why I had elected to retire rather than re-up — that was a story for never, hopefully — but made certain to mention my two and a half years of service to John and David’s security firm. I settled on telling them that Cas and I had met when I was working another job here in the city, and now I was taking a leave of absence to help Cas while he recovered.
Cas had settled for nodding and making appropriate wordless sounds, but I had the distinct feeling that there would be a very, very long Discussion (with a capital D) once the Hallies left.
The nurse finally appeared with Cas’s discharge paperwork, frowning when she saw three extra people in the room with him. “Mr. Hallie, please sign these. Here are your discharge instructions — just ice the sore shoulder, Tylenol as needed — and you should be good to go!” She took the signed papers and disappeared from the room in a flourish of long blonde ponytail.
“Well, I suppose we should let you get Casimir home,” Mr. Hallie said, taking his wife’s hand. “We booked a night at the Hilton. Would you be up to having dinner, Casimir?”
Cas nodded automatically. “Sure, Dad. Maybe six? Oh, I need to give you my new address.” He picked up his phone. “I’ll text it to you, okay?”
“Sure,” Mr. Hallie said, one raised brow the only indication of surprise that Cas had moved. It seemed we could both see that Mrs. Hallie was about to launch into a line of questions about that, so he patted her hand, told her to kiss Cas, and steered her out of the room.
When the door closed, Cas looked at me, huffed a half-laugh, and asked in a falsetto whisper-scream, “Fiancé?”
I started laughing. I think I laughed harder than I had in at least five years. When I wound down, I shrugged. “It seemed like the best option to keep you from being hauled back to wherever you grew up. I know we haven’t spent that much time together, but I guessed that you’d rather gnaw your other leg off than do that.”
Cas lifted his hand in a you’re absolutely correct gesture. “So we’re having them for dinner tonight, in my new place, with my new fiancé.”
I nodded once. “Come on, Cas. There are worse things than having to pretend to be engaged for a few hours. I certainly don’t mind it; you’re a handsome, brave, good man.”
Cas’s cheeks flamed red, and he swallowed. “Thanks… And you’re right, I don’t mind.” He peeked at me, looking me over. “I could say that same thing about you.”
I turned to gather my computer and Cas’s tablet into my bag to hide the smile I couldn’t wipe from my face.
***
“So you meant the military to be your career. Why did you leave?” Cas asked when we were back at his apartment. “I could tell that there was more to the story, but I was so glad that Mom and Dad were eating you up with a spoon that I wasn’t going to interrupt.”
I sighed. “Never” turned out to be a lot less time than I had hoped. “I was in strategy and intelligence. I’d worked on multiple missions with at least a decent measure of success. I was an adjunct, not the main strategist for those assignments. I was being given more responsibility, however, as there was the potential for a promotion after my next re-enlistment. Under the supervision of my commander, I was taking the point on a mission to recover assets seized during a raid on a convoy. I made a miscalculation, and there were a number of casualties. It wasn’t my fault, and even my commander missed it until it was too late, but… I couldn’t let it go. Instead of re-enlisting, I decided that I had chosen the wrong career path, took my honorable discharge, and retired after ten years in the service.” I lifted one hand in an it-is-what-it-is gesture. “I was great at every aspect of that job other than accepting that sometimes my choices cost lives. I knew that when I joined, of course, at least in the abstract, and I had thought I would be able to deal with it. Once I was faced with it, though, I discovered that I could not.”
“I’m sorry,” Cas said softly.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’ve been out for three years, and I’ve worked for Alden Security for two and a half. My commander served under John when he had first joined up, and he thought that I might be a good fit there. He was right.” I enjoyed my job at the agency, and I had no plans to leave it anytime soon.
Cas smiled. “Good. You should have a job that you love.” His smile turned snarky. “So, fiancé , what do you wanna feed your new in-laws?”
I grinned widely. “Indian food, of course.”
***
Mr. and Mrs. Hallie arrived promptly at six, and Cas took them on a tour of the apartment. I ordered from the excellent Indian restaurant we’d tried on the move-in night and got some of nearly everything. Cas assured me that there were no allergies and few dislikes on his parents’ part, so I went with a “cast a wide net” strategy. I put the food into nice bowls and brought it to the dining room table while Cas finished showing them the bathroom, and his mother exclaimed over the shower. “That is clever,” she said, apparently delighted now that she had some time to process. “This place is very nice,” she said as they came to the table. “Much better than the old one.”
Cas looked uncomfortable at that, and I remembered how much he seemed to like his old apartment. “Yes, it has great accommodations,” I said. “The old place was more like home, but this one is nice too.” I shot him a quick smile that had his face softening, and the shivery little pang in my chest surprised me.
The food was very well received, and Cas skillfully steered his mother onto the topic of his father’s company. I learned that he was a building engineer in Las Vegas and had worked on several rather famous projects in the city. He had taken the start-up that Cas’s grandfather had spent his life on and turned it into a company that was occasionally featured in certain magazines for those who had done very well. He and Cas’s mother were now living comfortably while he trained his younger son, Maximilian, to follow in his footsteps.
“Casimir was meant to take over, of course, but he’s been obsessed with police officers and playing cops and robbers since he was so small that the only robber he was hauling off to jail was his teddy bear to the toy box,” Mrs. Hallie said. Her tone was a mix of exasperation, nostalgia, and affection. “He absolutely wouldn’t hear of joining the company. He applied to UC Riverside and left as soon as he graduated.” She sighed. “I can’t disparage that drive to make his own way, though, because that’s also what got Richie where he is today. He comes by it honestly.” She patted her husband’s hand lovingly.
“Cas definitely has a drive to succeed. I’m so proud of how far he’s come in his recovery,” I said. Cas’s flush sent a rush of pleasure through me. “I don’t think I would have been able to bounce back this well if I was in his place.” I took his hand, looked him in the eye, and kissed his knuckles. He sucked in a breath, and the sound went straight through me. I grinned and kissed him again, then sat his hand down with a soft pat on the back of it.
“Oh… Aren’t you sweet?” Mrs. Hallie cooed. She was warming up fast, which was a little worrisome, considering Cas and I weren’t actually engaged. For the time being, I was willing to ignore that bridge-to-come, as was Cas, apparently, since his hand snaked out and took mine to hold on the tabletop.
“He is,” Cas said. “He’s one in a million.”