Chapter 19
?
Someone get me a good cop.
Crisis
I have never seen something more beautiful in my life, and I am infinitely glad I dragged myself back to camp, back to the terror of giving whatever is or isn’t happening between Viktor and I a chance.
Why?
Because, soup bar .
Soup and grilled cheese bar, to be more precise.
Forget Viktor! Forget confessions . Forget everything.
Everything but the many soups steaming before me and the self-serve grilled cheese presses beyond them.
I’m ravenously hungry.
Probably because my heart has been beating at twice the normal speed ever since I got back, found Viktor seated on our bed with his head in his hands, and locked eyes with him.
Staring dead at someone for three minutes is hard work . Especially when you both open your mouth at the same time, fumble through the dreaded sorry, no, you first; no, you first; no, I mean it, I’m sorry, you go gymnastics, and end up with the other person providing an earth-shattering: you came back .
Right about the time you are, of course, infinitely regretting your decision to come back .
Chirping, Yup! And it’s dinner time; let’s go eat , was not my proudest moment. I do not have a proudest moment, actually, only a long list of moments that keep me up at night.
Viktor serves himself a bowl of tomato soup. Classic. Safe.
I go hog wild and get the broccoli cheese first. A little hint hint, nudge nudge for my boss—if he is still my boss. He may have let me go earlier. I’m unclear on that right now while I’m desperately trying to avoid verbalizing I’m insane, and you’d be crazy to like me . Dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into anything other than tomato soup feels like excellent code for that sentiment.
To further the analogy, I use every cheese available, ripping slices up and setting the excess on my napkin as I manually shred the bits into a pile before pressing them in the machine, so the flavors will mix into one chaotic mess.
Symbolism.
This is my brain, Viktor.
Is this what you want ?
Don’t be ridiculous.
Sitting together in the furthest corner of the room alone, I clear my throat and glance toward Viktor’s tray.
He…
Has his bowl…
Under his chin.
He…
Is biting into his grilled cheese.
And dropping the bites into his soup, one horrifying plop at a time.
I was about to eat mine with a knife and fork to further the messages of my unstable mental state, but this…this is a new level of loonish behavior. I can’t believe I’m only just now realizing that I’ve never before seen him eat grilled cheese with tomato soup.
It.
It’s appalling .
Yet genius?
Yet soggy .
His gaze flicks up to me as he uses his tongue to pop the second-to-last bite out of his mouth and into his soup. Very, very slowly, he returns his tongue to its rightful place, lowers his bowl, and reaches for his napkin.
The second thing this man says to me since I’ve returned is: “Sandwich cereal.”
“Sandwich cereal,” I repeat.
He, graciously, elaborates by picking up his spoon and scooping one floating bite of grilled cheese into it. “No dip drips. More control. Evenly souped.”
Evenly souped.
Something in the cold dark pit of my chest flutters at the notion this man might be insane enough to like me, and also just plain insane.
He takes his first bite while I forget entirely what I’m doing.
I’ve been tormenting a man who says things like dip drips for over a year. And he knew . And he let me! Because he likes me?
What in the opposites attract nonsense is this?
“How would you like to handle tonight?” he asks, voice soft, drawing me back from the brink of one cliff to thrust me to the edge of another.
I lift my spoon and catch a broccoli floret. “Tonight?”
“Our…living situation.”
My heart jumps, and I’m glad I haven’t taken a bite yet because choking on a broccoli floret is not how I want to spend my evening. “Slow down. Am I still employed or not?”
“You are, unless you don’t want to be or it would get in the way of my chances. Consider all rent and bills paid for as long as you live in Sunset, regardless of what you decide to do where I’m concerned.”
Huh? I mustn’t be hearing things correctly. “I’ve been horrible to you, but you’re saying if I bail completely, as long as I stay in Sunset, I don’t have to worry about anything?”
He scratches the line of his jaw, eyes downcast. “I’m sure I’ve deserved the death smoothies and minor inconveniences. I know I’m not entirely the most gracious person, but I do apologize for whatever I’ve done. Handling your expenses is a small price to pay for the chance that I might continue to catch glimpses of you.”
Since when is Viktor a sap?
Viktor.
Went home two nights ago to print something.
Viktor.
Is a sap .
“ You wrote the love letter,” I blurt.
His eyes close. “I…wrote it at three in the morning after three sleepless nights. I’d like to apologize for it as well. Not my best work. Nothing near what you deserve.”
Screw best work and what I deserve . He wrote me a love letter, and then I tore it up in front of him, while calling people who write love letters cowards.
I should submerge my airways in this soup and inhale. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
“I’m sure you had your reasons.”
I grimace, and the desire that he’d just pick up a chair and hit me with it returns tenfold. Suffocating, I say, “Viktor…what…what in the world do you see in me? ”
“You’re committed.”
“Yeah, I should be. Why does that appeal to you?”
He smiles, tender. “No one’s ever given me so much of their attention. You’re funny. Smart. Dedicated.” His smile falters, and he swallows, hard, lifting another spoonful of offensive soup to his lips. “I think you’re beautiful and kind…to people who aren’t me. Also, animals. I’ve seen you visit Kaleb’s fish. They come to you when you call, and you lie in the grass to talk to them.”
Weakly, I defend myself with a feeble, “I…like fish.”
“I noticed. I can’t stop noticing you. And I have tried. But I just can’t.”
“Because things have a tendency of blowing up in my vicinity?” I inquire, hopeful. My skin is starting to itch.
“Because you inspire and challenge me. Your Canva Whiteboards are art. You create a yearning for passion inside me that I don’t know how to quell. I’m much too stringent. My Canva Whiteboards would look like spreadsheets with pictures and color, assuming I even add pictures or know how to coordinate the colors beyond grayscale. Yours are beautiful chaos, murderboards of entropy. You are a vision.”
He’s mentioned my Canva Whiteboards, like he knows the emotional attachment I have to them. This is a direct assault on my heart. Which is why I am stiff, and operating at the same mental capacity as a jellyfish. “Do you find me attractive?” I blurt, brainless.
He stiffens, averts his gaze. Heat swells in his cheeks. “Yes.”
“I do not understand.”
“I…like your eyes.”
“My—” I swear, ahem, of the fecal variety. “—brown eyes? The most common eye color in the world?”
“They’re big, and deep, and lovely,” he murmurs. “I like them a lot.”
Still maintaining the aptitude of cranium-free sea life, I say, “Do you think I have childbearing hips?”
A swear hisses from his lips, and he focuses his attention on his food. Squarely. “I’m not certain you want me to detail the more intimate things about you that I find attractive in public.”
I blink, glance toward the chatting guests blissfully enjoying their grilled cheese and soup, without a care in the world. They are not paying attention to us.
I do not want to have this conversation in private.
“I am certain. Answer me.”
Pain creases his brow, and look at that? I’m hurting him even when I don’t mean to. Suffering, he says, “Yes. I do think that you have very…nice hips.”
“So you want children?” I ask.
His eyes snap open on me, lips parted, gawking.
The floret I scooped three centuries ago has surely gone completely cold. “It’s an important question, isn’t it?” I press.
“I…yes.” He fortifies himself. “It is.”
“So?”
“If…if I’d be a good father, I wouldn’t be opposed to children.”
My eyes narrow. “That’s the answer to a different question. Do you want children, or not?”
“I wouldn’t be bearing them.”
My brow arches. “Yeah, no, duh. You don’t have the hips for it. Once again, you’re avoiding the question. Be direct with me: yes or no.”
Agony on his face has never been so complete, and that is definitely saying something. The answer leaves his lips as though I pulled it from the back of his throat with a pair of pliers. “Yes. ”
“How many?”
“At least two. I don’t want one to be lonely. But I don’t want the eldest to raise the younger, either.”
I sense that statement has something to unpack in it, considering he is firmly the eldest in a family that did not treat any of his brothers or him well.
Two kids.
I’ve never given thought to children. Or a husband. I expected that my family would begin and end with me, because—genuinely—who would love me enough to raise a family with me? It’s a miracle I’ve even survived this long when I thought I wouldn’t make it past twenty.
Two kids.
I could see having two kids.
I ask, “To what extent of intimacy do you believe in before marriage?”
The man’s eyes bug, amber and shaken. They slash toward the rest of the room, return to me. “What?”
“You’re right. The first question should be: are you looking for marriage? Or is this more of an itch you’re trying to scratch? I jumped to kids too soon. Skipped a few steps. My bad. I’m all over the place. Is that going to bother you? You normally see me more collected, but that’s business Crisis. Normal Crisis is a crisis. The end. What exactly are your intentions here? Assistant on the desk during work hours, or matrimony?”
He clamps a hand to his red face, stammering, “M-matrimony.”
“Ah.” I blink. That’s nuts. Matrimony. With me? A forever sort of situation, with me ? “Back to the other question then. How much of myself do you expect me to fork over before you marry me?”
“Nothing.”
“Yet, you’ve already kissed me. So try again. ”
“That…was a lack of willpower.”
“Crazy. See. Lack of willpower can apply to anything, so tell me what your limit is.”
“That’s…” He frees a tight breath. “…true. I don’t want to lie to you. I don’t know if I have a limit, but I do know I will respect no .”
I relax my face, nodding. “Ah, yes. That’s why you kissed me out of nowhere. So I wouldn’t have a chance to say no .”
“It wasn’t out of nowhere.”
“I don’t recall giving you permission.”
“You asked me to spell it out for you. My mind went blank. I’m sorry.”
Guilt weighs me down, so I put my spoon back in a soup that is swiftly growing cold. “I’m sorry, too. I’m a lot. You don’t deserve interrogation. I just have trust issues. And my trust issues have trust issues. It’s never too late to change your mind. We can go back to how we were before…sans broccoli peanut butter shakes. Assuming you don’t care about your health anymore and want all your hair to fall out, of course.”
“Of course,” he murmurs, resting his elbow on the table and studying me. “I don’t want to go back to how we were. I want to love you.”
My mind takes another turn cosplaying sealife. I know Crimson said it, and Zakery said it, but this is the first I’m hearing it directly from Viktor himself. I ask, “You… love …me?”
“I don’t know what else to call it.”
I am livid.
I don’t think I’m going to be able to eat tonight. All the hunger and excitement I possessed going through the line has fizzled into a cavern of nothingness.
Floating in the void, I ask, “How would you define love?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “You told me during our interview years ago that you’ve read my books. That’s how.”
His books, featuring overwhelming affection that topples kingdoms. His books, with characters who give up everything for the sake of their love. His books, that I fell in love with over a decade ago because the care depicted in them resonated deeply with my desire to be loved .
“You said they were emotionless,” I offer, hollow. “You don’t care about them.”
“They are, and I don’t, but I still have to get the content from somewhere. Whether I like it or not, my beliefs find their way into the pages, watered down. They are a fraction of how I’d like to love you, Crisis. If you’d allow me the privilege.”
Privilege.
Loving me is a privilege.
This has to be a joke.
He figured out that I hated him, and now he’s getting even.
Zakery overheard me conspiring with the cat, and he told his big brother, and now they’re all plotting against me.
It’s the only thing that makes sense.
So I say, “Prove it.”
He arches a brow. “Are you sure you want me to?”
“Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
“Proving something involves persistence, tests, experiment data provided via Canva Whiteboard.”
He needs to stop bringing up Canva Whiteboard before I lose my mind and agree to get married, only to have this prank blow up in my face.
“Are you going to force yourself on me?” I ask.
His head shakes. “Absolutely not. Proving love should not involve anything physical.”
“Then, yes. I’m sure.”
He nods, refreshed somehow. “In that case, I won’t hold back.” He points at my food with his spoon. “Eat. Part of loving someone is making sure they’re taken care of, and I know you well enough to know that you were hungry when we came in here, so I’m not going to let this conversation mean you go to bed hungry.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I can be assertive when it comes to feeding someone, Crisis. I have four younger brothers, and I had parents who didn’t parent any of them.”
Considering that sounds like a threat to bottle feed me broccoli soup, I ignore the pit opening up in my stomach and pick up my spoon.