Chapter Twenty-Three
Kingi
“I’m going to take Bearcub out and lock up for the night,” I tell Chessie. “The bathroom’s all yours.”
“Okay, thanks.”
We get up, and she goes into the bathroom, while I pull on a pair of trackpants, open the door, and go out into the hallway.
I walk quietly down to Thea’s room and go inside.
She’s out for the count, curled on her side with her hand under her face the way you see angels sleep.
Bearcub lifts his head as I approach, and I say, “Shh,” as I pick him up.
He doesn’t make a peep, and I kiss his head as I carry him out to the living room.
“You’re all warm and snuggly,” I murmur in his ear, and he licks my face as I open the sliding doors and take him out. “Thank you for the kiss.” I put him on the grass, and he wanders off for a sniff.
Sliding my hands into the pockets of my trackpants, I look up at the sky. The security lights have come on, so it’s difficult to see much, but the rain clouds from earlier have cleared, and I can see the moon, almost full, hanging to the west like a tossed silver ball.
I think you’re attracted by the romantic notion of the big gesture.
I consider Chessie’s words while I watch Bearcub sniffing around.
Is she right? Everything else she said is true.
It was only just over two weeks ago that I proposed the idea of a fake engagement to Chessie, and now I want to make it real?
I can understand why she’s skeptical. It’s a speedy turnaround for a guy who was convinced that marriage wasn’t for him.
I’d always thought proposals and weddings were something that girls wanted because of their romantic nature.
For guys, it always seemed as if they were something they had to get through that usually cost a lot of money for little return.
To me, a proposal was like Valentine’s Day—a show you put on for everyone else.
The wedding was the same; girls like the big dress and being the center of attention for the day.
For guys it’s just an opportunity for them to hang out with their mates and get drunk.
But then I’d always pictured getting married to someone like Sabrina—a woman I was attracted to, but who irritated the hell out of me after five minutes.
I understand marrying because as you grow older it seems sad if you stay single, and I can see the benefits of having a companion at your side beyond the obvious bonus of hopefully regular sex, but committing yourself to one woman like that for the rest of your life? Why, why, oh why would you do that?
But standing there in the cool night air, watching the puppy sniff a flowerpot and then sneeze, I allow myself the thought that I’ve never considered marrying a friend.
It’s as if a whole new world has opened up to me.
For the first time I think about what getting married actually means: spending the rest of your life with your best friend.
The proposal is the moment you see her face when you tell her that you want to marry her.
You get to put a ring on her finger so that every time she looks at her hand, she thinks about you.
And every other guy she meets will also see that she’s yours.
I can see the attraction of that, caveman that I am.
And the wedding itself is the moment when, after all that waiting, you finally get the opportunity to stand in front of your friends and family and promise to love your girl and be faithful to her for the rest of your lives.
Before, the thought terrified me. But now, with Chessie waiting for me in my room, her body warm and soft beneath the covers, I feel uplifted at the thought of having her by my side. In bed and out of it.
Sure, we’ve only been fake engaged for two weeks, but our relationship began long before that. We’ve been friends for twenty years, and the fact that we kissed when we were teens is a sign that we’ve had deeper feelings for each other for a long time. If it hadn’t been for my father…
I frown. Oh, the irony of it. Telling me that I could do better…
and then I find out that he cheated on my mother.
Anger boils in my stomach at the thought of the years I’ve wasted because of the implication that Chessie was socially beneath me.
She’s worth ten of me—no, a hundred… a thousand!
I can’t believe I let him convince me not to date her.
I’m ashamed of that. I didn’t think I was a snob, but I am, or I was, anyway.
She’s helped me see more clearly, and for that, if nothing else, I’m grateful.
Bearcub has had his pee and is trying to get up the steps, so I pick him up again and take him inside.
I lock the sliding doors and turn off the lights, then take him down to Thea’s room and put him back on the bed with her.
He goes over to her and curls up in the crook of her legs again. She doesn’t even stir.
Smiling, I walk out, leaving her door open a little, and go into my room. Chessie is back in bed, looking at her phone, and I wink at her before going into the bathroom.
When I come out, she’s put her phone down and is on her side, head propped on a hand. She watches me take off my track pants, come over to the bed, and climb in beside her. Then she moves up close into my arms, and we snuggle down together.
“I shouldn’t stay the night here,” she says. “Just in case Thea does wake and come looking for me early in the morning.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll give it just a little longer.” She nuzzles my neck.
I sigh and kiss the top of her head. “You smell nice.”
“I smell of you. And sex.”
I chuckle. “It’s not the worst combination.”
“Mmm.” She slides her arm around my waist. “Whatever happens going forward, I really enjoyed tonight.”
“Me too.”
“I hope you don’t regret it.”
My heart aches at the hope in her statement, and I squeeze her shoulders. “Of course not. Quite the opposite. I was out there thinking I wish we’d done this a lot earlier. If only my father hadn’t intervened.”
She rests her chin on my shoulder. “To be fair to him, I’m not your equal in that sense.”
“If you mean you don’t have as much money as I do, that’s true.
But he married my mother because she was from a good family and was considered his equal.
And they’ve had a relatively unhappy marriage, and are now getting divorced.
Their relationship skewed my view of marriage for most of my adult life.
I thought that was what happened. But I don’t want to live like that.
More than anything else, I want to be happy. And you make me happy.”
Her face lights up. “Really?”
“Really. I think maybe it’s occurred to my dad now that money can’t actually buy happiness.”
“Kingi Davis,” she mocks, “did you really just say that?”
“I know. What the hell’s wrong with me?”
We both laugh.
She snuggles a little closer, and I tighten my arms.
“I need to talk to him,” I admit. “About Mum. I’ll go and see him tomorrow.”
“What if he mentions our engagement and advises that you could do better?”
“I’m my own man now. I make my own decisions.”
“You make your own mistakes.”
“You’ll never be a mistake,” I tell her fiercely, cupping her face.
“Seeing you in the gardens that day was the best thing that has ever happened to me. I’m not religious anymore.
Or I didn’t think I was. But looking back, I feel as if that meeting was destined.
It’s like…” I hesitate, struggling to put my feelings into words.
“I don’t know… as if I was on a train, and I missed the station years ago and went sailing past you.
But whoever is watching over us changed the tracks so I could come around again and have a second chance. And this time I took it and leapt off.”
“I’m so glad,” she whispers.
“Me too.” I bend my head and give her a long, lingering kiss.
“I should go,” she says when I eventually lift my head.
“Okay.”
“Maybe just a few more minutes.”
“Mmm.” She’s warm and soft in my arms, and I kiss her again, in no hurry to say goodnight.
*
In the end, she stays with me until the early hours. We make love again, slowly and sleepily, and then she dozes off for a while afterward. But eventually, when the moon is high above us, she gets up and makes her way to her own room, just in case Thea rises early and comes to find her.
Usually, when I’m with a girl, I’m kinda glad when she goes so I can have my own space.
I enjoy my own company, and I rarely get lonely or bored by myself.
But tonight I curl up with the pillow, feeling an ache inside at the loss.
I want her here. I want to hug her again.
I want to sleep with her in my arms and wake to see her bed hair and the creases on her cheek from the pillowcase.
I want to smell her warm, sleepy body and wake her with my mouth.
But soon I fall into a heavy sleep, and when I wake it’s light, and I can hear the girls talking in the kitchen, and then a high-pitched bark. I get up and pull on my track pants and a tee, and go out to find Bearcub sitting watching the girls cooking breakfast.
“We’re making you a bacon and egg sandwich,” Thea announces. She’s kneeling on a stool, breaking eggs into a dish and picking out the shell before Chessie pours them into the frying pan.
“Fantastic.” I start making a coffee. “You can be my full-time chef if you like.”
She giggles, and Chessie winks at me before concentrating on frying the eggs.
When the sandwiches are done, we take them out to the table on the deck, and eat them and drink our coffees while Bearcub plays on the grass. Eventually Thea joins him, and the two of them investigate the flowerpots, Thea talking to him constantly.
“Penny for them,” Chessie says, smiling at me.
“I was wondering what it would be like to have my own daughter.”
Her eyebrows rise, and her mouth forms an O. “Really?”