Prologue #7
“Yes. I like what we have. I love what we have. And, I’ve been trying to make sense of your perfection since you stepped foot in my life.
I can’t. Neither can I make sense of the idea of not bathing in it for the rest of my days.
I’m not getting younger, and I am aware of my desires as a grown-ass man. I’m just hoping you are, too.”
His body grew further away. It wasn’t long before I was the only one in the booth and his knee was piercing the carpeted floor. A bright diamond shone in the dimness, dancing around in the box that held it.
With swollen orbs and a pounding heart, I slid closer to the edge, closer to him. Disbelief was grounding. It kept my body pressed against the booth. The sounds around me diminished. The visuals disappeared. All I saw was Kason.
On one knee.
Ring in hand.
“Range, the last six months with you have been the best six months of my life. I wake up a happier man knowing I have you in my corner. I go to sleep feeling like a king knowing you’re near. I long for the moment I hear your voice over the phone or read your words through text.
“I am in love with you, and I am falling deeper every day. Life is greater with you in my line of vision. I can think more clearly. Love better. Listen more. And, learn something new with every encounter.”
My thumb pressed against the back of my index finger.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
He cleared his throat as everything around us began to take shape again. Everything had stopped. Forks halted mid-air. Mouths remained agape, unmoving. Eyes targeted us like red dots at the shooting range.
Slowly, steadily, I counted each time my fingers collided.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
My temperature heightened significantly. Volcanic ash pushed from my nose with each breath I took.
“I guess I’m saying all of that to say that I want to be your husband. I want to be your everything. If you’ll have me. So, Range, will you be my wife?”
My nostrils flared with unrestricted and unfiltered emotions.
A smirk pulled my lips upward into a one-sided smirk.
My internal systems were clashing. The glitch forced me forward, pulling Kason into my chest. The need for physical touch was due to my desire to be recentered.
I had fallen into an endless hole and couldn’t catch my footing.
Kason’s body was anchoring. I clung to him with hopes that it would all disappear in a blink and we’d be back in his bed, uncomplicated and uncompromised.
“Range,” Kason whispered, mouth near my ear.
“This complicates us,” I admitted, “It will lead to expectations you can’t meet.
I hold space for you in my heart, and though small, it’s forcing me to save you the embarrassment that is always a chance during a public proposal.
I am going to smile, Kason, and I am going to nod my head for the cameraman who managed to keep his objective concealed until now.
But, when the forks return to their plates and we’re back in your car, the gloves will come off– so will the ring. ”
“Ra–”
I pulled away, disconnecting our bodies. Kason’s eyes had changed. So had his posture. His confidence plummeted. I watched it all tumble as I lifted and lowered my head. His smile was conditional. But, so was my answer.
It wasn’t a yes.
It was a yes for the moment.
He slid the beautiful diamond on my finger. It fit perfectly. He had impeccable taste. It was timeless, classic.
My hands pressed against his cheeks. My lips pressed against his lips. My tongue penetrated his mouth as I squeezed my walls together. It didn’t matter that I was still in disarray inside. My body still responded to Kason the same as it always had.
Lustfully.
Sexually.
It yearned for his touch. His tenderness. His tongue. And the tip of his dick.
His actions had removed the safety net he provided from underneath me.
Marriage was my destiny, but this didn’t feel remotely close to the path necessary to reach my destination.
My intuition had never steered me in the wrong direction.
I doubted the pit of doom forming in my stomach was useless.
It had a purpose. A meaning. It was an indication. A warning. A message.
Safe no more, I concluded, inhaling the peppery cologne on his skin.
While I loved the woodsy undertones, I didn’t feel compelled to savor the fragrance.
It didn’t belong with the others, contained in small vials for delayed consumption that presented instant and often gratifying effects.
Seemingly, my head had already processed what my heart had only learned in depth tonight.
Kason is far from forever.
Champagne was presented.
Our appetizers arrived.
Our mouths were filled.
Our bellies were stuffed.
Still, nothing felt real. Tangible. True.
My engagement night would establish the foundation for the rest of my life with the man who’d asked for my hand in marriage.
Currently, I was on rocky soil. Preparation hadn’t been made.
The ground hadn’t been examined. The gravel hadn’t been cleared completely.
The soil hadn’t been overturned in anticipation for seeding.
There was only Kason and his vision for the final garden.
So much work had gone undone. And, I refused to agree to a marriage with a man who hadn’t done the groundwork.
Who didn’t see the rootwork as necessary.
Who glamourized the idea of marriage and partnership and a garden without getting dirt underneath his fingernails from conditioning the soil, pulling out weeds, and inspecting the ground for threats to the health of his crops.
I wanted a husband.
I wasn’t desperate for a husband.
There was a difference, and it helped clear the water we were both underneath. Kason was safe. His occupation, his lifestyle, his community, his involvement, and his personality.
Safe.
Safeness was comforting. It wasn’t convincing. Because, along with safety, there were faults. Faults that kept me at bay. Kept me from falling. Kept my eyes wide and my heart intact.
We were fun.
We were uncomplicated.
We were enough, for now.
My heart broke at the realization that the rug had been ripped from under us. With my pride in the palms of my hands, I slipped from Kason’s grasp and slid into his sleek, black foreign beauty.
Words were few. Chatter had been trimmed to a minimum. Everything had been undone. Kason’s admission of marriage had fractured the faulty foundation and revealed the truth that lied beneath our aesthetics, good sex, and closeness.
The moment the stereo blared in the background, filling the air where silence once lingered, Kason silenced it. I could hear the saliva rolling down his throat as he rewet his mouth. Words were at the tip of his tongue. However, he was finding it difficult to bring them to the surface.
I deepened my position in the passenger seat, digging my bottom into the leather. Kason’s discomfort wasn’t contagious. Yet, it had the potential to ruin a good night. For him.
“Why?”
There it was. The question at the tip of his tongue finally emerged.
“What is it? Why can’t you marry me?”
“I won’t be an option for the man I am destined to marry, Kason.
I will be a factor. A very big fucking factor.
A deciding factor. A calming factor. A wavering factor.
A known factor. Lovely factor. An unpredictable factor.
A beautiful factor. And, sometimes, an aggravating factor, but a factor, nonetheless. ”
“You are a fa–”
“I’m an option in your world. And in the world of a man where I am reduced to being an option is nowhere I want to spend the rest of my days.
I’m a lot of things, Kason, but I’m no fool.
I won’t sign my love away for the sake of being someone’s wife.
I’m fully aware that there are better people out there–for you and for me.
I won’t fight for my position in your life, and that’s what’s been happening here.
“I say where… when… how… that’s my life.
That’s been my life. And, it will continue to be my life.
That’s not the life I live with you. Our time together is always dependent upon your availability, tiredness, and whatever other factors that keep me wondering and guessing if you’ll have time, make time, or avoid time with me.
“I deserve a yearner, Kason. One who waits for me by the door after my shift.
One who has his phone glued to his palm because he is afraid to miss a call from me.
One who clings to every syllable from my lips.
One who wants to know more even long after my story has concluded because he just wants me to keep talking…
keep dreaming… keep asking… keep confirming…
keep venting… keep remembering… keep feeling.
“Because I will want to know how high and how far to jump when my husband asks me to, I have to know that he’ll ask the same. If I can’t get you to accept my visits on lonely nights or my date offers on stressful days, then how do you expect me to accept forever?
“I’ll diminish to a mere shell of the woman I am if I give myself to you in that regard, knowing that rejection and decline will be more common than when, how, where, yes, and whatever you want. Those are the only words I care to hear in partnership.
“Instead, it’s– not tonight, maybe later, another time, this weekend, and not right now. Eventually, that disrupts something within a woman. Hell, anyone. If my morals weren’t intact and my worth hadn’t been instilled in me from a young girl, we wouldn’t have made it this far, Kason.
“Range, you have this all wrong. I–” he stuttered, “I– it’s not that.”
“You’re right, Kason. It’s not that. It’s more than that.