Chapter 23
?
What a…fresh, fun, cool bit this is.
Morana
Talira: I miss you.
Talira: I wish we could catch up.
Talira: Please, Ana. Don’t do this to me anymore.
My stomach knots as I stare at the texts I seem to have missed while I was enjoying the warmth of a family welcoming me in every feasible way and learning what it means to be absolutely, unequivocally, earth-shatteringly adored by my husband.
Kyran loves me.
He can’t even help himself with how much he loves me. If we’re in the same room, he’s looking at me. He gets stuck in it, dazed, smiling.
The effort I’ve been putting in to let him love me has cut down the separation I impose between myself and the people I’m most scared to lose.
I can feel it. I can see it. Because I’m letting myself.
Within a matter of days, I’ve regained my sister’s closeness, a house full of safety, and a faith in myself that I thought was gone forever.
These people don’t ask anything of me. The expectation doesn’t exist. I am allowed to be whoever I am however I am, and the tension falls away. I wake into it. I drift off with it.
There is love.
There is peace.
I’m so happy.
So, of course, this is the moment Talira chooses to appear and shake my foundation and remind me of things I wish with all my heart would just go away.
Kyran’s hand on my thigh drags my attention off the screen, and I stare at his fingers as they run over the inches of me he can access while he’s driving.
Right now, even though we’re obviously together, he is unable to lose himself in staring at me, and it shows.
Eyes fixed on the road, he reflects the same icy frostiness as the snow-coated world outside.
Detached. Quiet. A blanket of confident presence.
Biting my cheek, I put my phone aside and touch his hand.
Immediately, he stirs, glances at me, melts. Our fingers twine, and he smiles at the street.
My heart swells.
I think…I love him.
I don’t know what else this feeling could possibly be called.
Just thinking of a life without him in it is painful. The fear that he might slip away like Talira did is…agonizing.
“I don’t annoy you?” I ask, softly.
“You don’t.”
“And I’m not too needy, am I?”
“I wish you were needier. I love to be needed by you.”
“Am I still…mean enough for you?”
A short laugh leaves him. “Oh yes. I’m rather fond of how you’re mean to me these days.”
Oh, so I am still mean to him these days… I have been desperately trying to be nicer. But— Wait a second. I frown. “Are you talking about yesterday, when we were packing, and you laid a single clean shirt on the floor in the center of our bedroom?”
A delighted sigh leaves him. “I’m talking about how hard you slammed me into the wall, teeth gritted, as you said, So help me, e-boy, I will take a cheese grater to your skin if you pull this crap at my parents’ house.”
I sink into my scowl. “Well. Because. I would.”
“You then kissed me until I couldn’t breathe, stopped when I was ready to beg, and left me quivering and delirious, sliding to the ground where I watched you stomp away, shake out the shirt, and put it back where it belongs.
” Another happy sound, followed by a reverent swear.
“It was beautiful.” He draws my hand to his lips and kisses. “I am obsessed with how we play.”
Right, that’s great. Except. “I wasn’t playing. If you pull that nonsense in front of my parents, I am going to go ballistic.”
“Define nonsense.”
This man is going to end me. “Anything that inspires me to wring your neck.”
Mildly, he nods. “Understandable. Choking me in front of your parents isn’t appropriate behavior.”
I am going to lose my mind. “I mean it, Kyran. I know you’re joking right now, but we cannot forget ourselves and wind up snogging in front of my parents.”
“My self-control is impeccable. You’re the one I have to watch out for.”
He is…so right. He is actually so incredibly right. After that first night, he’s been taking this cute pining angle and letting me lead all intimacy, for fear I might think he’s only interested in me for physical stuff I guess. Either that, or he prefers when I lead. Who knows? Who cares?
The point is, I’m the one who keeps closing the final inch between us. I’ve been ravishing him like some kind of feral creature. He’s all adoring puppy dog, and I’m a wolf starved.
Caving in on myself, I whimper. “This is going to be a disaster.”
“Why? You don’t think your parents will like me?”
I look at him, knowing he is both capable of unique tenderness and phenomenal detachment.
Knowing he doesn’t really opt to act inauthentically at all, it all really depends on what side of him might come out naturally in front of my parents, and then how they’ll respond to the fact he never thought to meet with them in order to discuss this ahead of marrying me, and… mm. Yeah. “I don’t actually know.”
“Does whether or not they like me have any bearing on whether or not you like me?”
I wish I could say yes. I wish I could firmly say that absolutely I love and trust my parents and their opinions matter a whole lot and all that.
But.
I’m afraid I’m just not a very good daughter at all.
And they, like Maelin, never so much as knew about all the mistakes I was getting up to in high school. Even though there were rules and warnings and cautions. I didn’t listen, and I filled one void with another all on my own.
I say, “No. Whether or not they like you won’t change anything. It’ll just make the next four days suck.”
Kyran hums as the GPS tells him to take the next exit. “Nah, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
I wish I could possess his same level of confidence, but alas. Part of having a good marriage, I think, is balancing strengths and weaknesses.
Once we’ve parked in my parents’ driveway in front of their small, snow-covered house, I fill my lungs with air, push all thought of Talira aside, and focus on the present issue, the present choices, the present ways I can embrace what I have.
I open my mouth and turn to Kyran, just in time to see his long coat fluttering as he steps out of the vehicle.
I blink at a closing door, then jump when my door opens.
Princely, he offers me his hand.
“Careful,” he says as I take it, “there’s ice.”
Watching my step, I enter the frozen world, huddling in my coat and against his chest. “I’m scared, Kyran.”
“Of?”
I lift my shoulders.
He gathers my hands up and blows heat into them. “There’s nothing to be scared of. I’m right here.”
“It feels like I’ve done something wrong.
Because I have. And…it’s not just with you.
I’m not as open with my parents as I should be.
I feel terrible. I can be open with them.
I know it. Even about the worst things I’ve ever done.
They’re good, kind parents. They’d still love me.
I just… I don’t rely on others naturally, and that separates me from them. I hate that about myself.”
He kisses my fingers. “It’s never too late to start relying more on the people you love.”
I guess not. I guess it’s never too late to do better.
I’m trying to do better, for his sake. I can do better here, too.
“Ready?” he asks.
I nod, and he helps me up the drive, watching for patches of ice until we make it to the front door.
Mom, Dad, this is my husband.
That’s my line.
Let’s get it over with.
Fortifying myself, I reach for the doorbell, and ring it.
Immediately, the front door flies open, and a noise maker hits my face as my father blows it. “Congratulations!” he cheers, and I jerk as an eruption of streamers explodes out of a party popper.
“Hank,” Kyran offers coolly, then he sets a hand to his chest and lowers his head in a bow to my clapping but far less enthusiastic mother, “Taylor.”
Her lips tip up in a smile, and she says, “I made cake.”
Kyran shakes his head. “I told you that you didn’t have to.”
What?
“I did anyway.” My mother opens an arm to me. “Get inside. It’s freezing out there.”
Ushered in, I watch as my…parents…hug Kyran…and he hugs them. Like it’s all normal. And well. And good. Like they…already know each other?
“Dad, make sure you clean up the mess you made,” Mom says before securing my hand and dragging me up the entry hall covered in my childhood photos.
My gaze catches on a picture of Talira and me, and my stomach knots before I drag my attention down and off it.
Behind Mom and me, Kyran trails, hands tucked in his pockets as he takes in the space.
Dropping me off in the kitchen, as though a decorated dining room isn’t just beyond the archway, my mother slips on her oven mitts and removes a warm chocolate cake from the oven.
“So. Mora,” she begins, “how’s married life treating you? ”
My heart jumps. “Wha…”
I tense.
Then I turn, slowly, toward Kyran, who is rather invested in the popcorn ceiling.
“You got my parents’ number from Mae and told them before I could?” I hiss.
“Oh, don’t be silly, Momo,” Dad says, coming up last and dumping streamers in the trash by the fridge. “He gave us his business card at Mae’s wedding.”
“Hank, please,” Kyran protests. “It was my personal card. My business card is a bit different.”
Dad snorts, pulling his wallet from his back pocket and sifting through his collection of business cards. “Well, I suppose I would certainly hope so. Wouldn’t want this circulating with other parents.”
He procures one all black and ice blue card, presenting the sleek design to me.
On one side, it says:
Hi, I’m Kyran.
I think I’m falling in love with your daughter.
On the other, it declares:
Call or text me if you’d like to connect.
(XXX) XXX-XXXX
My brain, obviously, shuts down. He…made a business card before Maelin and Zakery got married? He planned all of this that far in advance? He’s been preparing to be serious about me to the extent of making an effort to connect with my parents…from the start?
I blink, and a teardrop falls onto the card.
“Oh, honey,” Dad murmurs, burying me in a hug. “What’s wrong?”