Chapter Twenty-two
?
Precious, precious, precious wife.
Malcolm
My wife. Marrying Azalea was easier than expected, but you won’t find me complaining.
Chipper, I stand outside my wife’s apartment door with my dinner and my bribe, waiting for her to come greet me.
The moment the white haven opens, presenting my angel and dove amid the clouds of her feather-soft decor, I hold the wrapped double chocolate brownie out to her. “For you. Your favorite.”
She flinches, staring dead at the other thing I’m holding, which is my dinner. “I’m not going to share food with you.”
“Did we, or did we not, agree to torture?”
Her gaze skids, even as she slips the brownie from my fingers and steps aside to let me in. “I don’t…recall.”
I take my shoes off and enter her pristine space. “That’s okay, because I do. You said, very clearly, Please torture me, crow. I long for nothing more than abuse at your hands.”
“That…” She sighs, trailing to her kitchen, “…doesn’t sound like me at all.”
“Character growth has a way of making us sound both the least and the most like ourselves.” I find a seat at the bar counter and set my food down in front of me on the bleached marble.
Dazed, Azalea goes through the motions of heating up a meal of flat noodles, carrots, and tofu. As she does, heat rises to her cheeks, painting them in remarkable crimson hues. Inevitably, she begins stealing glances of me and my plate of steaming roasted veggies.
Potatoes. Brussels. Carrots. Broccoli. Oil and garlic and a splash of herbs to liven them up.
Needless to say, I conspired with Birch for a recipe that leaned vegan and swapped out the butter for olive oil and the meat for air, because I wasn’t about to try and make tofu or textured protein on my first foray into rabbit land.
“Dove.”
She jumps, jerking her attention off me and squarely back onto her food.
I ask, “Are you only avoiding animal products because of mental reasons?”
Her back stiffens. “I… Yeah. But also I’ve been vegan most of my life now, so I don’t know if I have the right enzymes to process meat or dairy anymore.”
Duly noted.
I’m glad I found out I was morally against slipping a little something against her rules into my food on the off chance I actually get her to take a bite or two.
Something about crossing that boundary felt neither helpful nor kind.
And while I won’t profess to be either of those things, I do profess to love her, so I’m unwilling to completely abandon a sense of humility.
Some of her stuff is cut-and-dry lies.
But not all of it.
And it’d be poor form of me as her husband to approach this delicate matter with only arrogance. Especially if I’d like her to learn to trust me more than she trusts her own head.
Once her food’s heated, she slips into the seat on the complete other side of the island counter, even though I’m certain her usual place is dead center.
Staring across the gorge, I say, “What? Do I have cooties or something?”
Daintily, she dips her chopsticks into her bowl and pinches a single carrot slice. “You have short hair.” She takes the bite. “On your face.”
“You don’t like my stubble?” I pierce a potato with my fork. “I’ve always thought it makes me look rather dashing.”
Her gaze levels on me, staring hard, and I know she’s trying to decide whether she finds me dashing or not. At long last, she determines her opinion. “I think you’d look at least thirty-four percent less evil without it.”
“Never shave, got it.”
“I don’t know how you can stand it.” She secures a noodle with her chopsticks and inspects it avidly. “It’d drive me mad.”
“Oh. Maybe that’s why I’m nuts. You think if I shave, I’ll regain my sanity?”
A slight smile softens her lips. “Maybe.” She nudges her food around, bare hands so pretty, posture so perfect, wife so precious. “I don’t know if I could handle you normal, though.”
I perk. “You wouldn’t want that?”
“It’d probably make me feel too guilty about the whole trying to kill you for a hot minute there thing.”
“Understandable. Trying to kill a perfectly normal person is dreadful. I suppose for your sake, then, I’ll remain quite firmly at least a galaxy apart from my rocker.”
“I appreciate it.”
We eat a few bites together in an amicable silence I swear feels practically warm, then I try my luck. “Dove?”
Her head droops, and she gathers a mouthful of noodles on her chopsticks. Before I can so much as request it, she spears the things toward me and refuses to watch, even as red highlights her ear.
Blazing, I move to accept the offering, taking it directly from her chopsticks. The moment I have, she leaves her seat, opens her cabinet, and tosses the plastic pair in a bath of vinegar before getting another identically white set.
Covering my mouth, I chew through my smile and swallow. “I’d have half a mind to be offended if it weren’t so good. You’re an outstanding cook.”
She, primly, regains her seat and says, “Don’t lie to me. You’ve barely got a quarter of a mind to work with in the best of times.”
My lips hook up. “What makes it so spicy?”
“Red pepper.”
“I was talking about you.”
Her dry gaze slices through me, and she says, “Thinning patience.”
I love this. I cannot express how deeply I love this. “Dove?”
Her gaze softens, if fractionally, and she holds mine.
“Next week, will you cook for me?” I ask.
“You’ll probably need to source your own protein since your body wouldn’t be accustomed to my diet, and you likely get more on average than I’ve come to need.”
“I don’t want you to get sick, crow,” I translate for her.
“If you get sick, we will not be in association for several weeks.”
I think I’m going to have to never get sick again in my life. I say, “I can bring protein supplements.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
Using her fresh chopsticks, she lifts a triangle piece of tofu and bites off the corner. “Okay, I’ll cook for you.” She blows on the piece as steam wafts from it. “And if you’re very, very good…I won’t even add poison.”