Chapter 44
I had just finished telling her everything. My name, my family, my parents, my fear. The words were still hanging in the air between us, heavy and fragile, and she was staring at me with her mouth slightly open and her eyes wide and no sound coming out.
I didn't know what to do. I had said everything I came to say. I had laid myself bare. And now I was sitting in her kitchen, surrounded by tulips I had carried up five flights of stairs, waiting for her to speak.
The silence stretched.
And then a small voice came from the doorway.
"Pretty lady, who is that?"
I turned. A boy stood in the entrance to the kitchen, maybe five years old, with messy brown hair, round cheeks, and a gap in his front teeth.
He wore a superhero shirt and shorts too short for his legs, and he was looking at me with the kind of open curiosity that only children and very confident fools possessed.
Elera blinked. "Sam? What are you doing here?"
He pointed at me. "Who is that?"
She looked at me. I looked at her. She looked back at the boy.
"That's...... my friendm" she said. The word did something to my chest I didn't have time to examine. "What are you doing here, Sam? Where's your grandmother?"
"She went to see her friend." He said it like the entire world should have known this. "I'm a big boy. I can stay on my own." He puffed out his chest. "I sneaked out."
Elera pressed her lips together, clearly trying not to smile. "You sneaked out."
"Yeah. I wanted to see the pretty lady." He looked at me again. "What's your name?"
I was not good with children. They were unpredictable and loud, and they asked questions I didn't know how to answer. But this one was looking at me with those round eyes, waiting, and Elera was watching too. So I cleared my throat and said, "Caspian."
The boy tilted his head. His brow furrowed, and his lips moved silently, trying to shape the syllables. "Casp... Cas... Casspeeee..."
His face lit up. "Capsicum!"
Elera made a sound. A snort. She clapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Her shoulders were already shaking, her eyes bright. She was laughing at me. The fearsome head of the Valerius family, the Devil of the Underground, reduced to a pepper by a five-year-old.
I looked at her deadpan. "Are you laughing?"
She shook her head, hand still over her mouth, absolutely and completely laughing.
"Capsicum...!" she repeated, and then she lost it entirely. A real laugh, bright and warm, the kind that used to fill her small apartment and make everything feel possible. The kind I hadn't heard from her in weeks.
I should have been annoyed. I was annoyed. This child had turned my name into a vegetable in front of the woman I was trying to win back. But Elera was laughing, really laughing, and I hadn't heard that sound in so long that I couldn't bring myself to care about anything else.
Sam puffed out his chest. "Did I make her laugh? I made her laugh!"
Elera wiped her eyes. "Yes, Sam. You made me laugh."
He beamed like he had won something.
"How old are you, big boy?" she asked.
"Five!" He held up five sticky fingers. "I'm very big."
Elera melted. I could see it happen. Her whole face softened, her shoulders relaxed, and she looked at Sam like he was the most remarkable creature she had ever encountered. She loved children. I had never seen her with one before, but it was obvious. Completely natural.
I felt a strange pang in my chest. Jealousy. I was jealous of a five-year-old.
"Your grandmother must be worried...." Elera said.
"She knows I'm a big boy. I told her." He crossed his arms, apparently settled on this point.
Elera pulled out her phone, made a quick call, said "He's safe, I'll keep him for a while." and hung up. She turned back to Sam, who had already wandered over to one of the vases while she wasn't looking.
"Capsicum," he said, peering at the flowers. "Did you bring these?"
I sighed. "Yes."
"Why?"
I opened my mouth and closed it. How exactly was I supposed to explain courtship and guilt and the desperate need for forgiveness to a five-year-old?
"Because I wanted to," I said finally.
He nodded like that was a completely reasonable answer. Then he reached into the vase, pulled out a handful of tulips, and walked over to Elera.
"Here," he said, shoving them toward her. "For you. Because you're pretty."
Elera's face went soft. Her eyes glistened. She took them like they were the most precious thing in the room, cradling them in both hands, and then she leaned down and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
"Thank you, Sam," she said. "You're very sweet."
I stared. I had delivered an entire flower shop to her lobby.
I had filled her apartment with tulips. I had spent days, weeks, trying to get her to look at me the way she was looking at that five-year-old.
She had not kissed me. She had not even smiled at me like that.
And he had picked a few flowers from the arrangements I had brought, and he had gotten a kiss on the cheek. In front of me.
The audacity.
Sam was bouncing on his heels, absolutely delighted with himself. "Now we're married!" he announced.
Elera blinked. "What?"
"Married!" he said like it was obvious. "You kissed me. That means we're married." He puffed out his chest. "I've been wanting to talk to you since you moved in, but you were always out. My grandma told me your name. You're very pretty." A solemn nod. "And now you're my wife!"
I saw red. This child, this tiny flower-stealing, name-mangling five-year-old, had just declared himself married to Elera. He had called her pretty. He had given her flowers, my flowers. He had received a kiss on the cheek. And now he was standing there beaming like he had won a prize.
I had not called her my wife. I had not even allowed myself to think it, because I didn't deserve to think it yet. And this brat had waltzed in and claimed her like it cost him nothing.
Elera glanced at me, and I must have looked exactly as murderous as I felt, because her lips twitched. She was trying not to laugh again.
"That's very sweet, Sam," she said, patting his head. "But you might be a little young for marriage."
"I'm five," he said. "That's old enough."
I pinched the bridge of my nose. This brat had stolen flowers from my arrangement and received more affection in five minutes than I had managed in weeks.
Elera looked at me over Sam's head, her eyes dancing. She knew exactly what I was feeling. I kept my face neutral. Barely.
Sam tugged on her sleeve. "Can we go in his car? The Capsicum man has a shiny car. I saw it outside."
"It's not a ride." I said flatly. "It's transportation."
Elera raised an eyebrow. "We have to go grocery shopping anyway. I'm out of food."
"I can drive you."
"I don't need it."
"You need food."
"And you need to stop following me around."
Sam looked between us, confused. "Are you fighting?"
"No." we said at the same time.
He shrugged, apparently satisfied. "Okay. Can we go now? I want to sit in the shiny car!"
Elera sighed. She looked at me, then at Sam, then back at me. Something shifted in her expression, not forgiveness, not yet, but the first crack of something that might become it.
"Fine," she said. "But only because Sam wants to. Not because I want to."
I stood and grabbed my keys. "I don't care why."
That was true. She would sit in my car. She would be two feet away from me for the first time in weeks.
She had accepted the tulips, she was accepting the drive, and Sam, this ridiculous capsicum-naming, flower-stealing five-year-old menace, had somehow done in five minutes what I had been failing to do for weeks.
Maybe he wasn't such bad news after all.
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