Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Korrad
I picked up lo mein and eggrolls from Number One China on the way home. I mean, I’d planned on doing it all along, but that was before… Before. Now, instead of thinking about protein for a long night of pleasuring my wife, I’d figured she’d want carbs…and maybe some wine.
The house was quiet, so I walked softly into the kitchen to deposit the bags.
“Kesha?” I called softly, expanding my senses.
Ah, there she was—I could hear her soft, hiccupy breathing from the living room. I kicked off my boots and padded in there in my socks... to find my wife asleep on the couch.
It didn’t look like a pleasant sleep. There were tear tracks on her cheeks and wet splotches on the couch pillows.
She’d cried herself to sleep.
I stood there, staring down at her in confusion.
Earlier, after the doorbell had rung, I’d felt her fear and panic and came running to protect her.
I hadn’t understood why she’d reacted so strongly to Smalls, but once I realized this was a legal matter, I forced my Kteer—and my claws—to stand down.
This could be solved with money, not violence, as much as I wanted to punish the male who’d frightened my Kesha.
Why had she been so upset? Debt wasn’t unusual, although after ten minutes with Smalls, I had a pretty good idea how predatory Northstar’s lending practices were. My wife was smart; she wouldn’t have gone to them or signed their terms if she hadn’t been desperate.
Would she explain why?
Did it matter?
“Kesha?” I murmured again, kneeling beside the couch. She didn’t stir.
I glanced out of the large picture window toward the backyard.
Dark clouds had rolled past while I was at the bank—Aswan’s Mate had been willing to keep the place open a bit longer so I could discuss the situation with Smalls in private—and cooled the evening air down a bit.
I suppose I’d been longer than expected; Kesha might have been asleep for two hours by this point.
She was exhausted, and I tried not to let my Kteer feel smug about the fact she’d gotten little sleep last night.
“Oh, dkaar.” My chest tight with the need to care for her, I reached for Kesha, pulling her into my arms as I stood.
She stirred, pressing her cheek against my chest. “Korrad?” she murmured sleepily.
“Hush.” I carried her through the sunroom and toward the back deck. “I’ve got you. I’ll always have you.”
Always.
I wasn’t sure why I settled on the couch out on the porch, other than I’d always loved the view out here, and the air was still cool from the storm which had never materialized. There was a bit of a breeze that made a summer evening manageable to a male raised in the snowy mountains.
Without releasing Kesha, I settled her on my lap, adjusting my hold to support her against my chest. I could tell she was awake—her breathing was too fast—but her eyes were still closed, her forehead pressed against my shoulder.
“You hungry?” I ran my palm down her spine. “I brought carby goodness.”
Her snort was watery, as if she’d gone back to crying. “You’re the best.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean it.” She suddenly jerked her head up, and would have fallen off my lap had I not grabbed her as she was staring wide-eyed at me, tears running down her cheeks.
“You are the best, Korrad!” Her fingers curled around my shirt as she hiccupped.
“Don’t you get it? You’re the best, and I’m just—”
Her nonsensical words broke off with a sob, and she buried her face against my shoulder once more. My shirt was going to be soaked by the time this was done, wasn’t it?
I just kept rubbing her back, confused by her words.
“Dkaar, it’s just Chinese food.”
“It’s not just Chinese food,” she hiccupped, not looking up. “Not just the Chinese food. It’s that you thought to get it, thought why you should get it.”
Her shoulders were shaking with the force of her sobs, and I hated to think she might have cried this hard earlier without me here to hold her. I wrapped my other arm around her. “Are you hungry right now?”
She’d probably throw up if she tried, which is why I was relieved when she sobbed, “Not really.”
I exhaled. “Okay then. Let’s just sit here for a little bit.”
And cry.
“You always know what I need,” she wailed, launching into another heaving sob-fest.
My heart was breaking for her, but I couldn’t think of anything to do other than just hold her and whisper loving words.
Sharra used to break down like this, but I’d quickly learned hers had been manipulative, not genuine.
I’d never seen Kesha lose control so thoroughly, and knew she was hiding genuine pain.
Eventually, she hiccupped to a stop, and I loosened my hold on her.
“I’m sorry.” I pressed a kiss to her hair, loving the way it cushioned my lips. “I wish I could help.”
“You have helped. You keep helping. That’s it.
” With a deep, shuddering breath, Kesha pushed herself up, using the palms of her hands to wipe her eyes.
“I’m the one who is sorry. Everything I do—” She cut herself off with a sound that was part laugh, part sob.
“I ruined your shirt, Korrad. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything!”
This last wail—a horrible, sharp, unresolved note, a dissonance of helplessness—was so hopeless, my Kteer howled in frustration. She needed me, and I didn’t know how to help her.
Well, there was one thing…
I shifted her forward, then reached for the hem of my t-shirt and pulled it off over my head. “Here.” I offered it to her. “A little tears and snot won’t hurt it.”
That watery laugh again, as she pressed the material to her eyes. “You always know exactly what to do.”
No, I wanted to tell her. I often feel like I’m just floundering through life. But it was easier to flounder around with her.
I exhaled, settled her back against me, and tipped my head back against the cushions to watch the sky.
The crickets had started up with their strange rhythms that somehow became a melody.
The sun had sunk over the mainland behind us, the sky turning brilliant pinks and purples.
The sunsets here on Eastshore were different from the mountains, but no less beautiful.
But Eastshore had something the mountains didn’t have.
“Look,” I said softly.
At the edge of the tree line, where the grass went long before the wood started, the first firefly came on—a single cold pulse of light, gone before you were sure you’d seen it, and then another.
“Milo loves lightning bugs,” she whispered, sounding less watery, more wrung-out.
“Fireflies,” I corrected teasingly, and was rewarded with a little huff of not-quite-laughter.
I let the quiet do its work for another minute before I spoke again.
“You’ve been keeping score since you arrived, Kesha. This marriage wasn’t about that, not to me…but you’ve been doing it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said yet again, sounding miserable.
I pressed another kiss to her hair as we both watched the insects flicker around our backyard. “There’s no reason to apologize, dkaar. But why don’t you tell me what you think the score is.”
She made that sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You really want me to?”
“I really want you to.”
Kesha pulled in a long breath and let it out. Then, without looking away from the fireflies, she began to speak.
“You’ve given me a home. A safe one, the kind Milo needed, and I couldn’t give him on my own.
You gave Jay to Milo and Milo to Jay. Last night you—” She stopped.
Pressed her lips together, then tried again.
“Last night was entirely about me. Every time I tried to make it about you, you—you rejected me.” Kesha took another long, shuddering breath, as if preparing herself for the worst. “And then today you came home and took on a debt I’d hidden from you without even blinking.
” Another hopeless laugh. “I’ve been keeping a tally for weeks, Korrad. It’s not close.”
I looked at her profile in the low light. “First of all,” I said, “last night—making you feel good makes me feel good. That wasn’t generosity. That was what I wanted.”
She opened her mouth.
“And I want you to touch me,” I hurried to assure her. “Whatever you had in mind. I’m not refusing that.”
She shifted on my lap. “I want to,” she said, smaller. “Just—not now. Right now I’m disgusting. But in bed. I want it to go both ways.”
“Then it will.”
I said it simply, and she looked at the fireflies and said nothing.
“Now,” I said. “Milo.”
“What about Milo?”
“He’s mine.” I turned her gently so I could say this to her face, ensuring she understood.
“Same as Jay is yours—you do understand that? I loved that boy before he ever set foot on this island. A year of gaming with him, of hearing Jay talk about him, of watching those two find each other through a headset and thinking: that should be real.” I held her gaze.
“Milo is my son. Mine to care for, mine to love, same as you are mine. That’s not a debt.
That’s not something I need paid back. It just is. ”
Her eyes had filled again.
“How,” she said, her voice cracking on it, “how could you possibly love me? I walked into your life and I’ve just taken. The house, the boys, last night, and now—”
“Dkaar.” I offered her a gentle smile. “You’re still keeping score.”
She pressed her lips together.
“Love doesn’t work that way,” I said. “But since you’ve been keeping a tally—tell me what you think you’ve brought.”
“Nothing.” She said it like she believed it completely. “Nothing that wouldn’t have sorted itself out without me.”
I shook my head. “The night you moved in, Jay helped Milo unpack. He has never offered to help anyone unpack anything in his life. I watched him show Milo where to put his things, and I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t want to stop it.
” I paused. “I had a house for eight months. It was functional. Jay and I knew where everything was, and nobody used the second coffee mug. A few months with you here, and he leaves his shoes by the back door because there’s always someone in the kitchen. He started that the second week.”