Chapter 18 #4
Elloven’s expression creased in alarm when the boy coughed in his room. Jesstin beckoned for her to follow and repeated the quieting gesture from earlier. When he opened the bedroom door, though, the boy was fast asleep again.
Elloven took one step beyond him and exhaled, throwing a glance back.
Jesstin eased her out and closed the door with a careful click. “He’s from the estate,” he said when they were back in the kitchen. “He’s staying with me, until...”
“Until when?”
Jesstin shrugged. “I don’t honestly know. I intend to find him a family, like the others, but he’s attached to me for some reason, and I don’t have the heart to tell him no.”
Elloven lit up. “You’re thinking of keeping him, aren’t you?”
Was he? She was the second person to suggest it.
“Taking it a day at a time,” he said.
“I know you never wanted children.”
“I wanted children,” he said. “I didn’t want to breed monsters.”
“This little one isn’t a monster, is he?”
“Of course he’s not. He’s... sweet.”
Elloven laughed. “You’re bonding with him. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“What do I know about bonding with a child? Let’s say I kept him, and I am not saying I will, but for the sake of debate, how would it go? We learn how to be parents from our own parents. I don’t know how to be one.”
She frowned and tilted her head to the side. “But that’s not true.”
“What do you mean it’s not true? Of course it’s true.”
“It’s a half-truth, and not the important half.
You had Asterin, who was both brother and father figure for you when you were young.
He trusted you to help raise his own children, which is a tremendous endorsement of his faith in you.
And you had Emrys. Sesto. Rhiain. An orphan who never had to wonder if he was loved might have exactly what another little orphan needs. ”
“You’re saying I should do this?”
Elloven lifted one shoulder. “You shouldn’t dismiss the idea.”
“An apartment above a tavern is no place for a little boy though.”
“Or a family man,” she said.
He made a noncommittal gesture. She was offering an opening for him to communicate his intentions, but for once in his life, he didn’t want to act on impulse. His mind was still working the problem. When he solved it, he’d be sure.
“The others from the estate?” she asked.
“There were eight altogether left in the cellar. A few are old enough to be on their own, and they’ll have jobs in the tavern as barkeeps for now.
One, Susana, wants to study to test for one of the universities even.
Sesto said my great-nephew, Wyat, has offered to tutor her, but we’ll see.
We already had families picked out for most of them, before you set the place on fire. ”
Elloven made an oops face.
“Sesto said Asterin is making arrangements for the displaced workers?”
“They’re staying at the Hermitage until the details are worked out. There’s a couple of buildings at the back of the property he had built for Sianha and Rhydian, for when they visit.”
“Sounds just like Asterin.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Jesstin, I’ve heard... I know which piece of your soul you left behind.”
He reached for the letter, still folded and unread on the table, and pushed it toward her. “He knows about me. Doesn’t know me, but the situation has been explained by—it’s a long story.”
“This is an invitation to dinner.” Elloven held the letter up. “Will you go?”
“I haven’t thought about it yet.”
“Is that true?”
He laughed. “Until you showed up tonight, I kept inventing impressive ways not to think.”
She smiled with him, but her eyes were sad. “I’m sorry you had to give up so much. I really, really am.”
He sat atop the table and gathered her hands in his, peeling the letter away. He laced their fingers together. “You’re here. You’re alive. Even if you’d never said another word to me, I’d do it all again.”
“You should go,” she said softly. “Go to them. You will always wonder if you don’t.”
He glanced down, then back at her. “Would you go with me?”
“Oh.” Her chin puckered. She studied him. “As your friend? Your ex-lover?”
Jesstin knew his answer. It had been there since before the question was asked and would be there until spoken and made real. Elloven had bravely taken a chance and opened herself up to be hurt again, knowing it was possible and doing it anyway. It gave him the courage to take the same risk.
He spread his palm along her cheek, melting at how she nestled into it, at how natural even the simplest of things felt with her.
His thumb peeled down her lower lip, and he kissed her, soft and reserved.
He drank in her warm breaths, rolling his forehead across hers and brushing their noses together, and went in for another kiss.
“Come as my betrothed.” He dragged the words across her lips. “Or as my wife. I’m not a patient man.”
“No,” she whispered through another kiss. “You’re rather demanding.”
“I wouldn’t dare demand anything of the formidable Elloven Hawthorne.”
“That’s a shame, Jess.” Her hand slid through the opening in his shirt, opening it button by button. “I enjoy that side of you... very much.”
“Then answer the fucking question,” he said, with a low groan against her cheek. How alive he felt with her and all they had between them, all they would have. Actually alive. Not existing, not managing, not suffering. Present. Fully. For her.
“If those are my options,” Elloven said with a light, dreamy laugh. “I’ve lost my own patience somewhere along the way, so if you have the ingenuity to see us married before this supper at the Hermitage next week, then you can expect my enthusiastic compliance.”
“There’s another option.” It had to be said. He had to know if she was coming from a place of fear or certainty, and she had to know he loved her enough that he’d offer her an out if she wasn’t completely resolved. “We part ways here, and you eventually find a man who didn’t kill your brother.”
“Shouldn’t be hard,” she said dryly, “but he wouldn’t be you.”
“Are you really sure this is what you want?”
“Are you asking me this because you’re afraid my history of poor judgment is clouding my choices, or because you think I’m a fool for forgiving you at all?”
“Loving you doesn’t make me worthy of you.”
“The only way to win the twisted game of self-loathing is to stop, to decide you’re done playing it. I’m telling you what I want, Jesstin, as clearly as I can. You can keep playing the game if it’s so important to you, or you can stop, right now, and accept there’s another way to live.”
Jesstin sat back with a grin. “You can’t say I didn’t give you an exit.”
“No, and I... I appreciate how you’ve always prioritized my feelings, because no one else did,” Elloven said.
“But there’s no magic to bind us together, and nothing that would keep me from leaving you if it’s what I wanted.
But that’s not what I want. I know what I want, and I’m asking you to trust me.
If you question this again, it will be hard not to see it as a projection of your own feelings rather than a concern for mine. ”
It was a gentle slap but the exact one he needed. “I won’t,” he promised. He traced the vow on his chest. “We survived all this. Back in the Infinitum, you asked for us to make an honest life together? Let’s make one, Elloven.”
“It took you far too long to say the words.” She kissed him and locked her forehead to his as they swayed. “But they were worth waiting for.”