Marriage of Unconvenience

“I needed the money too,” I said, my voice muffled behind her finger.

“I know you did, but I also know that if you hadn’t needed the money, you would have lied and said you did and married me anyway. You’ve given me the world, Loren. The entire fucking world.” I put my arms around her, buried my head in her shoulder and started to cry. Guess the waterworks weren’t letting up anytime soon.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” I said into her hair.

“I know. I didn’t intend for this to happen tonight. I was going to plan everything out and make a grand declaration, or maybe be a little more rational and not kiss-attack you, but then it kind of happened.”

“It did,” I said, and I meant more than the kiss.

We held each other until we both fell asleep, my fingers in her hair.

Twenty-one

“Did you girls sleep well?” Mom asked when we went down for a late breakfast the next morning. Cara and I looked at each other and then away. If we stared too long, I would have burst out laughing.

“Uh huh,” we both said in unison as Mom dished out slices of spinach quiche and roasted potatoes and bacon.

“Good, good,” she said, distracted with getting breakfast on the table. Dad finally came back from the kitchen with a plate of toast.

“What is with all the food? This is enough to feed three families,” I said, pointing my fork at the spread.

“Oh, we just wanted to make sure you were eating well,” Mom said. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Absolutely nothing,” I said, shoving a forkful of potatoes into my mouth.

Cara kept sneaking her hand onto my leg under the table and causing me to drop my silverware, or choke on my tea or orange juice. I nudged her with my foot under the table and slipped her a look to cut it out because I couldn’t eat under these conditions.

“What are your plans today?” Dad asked.

“I think we’ll go to the nature preserve and get lunch at the café and then maybe ice cream?” I said, looking at Cara. That was our usual routine when we came back here. The city had nature, but nothing like the preserve where you couldn’t hear any traffic or honking horns and could see more wildlife than just aggressive squirrels and birds.

“Sounds good to me,” she said, folding her napkin and putting it on her plate. My parents were probably the only people in the world outside of a restaurant that still used paper napkins.

“You sure you don’t want to hop on the tractor for me?” Dad said, a wicked gleam in his eye.

“That’s gonna be a no from me,” I said, and he laughed.

“I would also like to pass,” Cara said, raising her hand.

“Why didn’t I get any children who enjoyed machinery?” Dad said, shaking his head sadly. Mom patted him on the shoulder.

“Sorry, but that store closed a long time ago. No more children for us.”

“Ew, gross. I don’t need to hear about that, thank you,” I said, cringing.

Mom just smirked and started to clear the table.

“WHY WERE YOU DOING that at the table? They could have seen,” I said as soon as we were out of the house and into the safety of the rental car. This time I was driving.

“They weren’t paying attention,” Cara said, waving me off.

“I think you underestimate my parent’s ability to pay attention to every freaking detail of everything.” I turned the radio on low and found the local pop station, bopping my head along with the song that was playing.

Cara rolled the window down and gazed out.

“What are we going to tell everyone?” she said as I slowly bumped along my parent’s driveway.

“Tell everyone about... us?” We still hadn’t even hammered out those details. We’d passed out before that had been discussed.

“Yeah,” she said, looking back at me and smiling, the air from the window whipping her hair around. Fuck, she was beautiful. So beautiful I almost drove into my parent’s mailbox.

“I mean, what are we going to tell them? We didn’t exactly talk definitions and moving forward and all that. Why am I the one saying this? You’re the planner, Cara, this is freaking me out. I can’t be the planner in this relationship.” No way, no how.