The Imperfections

“Sure, but if you want the moment, we can pretend you have a choice.”

Wrinkling her nose up and narrowing her eyes, she swats me on the shoulder with the back of her hand.

Unfazed, I add, “I can even get down on one knee if you’d like. Of course, I don’t have a ring yet.”

Alyssa rolls her eyes at me. “I don’t need a pretend proposal. I actually quite liked your marriage command, but as proposals go, it’s still a massive failure.”

Tightening my arms around her, I tip my head to steal a kiss. “You like my commands, huh?”

“Mm-hmm,” she murmurs, rising up on her tiptoes to kiss me back. “You’re lucky I’m into bullheaded, bossy men.”

Tapping her on the edge of her little button nose, I tell her, “Actually, you’re lucky you’re into bullheaded, bossy men. I’d have sacrificed you to the fish a long time ago if you weren’t.”

With an exaggerated pout and big eyes, she asks, “You wouldn’t really sacrifice me to the fish, would you?”

“Nah.”

She grins. “Good.”

I grin back. “I’d bury you somewhere on my property, that way I could still visit you from time to time.”

Her smile wanes and she offers me a decidedly unimpressed stare instead. “Really?”

I nod. “Pack a picnic, bring Scout. We’d all have a good time. Well, maybe not you. Me and Scout would, though.”

Alyssa shakes her head in disapproval. “That’s no way to talk to your wife, you know. You’re older than me, so I’m bound to outlive you. That means I get to decide what to do with you when the time comes. We’ll see how you like it when you’re fish food.”

“You can feed me to the fish,” I tell her. “I’ll be dead—can’t imagine I’ll care much.”

Alyssa frowns. “All right, that’s enough death talk. It’s funny when we talk about you murdering me because I know you really won’t. You really are older than me, and I don’t want to think about that.”

It’s kind of sweet that it makes her grumpy to think about me dying. “Don’t worry,” I tell her, kissing the crown of her head absently. “I’m healthy as a horse. I might outlive you. You never know.”

Before we abandon the topic of our own mortality altogether, Alyssa looks down and asks, “How are you planning to break the news to Theo? He thinks I already am fish food, so he’s probably going to be pretty surprised when I show up on your arm instead.”

“I couldn’t give fewer fucks about Theo’s opinion of our relationship.”

“I know,” she says, nodding, “but I think he’ll be really surprised I’m even alive, so maybe it would be better if you told him first? What if we blindside him in front of Bri and then his reaction is really suspicious because he’s not prepared for it?”

“To be honest, I’m figuring Bri will tell him she saw you tonight, so he’s already gonna know you’re not dead.”

“You told her not to, though.”

“I did, but she’s not as good a listener as you are,” I offer back lightly.

Normally, she’d pick up the gauntlet and lob a light retort back at me, but something must be weighing on her mind, because she barely lifts her lips in a faint attempt at a smile. “Should we maybe talk about why Bri thought… what she thought?” she finishes after a brief hesitation.

“That I’d hurt you?” I offer, my tone even. “She knows I’ve hurt people before. You knew that, too,” I remind her. “I told you the night we met.”

“You did, but…” She trails off, looking up at me for help, but I don’t offer any. “I don’t know, it seemed different… scarier.”

I watch her struggle to sort out all her thoughts and feelings about this. I plant my hands on her shoulders, then lightly drag my palms down her arms. “That’s because you knew you’d crossed me,” I say, bluntly. “Don’t do it again and you don’t need to worry about anything Bri was talking about.”

Rather than accept my evasion and move on, she looks up at me and pries. “Who’s Nicole?”

I keep my answer vague. “Someone I loved once. No one I want to talk about tonight.”

She’s quiet for a moment, then she says, “If we’re going to build a life together, you shouldn’t keep things from me, even dark, ugly things. I need to know you inside and out, the warm and fuzzy sides and the dangerous sides, too. I’m not a fool, Brant. I know you’ve maybe done things that would make me shudder, but I need to know about them. If you… hurt someone you loved before, you need to tell me about it.”

I know she’s right, but I’ve already opened up to her so much more tonight than I intended to. Maybe I didn’t vocalize all of it, maybe she doesn’t know how much more I’ve opened myself up to her than I have to anyone in years, but whether she knows or not, I did, and I can feel the aftermath of those efforts. The moments when I was afraid she’d seen too much and she’d reject me now—even if she didn’t know those moments happened for me, they still did.