Debt

"You make that sound like it is some sort-of deterrent for bad behavior," I said with a sly smile, both of us well aware that I liked the belts, paddles, floggers, and bare-handed spanking just as much as he did.

"Brat," he smiled as we pulled away.Byron - 7 monthsShe got more than half the closet. As I stood there picking out a tie, I hadn't the slightest fucking clue how that had happened. Or when for that matter. I swear she made it happen gradually so I wouldn't notice until my jackets had somehow found themselves in the so-called dark dungeon in the back corner.

In an odd way, though, I liked it.

Because it wasn't the timid, accommodating Prue that had walked into my house eight months before.

The longer she was with me, the more she seemed to step out of that comfort zone. She picked fights and stood her ground. She occasionally, like with the closet issue, just did whatever the fuck she wanted. She called me on my bullshit and demanded I stop being a dick if I wasn't giving her enough.

I would like to take credit, but it really had nothing to do with me. With her father still toeing the straight and narrow, even getting and keeping a sales job since about a week after he got out of rehab, a huge weight was off her shoulders. She didn't feel the need to live her life around the possibility of another disaster. She could breathe deeply again, stop worrying, do what she really wanted to do.

That included the baking business.

It wasn't huge and she insisted she never wanted it to be. But it was enough. It kept her busy. It gave her the money she needed to feel free with and the money she needed to sock away for a down payment on a new car. It meant that not a week would go by without me hearing Prince blaring from the kitchen and seeing a contended Prue dancing around the kitchen in jeans and tees, her hair tied up in a top-knot, her smile huge.

"Dad's here," Prue announced from the bedroom where she was slipping into a light pink dress. "He's schmoozing up Ella in the kitchen," she declared with a scrunched-up face as I walked back in, looping my tie. It was no secret that Mack had a thing for our cook. He had ever since the first night he came over for dinner and insisted on 'paying his respects to the chef'. Ever since then, it had been an obnoxious display of effort on his part and tentative, uncertain reception from the very practical Ella. Prue, loving them both, somehow found herself hating the whole thing.

When I had asked her why, she had shrugged and said, "How would you feel if you knew your Dad was making out with your, for all intents and purposes, adoptive mother?"

"I imagine it was the same level of discomfort as your father had when he found out I was fucking you, babe," I reminded her and she sighed.

"I guess."

"He brought her a big cardboard box filled with various herb and spice plants," she told me, leaning forward to fasten the clasp on her shoes.

"If that doesn't win her over, I think it's a fucking bust for him."

"Well you know Dad with his long shots," she said with a smile as she stood. "I'll meet you down there," she told me, leaning up and kissing my cheek as she moved out of the room.

I listened for the sound of her heels hitting the bottom stair before I turned back into the closet and went into one of my jacket pockets to grab the small black jewelry box. I clicked it open, taking in the delicate vintage setting and the flawless pear-shaped diamond.

I'd had it for years, since about three days before Mandy died, when she and my uncle had called me in and I had watched as he slipped it off her finger and handed it to me as she begged me to save it for the love of my life.

While the gesture was momentous and I accepted it as such, the ring had been relegated to a safety-deposit box from the very next day until about five months after Prue had moved in.

Because before then, I hadn't truly believed in the concept of a love of ones life.

But five months in, I walked into the bank, opened the safety deposit box, and slipped the ring into my pocket.

Why I had kept it for two months after that, that was beyond me.

Maybe it was a bit of her prudence rubbing off on me.

I wanted to be sure we were both in the same place. I wanted it to be the right time.

About an hour before Mack showed up, Prue had come out of the shower, skin still steaming from the hot water, dropped the towel to the ground, then climbed up onto the bed where I had been sitting, answering a text from Aaron. She moved in beside me, completely unconcerned about her nudity, pressing her head into my shoulder, and taking a deep breath, like she always did, trying to breathe me in.