by F P Adriani
But when I closed the fridge door, before I could walk away, Tan came up behind me and put his arms around me.
“Pia, I think you like it here. In my house, being here. Am I right?”
Since we’d come back from the trek, not once had we talked about or even made reference to our relationship. Until this moment.
I knew what he meant. My living here was only supposed to be temporary. But would it actually wind up being temporary?
I was about to respond to him, but before I could, the doorbell ringer went off.
Tan walked away, then the next thing I knew his parents were standing in front of me. I’d been expecting them, just not so early. But now here they were, and for their first look at me—my arms were filled with beer bottles. I could feel sweat coating my upper lip, and an unruly lock of my hair hung in front of my eyes, the end of which sat stuck inside my gaping mouth.
Tan’s mom Cookie smiled up at me beneath a head of gray-peppered black-brown hair that reached straight down to her small chin. All of her was petite, short; so was her husband, Tan’s stepfather Richard, a wide-framed man with a gigantic half-gray handlebar mustache and a mop of brown head hair. They were quite a sweet-looking couple. But, then, what had I expected?
I finally dumped the bottles onto the counter, and Cookie took my hand. “Pia, I’m so happy to finally meet you!” She pulled me into a hug. And now I felt embarrassed, especially because a smiling Richard and a grinning Tan were behind her and could no-doubt see my terribly flushed face.
“Same here,” I said warmly to Cookie, giving her a squeeze. Then she pulled back and looked between me and Tan.
“Could I trouble you or my son for a glass of water? We were in such an excited rush to get here, we didn’t want to stop for anything….”
“Of course you can have water!” I said, moving over to the fridge. “And when you’re ready, I’ll take you to meet my—our friends.” I grinned at Tan.
*
A few hours later we were all out on the patio. Jamie sat back on one of the loungers, taking a much-needed rest from his fiddling, while Tan turned on the stereo. Then Tan and I quickly moved a bunch of chairs from the patio’s center toward the edges.
People began slow-dancing beneath the stars and the moons and the mountain. Nell and Derek moved in the very center of the crowd. I watched them as they lovingly smiled into each other’s faces; then I watched both Nell’s parents and Tan’s parents as they too danced. Then I looked beyond all of them, at the mountain again, then to the distant Diamond sky, to the purple-black where the stars shimmered in their special silvery way.
I thought of those other mountains. I thought of what I’d learned and what I’d never learn.
Life here was risky. But, as with anywhere, life here also came with rewards.
Tan walked up to me then, pulling me back against him; he slowly moved behind me, his body’s rhythm in time with the song playing. I hugged his warm arms to me as we swayed and stared at our friends and our family, and the stars.
“So…have you thought about what I said before in the kitchen?” blew Tan’s soft voice near my ear.
“I love you,” I said, leaning back into him more. “And this is my new home—our home.” His arms quickly tightened around me.
And I smiled in happiness because I realized then that, sometimes, life is good.
About F. P. Adriani
I have an academic background in engineering and science, and a degree in space science in part. For years I worked as a scientific copy editor for a nonfiction publishing house. I’ve been writing for over 26 years, and in that time I’ve written 19 novels and many shorter works.
Diamond Sphere is the second book in my Diamond Universe. Diamond Sand is the first Pia Senda novel, and Diamond Deception is the third.
Other works in my Diamond Universe: Backflow, Hellscape, Endland, and Lead Me To Paradiso.
