I smile and a tear escapes down my cheek. He wipes it away with the pad of his thumb and smiles in at me. “And you’ve already made a friend,” he says, grinning.
I pull away and scrunch my nose playfully at him, sniffling away my tears. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I say, focusing on the positive things about our separation. And then I turn back around to my posters and start unrolling them.
Isaac is still standing in the same spot behind me and I know he’s not finished with the things he wants to say, but I’m still trying to delay the inevitable. I don’t want him to leave.
“Baby, you know I didn’t mean now or soon when I brought it up…I was just curious about your reaction.”
My whole body locks up and I suck in a quiet breath.
I turn around to face him with one poster, still rolled up tight, hanging from my fingertips.
He’s trying so hard not to smile, but he’s not exactly making fun of me, either. He’s talking about the day he mentioned light-heartedly about me ‘giving him an heir’. He tried to make it sound like a joke by saying the word ‘heir’ instead of ‘baby’, but I know deep down he really meant it. In both senses.
Isaac leans in and kisses me softly on the lips. “You’ve got a lot to do: college, having fun, marrying me—you know, stuff like that.”
I think I stopped breathing altogether, but I can’t tell. I never saw that coming. Really. I’ve pictured it, being married to Isaac, I mean like with a ring and a pretty vintage-style dress bought at a second-hand store, but I think hearing him say those words out loud make my simple thoughts of it actually come to life.
My heart is beating so fast I feel it in my knee-caps.
But I’m not ready for that, either. I love him and would say hell yes if he ever actually asked me to marry him, but right now I’m so nervous I feel like I’m going to be sick. I’m just not ready….
“I heard that,” he says, grinning.
I didn’t even think to close my mind off to him. My cheeks flare up with warmth.
He cups his hands around my upper arms and peers in at me with a devoted, beautiful smile. “At least I know in advance that you’re going to say yes when I ask you.” He kisses my forehead and leans up, letting his fingers trail down my arms as his hands slide away. “But I’ll give you some time.” He looks down at his pretend watch and then purses his lips. “You’ll never know when it’s gonna be—it could be after you leave this school, or three months from now when I come back to see you, but at least you have a warning.”
His grin just gets deeper.
I fail miserably at keeping a straight face. I’m blushing and smiling and still trying to hold in laughter and tears all at the same time!
Finally, I just let the tears pour from my eyes, but they are happy tears and as huge as my smile is right about now, no one could mistake them for sadness.
Isaac pulls me into his arms and holds me tight, pressing his lips into my hair. I never want to leave these arms, but I better get used to it and so I kiss him deeply once and reluctantly move away from him. He understands my need to get this over with and I think he probably needs to do the same thing.
I move over to the head of my bed and unroll my Supernatural poster—which I’ve had hanging on my wall since before I moved to Hallowell—and I smooth it out against the wall.
“Babe, really?” Isaac says with a hint of humor in his voice. “You’ve got me now; why do you need posters like that looming over your bed?” He’s totally playing with me; he can’t stop grinning.
I let the poster fall to my side and I put my free hand on my hip. “Baby, I love you, but it’s Sam and Dean Winchester?” I say as if I can’t possibly grasp any reason for why he doesn’t understand that.
He smiles and says, “Well, they can keep you company while I’m gone I guess, but when I get back…,” he points his index finger upward and shakes his head slowly in warning, “…they’ll have to go; they can’t be looking down at me when I’m having my way with you in here.”
“Understood,” I say, grinning.
~~~
I watch Isaac from my window as he walks down the sidewalk and away from the building. He hops in a cab at the end of the parking lot. The Jeep is mine now. And then I watch him pull away as a few tears stream down my smiling face. Three minutes without him sometimes feels long, so I can only imagine how long three months will be. I’m going to miss waking up curled up next to him and the way I always laid my head on his bare chest and listened to his heartbeat while he was sleeping.
I miss him already.
So, that’s how my life turned out. I went from abuse to happiness and heartbroken to being in love and human to werewolf. Rollercoaster doesn’t even begin to describe it. But I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything in the world.
And I would do it all over again.
To see more of The Darkwoods Trilogy, visit the author’s Pinterest page:
HTTP://PINTEREST.COM/JREDMERSKI/THE-DARKWOODS-TRILOGY/
OTHER BOOKS BY J.A. REDMERSKI
***
—THE PRAVERIAN CHRONICLES—
-THE DARKWOODS TRILOGY-
#1 – THE MAYFAIR MOON
#2 – KINDRED
#3 – THE BALLAD OF ARAMEI
-COMING SOON 2013-
THE DARKSOULS TRILOGY
***
-STANDALONE NOVELS-
DIRTY EDEN
THE EDGE OF NEVER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jessica Ann Redmerski was born in Little Rock, Arkansas on November 25, 1975. She lives in Arkansas with her three children and a Maltese.
www.jessicaredmerski.com
The Ballad of Aramei Page 38
