by Kitty Thomas
He gives me a look like he's disappointed in me and says, “I'm Soren.”
“I'm Judith,” she says.
“It's lovely to meet you, Judith.”
“Harold,” she calls... “Livvy brought a man for Christmas.” She says this in the same way one might say “Livvy brought a pumpkin pie.” And I'm pretty sure my mom thinks both of those things would be equally delicious.
My father appears a moment later. He's smoking a pipe. He has this Christmas Eve thing where he smokes a pipe. I have no idea why he does it. He never at any other point in the year smokes a pipe. This is his Christmas Eve tradition. The Fairchild Christmas: Gingerbread cookies and cigar smoke.
He narrows his eyes at Soren.
“Hello,” he says, coldly. “And who might you be?” He looks between Soren and me as if Soren is attempting to kidnap me, which is so close to the truth.
“Soren Kingston,” he says. Soren can't shake my father's hand—not that my father's offering—because he's still holding the presents.
My father's eyes widen. He actually recognizes Soren's name. I would be willing to bet money he even knows which company he runs.
“Well, that's a name,” he says, grimly. “Are you dating my daughter?”
Without missing a beat, Soren says, “I'm marrying your daughter. Next year. June 22nd. I hope that date works for you.”
My father looks like he might go to the gun safe and commit a felony. But an equal level of malice is rolling off Soren. He's not used to being questioned, and I can tell he isn't loving my father's tone. And I know my father isn't loving Soren's.
This is getting off to a great start.
I hold up my hand, flashing the ring in an attempt to diffuse the situation, which is of course stupid because waving sparkling evidence in front of my father's face of the impending wedding only six months from now is probably not the smartest move. My father's nostrils flare at this visual—like a bull ready to charge. And I am one hundred percent certain that if my father charges, Soren will drop the gifts—breakables be damned—and get into an actual fight with him—like the kind of conflict where neighbors call the cops.
“Harold!” my mother says, finally seeing the situation that may be about to unfold.
“And you think you're good enough for Livia?” he asks, blowing cigar smoke into Soren's face—not accidentally.
I'm surprised when Soren says, “Probably not. But I don't think there were any literal princes on her dating roster, so I'll have to do.”
My parents don't know about the roster. Even Macy doesn't know about the roster. She just knew I was dating and keeping it quiet for a while. Of course nobody seems to think this roster talk is anything more than a joke, and my mother is now fully engaged with diffusing the testosterone in the entryway so Soren isn't able to elaborate on my dating hijinx.
“Soren, I'm so sorry, you can put those gifts under the tree. And dinner is ready so if you want to come on back.”
Soren offers her a charming smile and brushes past my father to put the gifts under the tree. At the same time, my mom grabs my father by the elbow and drags him back to the dining room.
“Livia's engaged,” he announces gruffly to the family, none-to-happy about it.
I'm a bit confused to be honest. I mean yes, this is being sprung on him—did I mention my father hates surprises? But still, I saw the flash of recognition at Soren's name. You'd think he'd be happy to know I'll be so well taken care of. Soren can absolutely provide and protect. And we all knew I wasn't going to ever have a nice lifestyle on a veterinary assistant's salary.
Dinner itself is surprisingly pleasant. My brother, his wife, their three kids, as well as my two sisters and their husbands, and my sole remaining grandmother are all much more friendly to Soren than my father was. There are ooohs and aaahs about the ring, and questions peppered about the wedding and the whirlwind planning that's about to ensue and am I worried about securing a venue? I hadn't thought about that, but now I am.
Soren sits on one side of me and Macy sits on my other. She'll be the maid of honor of course. Macy comes to all my family holiday functions because she has no family of her own—at least none she has contact with.
My two and a half year old niece, Vivie looks like she's half in love with Soren when he cuts her ham into tiny triangles for her.
“Do you think Vivie would want to be my flower girl?” I ask my sister-in-law, Anna.
Anna leans closer to Vivie. “Would you like to be in Aunt Livvy's wedding?”
“Yes!” Vivie shouts through a mouthful of ham, even though I'm pretty sure she isn't clear on what a wedding even is.
After dinner just before everyone gathers in the family room for gift exchanges, my father says, “Livia, I'd like to speak with you alone in my study.”
I exchange a glance with Soren, who looks pissed that my father seems to be trying to interfere with his evil plans. But he quickly shifts back to his charming smile as he volunteers to help my mother clear the table. He's at least earning points with her.
Vivie trails behind him with her own plate talking his ear off about flowers and how she's going to be the flower girl, even though I'm sure she has no idea what that is, either—not unless the Disney Princess training has started way early.
I follow my father to his study.
“Shut the door,” he says.
I shut the door and sit in the guest chair across from his desk.
“You're not marrying that man,” he says flatly.
For a moment I'm speechless. I am, after all, a grown adult woman. And although this whole wedding situation is far more sinister than he could possibly suspect—and my hand was forced—there is a rebellious part of me that wants to flounce off and elope just because I'm being told I can't marry Soren.
Something my father and Soren have in common—a controlling streak, which is probably why they got along so famously out in the foyer and had to be seated at opposite far ends of the dinner table with a large centerpiece blocking their view of one another.
“And why is that?” I ask. I don't bother to fall into some over-the-top crying fit or to say but I love him like a trashy daytime talk show. My feelings for Soren are very conflicted and confused these days.
“He's a rogue.”
“Ummm... This isn't a Regency romance novel. Nobody says rogue anymore in that context.”
He pierces me with a glare. “He's a player. I've heard some very unsavory things about some of his activities with the opposite sex. And some of the unsavory parties he's been at.”
He keeps saying unsavory.
I would ask where he could have possibly heard these things. It's not as though he runs in the same social circles, but my father is a decently paid CPA, and most likely heard some rumor from one of his higher-end business clients. And in order for them to know this about Soren they would have had to have been at those same parties. But I don't bother mentioning this fact.
I'm not even a little shocked by this revelation. I've known Soren wasn't the guy you bring home to your parents almost from the beginning. But my libido staunchly refused to let me remove him from the roster, even when I knew I should—and now it's too late.
“Well? Aren't you going to say anything?” he asks.
I shrug. I'm not sure what there is to say. I actually am marrying that man because if I don't he'll destroy me, and my father has no power or pull to stop it. What Soren wants, Soren gets. His unsavory rogue-ish ways hardly matter in this scenario.
Finally I say, “Instead of talking behind his back, maybe you should discuss this with Soren and see what he has to say about it. Doesn't it seem a little unfair to convict him without a trial?”
“Fine. Send him in. I'm sure I can persuade him to put a stop to this. The last thing his company needs is another scandal.”
I want to ask which company, but now doesn't feel quite like the time. I get up and go into the living room to get Soren.
“My father wants to talk
to you in his study,” I whisper to Soren, who the rest of my family seems to adore.
He just nods, gets up, and leaves the room. I find myself wondering if my father can actually persuade Soren to leave me alone. And if he does, what does that mean for Griffin and Dayne? Would they leave, too? Do I want them to leave, too? Can I pretend that any of them is pure and clean in all of this, that I could trust them after this?
What will my family think if Soren leaves in the middle of Christmas Eve? Or if the wedding doesn't happen? My adorably clueless niece seems to have really latched onto him and the idea of being in my wedding. Does she know what weddings are? I'm trying to remember when I first understood what weddings were in even the most vague way.
A tense silence descends on the room as we all hear shouting—my father's—from down the hall. Then things go quiet in there for a long time, and I'm worried one of them has killed the other. Fifteen minutes later the door opens and there's... laughing? Both of them are engaged in what sounds like a friendly conversation like they have inside jokes... like they've been friends for ages.
I have no idea what Soren could have possibly said to diffuse my father and win him over, particularly when their initial meeting in the foyer was so tense. The two of them rejoin us in the family room. My father sits next to the fireplace and puts more tobacco in his pipe. Soren joins me without a word, but he seems far more relaxed.
The rest of the Christmas Eve festivities of gifts, gingerbread cookies, and hot cocoa goes off without another cross word from anyone, and I'm left more confused than ever.
11
Soren
The Video Proposal
Six months ago. A week before Christmas.
We're out in the middle of the ocean off the coast of Miami. We've taken a short break from the cold just before the holidays. Livia lies on the deck in a skimpy red bikini, the sun licking her bronzed skin in all the places I want to put my own tongue. It seems unfair that the sun should be allowed this intimacy with her. That is my body to heat up, consume, and devour. No celestial body should ever get to touch her. The only others who will touch her are Griffin and Dayne, but that's different.
I met the guys during rush week at Dartmouth. It was a period of serious hazing even though it was against the rules. But we weren't the kind of pussy ass little bitches who were going to whine and complain and cry to the administration like little girls. Every generation before us made it through, and we would too. We were fucked with and humiliated to the point I was ready to rip heads off and mail them back to the families in question.
I was livid at the treatment. I shouldn't have to experience it. I had money and power. But so did everyone else. It didn't hold quite the same threat that it did in broader society. At the top, money and power is as common as the Internet. Oh you have an Internet connection? Amazing. Me too.
The things that happened during that period bonded the three of us together not just as brothers, but as lovers. Then once we were in and the pussy was flowing like wine, we started to share women. We didn't think about it, it just seemed like a natural progression at the time. It didn't even occur to us to be jealous because what we had was between us, and the girl was our toy. Nothing more. Our friendship always came out on top against any woman who became our fourth.
But it wasn't a part of my life I shared with anyone outside our circle. Despite how progressive the world seems, it isn't—not beneath the surface. People like to virtue signal so they can get cookies from the wider society to show what good little obedient followers they are.
The average person accepts same sex relationships as long as everyone stays in an identifiable category. You can be with another man, but you can't be an alpha male at the same time—at least not in the eyes of most. People are comfortable with things they can label. Anything else is too scary and makes life too uncertain.
It's black or white. Gay or straight. Alpha or beta. And when someone starts coloring outside the lines, flowing back and forth between one thing and the other, refusing to put labels on things but simply allowing them to be and unfold... that's when people get uncomfortable and their prejudices emerge.
We all knew these things. So when college ended and we entered the real world of business, we pretended to forget all that we'd shared. We still moved in the same circles, attended the same parties, but we stopped fucking each other and taking women to our beds to share between us. Or at least we did it less frequently. Such things were a scandal waiting to happen. Even in this super progressive world we all supposedly live in.
Besides we didn't have time for it. We each had companies to run. Two of us—Griffin and myself—had inherited ours in a sense, each of them Fortune 500 companies everyone knows the name of but no regular person on the street knows who's in charge. It's only a few multi-national companies where the CEO is also a household name—a celebrity almost. Dayne started his own company, not yet as successful. He already owns several properties overseas. So let's be serious, he doesn't have to work. None of us do. We're driven by things greater than money.
“You ready to do this?” Griffin asks, interrupting my thoughts.
Dayne is a few feet away setting up a camera on a tripod, and focusing it on Livia. We want to really sell this story. What we're doing is dangerous. We have families to think of. We have companies. We have status it may seem we were born to, but we've fought and clawed every step of the way to maintain our positions. There is little room at the top for slackers who want to coast on daddy's money. At least there is little respect for it.
We've moved beyond conspicuous consumption to conspicuous production—the new status symbol.
I glance back over at Livia. Her very existence calms me. She makes my brain stop spinning. She makes the state of just being seem so effortless. We work and work and climb and build empires, but we don't have the ability to just sit back and enjoy it, just sigh into it. And yet that's Livia's natural state. She's a long deep calming breath from a guided meditation no one had to guide her through.
This girl can never know the power she has. She is the keystone that can hold us all together, but I've seen how she can play.
“Livia, are you ready?”
She looks up at me and raises her sunglasses briefly in acknowledgment, then drops them back down again without a word. This attitude she's starting to develop isn't working for me. I tell myself it's because I'm spoiling her, so naturally she's becoming entitled. But this is her rebellion against my orders that she will be mine. Ours.
I want to flip her over and spank her. I want to pull her bikini bottoms down and leave hand prints on her in the same exact color as the fabric barely covering her ass. But I take that long slow breath and reign it in. There's plenty of time to take deeper control of her. There is plenty of time to teach her not to cross us. For now, I need her to be able to act convincingly. I need her to sell this so any doubt is erased from the minds of any of our friends and associates that this is real, we are in love, we are forever.
“Do you remember what to say?” I ask her.
“Yes, Soren. I'm not a child. I know my lines. We've rehearsed them a thousand times... with feeling,” she says exasperated.
Dayne gives me a look like, are you letting that slide, really? I sigh and shrug because we need the footage, and we need it to look good. We need parents to laugh, grandparents to cry, and every bridesmaid in attendance to be jealous. I can't have her looking like a hostage reading lines off a cue card.
So for now, yes, I'm really letting that slide.
Dayne turns on the camera, and we're rolling.
“Livia, I have something for you.”
Her eyes light up, and for a moment I believe this act, even though I've seen her do this more times than I can count.
“A present? Is it a pony?”
I chuckle. “Not a pony.”
“A Ferrari?”
“Nope.”
Griffin gets credit for this script. I wish we could credit him at the end whe
n the screen goes black. The innocent bride-to-be: Livia Fairchild. The happy groom-to be: Soren Kingston. Script written by: Griffin Macdonald. Camera work: Dayne Montgomery.
“Open it,” I say.
I watch as she rips through each box in turn. We didn't practice this part because I didn't want to have to wrap things up this many times. Plus, she hasn't seen the ring yet. She doesn't know where I got it from. She doesn't know that her little girl fantasy of getting a blue box is about to come true. And I know it's her little girl fantasy because I got it out of her best friend, the sole person in her life who even knew she was dating.
This part isn't a script. It's the sheer pleasure of watching her face when she understands where that ring came from.
It doesn't matter what diamond may or may not be the most expensive, what brand may be the most valuable in reality or in perception. What matters is that she fantasized about an engagement ring from Tiffany. And that is what she's getting. Griffin, Dayne, and I all went together to pick it out. We got her the best ring they had.
“Is it an empty box?” she says, just like we practiced.
I chuckle again, real anticipation growing this time. It's an odd feeling to be having after so much time of a kind of void inside me. There has been nothing but stark, cold ambition with no soft place to land. Until her. “No. There's something in there,” I assure her.
She opens the final package to see the small distinctive blue ring box—a shade of blue that can be mistaken for no other jeweler—a box that even the least brand-aware person just knows is something special.
I see the shock in her face, but she doesn't break character. She playfully delivers that final joke. “Is it a clown pin?”
This part comes from a commercial we all saw once. Despite all the social reference points that divide us, that one stupid commercial is something we all share. I can't even remember what they were selling, but the scene is a woman in a romantic restaurant opening what she thinks is an engagement ring. But instead it's this ridiculous clown pin. We thought it would be funny. And it's a reference many of our guests will get because they saw that commercial too.
