“Then you’ll love me?”
“I love you now.”
I collapse. I sob. I’m a wreck.
I’m a wreck in Pari’s arms, and it’s still okay.
She holds me the whole time. She pets my hair. Her shirt becomes wet with my tears and my snot, and she never pulls away. I burrow harder and harder into her softness, first her neck and then her breasts, and then somehow I have my whole face buried in her stomach. Her arms wrap around me and shelter me. I clutch her so hard that I think I might bruise her. I can’t make myself stop.
I don’t want to.
I don’t have to.
She loves me even now, at my worst.
She’s going to adore me when I shine.
One Year Later
She looks so beautiful.
I shake when I see her. From all the goodness, all the rightness. My wife. I am hers and she is mine, and that’s been true for longer than the Hindu ceremony we had yesterday, and it’s also been true longer than signing our names in the courthouse on Friday.
It’s been a long year, but it’s been completely worth it.
I only walked away long enough to go to the bathroom, but it’s like I’m seeing Pari all over again. Her pale-cream reception dress glows in the low lighting of the hall, but it’s her brown skin I can’t draw my gaze from. Every inch is so smooth and perfect.
I kiss her shoulder as I slip into the chair next to her. “Hello, my love.”
“Hello, my wife.”
I love her smile. “Did I miss anything?”
“Me, I hope.”
The room is packed, but that doesn’t matter to us. We’re at a table at the head of the room, all alone. We’re leaning close, our shoulders touching, and all I see is my woman.
Until Richard leans against the front of our table. “You two are the most frustrating couple ever.”
I lift my eyebrows in challenge, but I refuse to lean away from Pari. I’ve worked too goddamned hard to be here. I went to treatment, and it almost killed me to be there so long, but she made it worth it. Pari visited four times a week, called every day, and sent me care packages every week. But she never once let me off the hook of working for my treatment.
“Frustrating?” I echo. Because that’s not what it feels like from the inside of this relationship. It feels like I’m finally somewhere I want to be. I’m tempted to say that I earned it, earned her, but I’m working on accepting that life doesn’t work that way. “You better be careful. The High Death isn’t out yet.”
“It’s postproduction. You can’t scare me.”
“I could tell the editors that I need some things recut?”
He’s smug. He folds his arms over his chest. “You know it’s a work of art as much as I do. It’s going to make both of us.”
“It might.” Or it might be swallowed up by the hundreds of films released every year, and become a drop in the celluloid ocean. I’m proud of what we’ve done. That has to be enough.
“You’re frustrating because you’re so obviously in love.”
“Good,” Pari says, and now she sounds as smug as Richard did a moment ago. Her hand finds mine. We’re wearing different mehndi patterns than we did a year ago, but that’s okay. All of this is okay. “It’s the point of all this.”
“All this” is remarkable. With a year to plan, Niharika went wild. I finger a waxy petal on the bouquet separating us from Richard’s hip. It trails all the way to the edges of our linen-draped table, and even goes to the floor.
I try not to care about the expense, especially on top of what it cost to cancel last year. I’d had to spend several sessions on it with April, my new therapist. Pari swears up and down that Niharika doesn’t care, that we’re all in this together and what matters is a wedding that establishes the family’s pride in us as a couple. We used more hours to work on Pari’s occasional tendency toward coolness. She’d put distance between us because she’d been scared of impermanence, burned by mistakes she’d made with Taneisha. Neither of us had that fear anymore.
“My present to you is the use of my yacht for a week, whenever you like.” It’s a very Richard-like move, to tell a person the present he’d gotten them, but he doesn’t do it out of meanness. He wants a chance to see our happiness when we find out.
And he gets an eyeful. Pari gasps, and I grin. “Excellent!”
“I stuck a card in the pile,” he adds, “But I wanted to tell you that everything’s included. Staff as well. My chef will spoil you rotten.”
Pari leans toward him. “What kind of chef is she?”
“The best,” Richard replies, and I half expect him to add “duh” to the end of that, because he looks slightly offended.
“New American cuisine.” I twirl a lock of her hair around my finger, and I’m acting like I’m all sorts of casual, but I’m excited that I’m excited about food. Richard’s chef really is one of the best, and it’s going to be really great food. Awesome. I’ll have to remember to tell Pari about this later, and probably April too. But Pari’s father is tapping a glass with the side of his knife, so I shoo Richard off. “But now you go away. Today is about us. I promise I’ll drown you with praise later.”
“I’m expecting the reviews to fulfill my needs,” he says as he saunters off.
“Asshole,” I say at his retreating back. But I’m grinning. Richard has become a better friend than I expected. It’s been a little weird to have him introduce himself into my life, but he kicks surprising ass at trivia games.
“Shh.” Pari nods toward her father, who’s standing with a microphone in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other. “Toast time.”
I steal a kiss because I can. She tastes like sweet cardamom.
“When my daughter told us that she was gay, I mourned.”
Pari makes a gulping, squeaking noise, but Sadashiv lifts a hand and pats the air to reassure her. “No, no. Not anymore. But I have to speak with honesty when I’m up here. You are my only daughter. My shining star. When you went to America, I was so very proud of you. I wanted everything to be perfect for you. It was. It seemed to be. Until you told us that you wish romance with women. I was sad for the life I thought that you would lose.”
I hold Pari’s hand and squeeze it tight between the full white skirts of our reception dresses. She’s shaking a little, but she’s also nodding. Her beautiful eyes are full of tears.
“I have found much solace in my marriage to your mother.” Sadashiv looks down at Niharika sitting next to him while the crowd applauds. “It was my fondest wish that you would find a partner who would give you such a soft place in the world through marriage—a marriage I would find for you, if we’re being fully honest again.”
I laugh along with everyone else even though Pari pulls a face at me. In apology, I lift our hands and kiss her knuckles, though there’s accidental contact between my teeth and her skin. It’s hard to kiss when you’re dying of laughter.
“I’m pleased to say you have found for yourself the love that I wished for you.” Sadashiv’s gaze turns toward me. His eyes look fond and his smile is gentle. “Rachel is a lovely, kindhearted woman. When you first told us about her, you said that we’d be pleased with her optimism. It is true. You knew us, and you knew her as well. I know that I can speak for your mother when I say that we have come to love Rachel as if a daughter to us. And it is with that love in mind that I give you both this gift.”
The envelope he holds out to us is red. I look at Pari and she nods, so I take it and peek inside. It’s a check. A number with a bunch of zeroes on the end of it. My ears whine with a high-pitched buzz.
“Holy shit,” I breathe.
The audience I’ve momentarily forgotten breaks into cackles.
“It’s for your loans,” Sadashiv says quietly. “So that you both can go forward in life without such a yoke around your neck.”
I look at Pari again, but she’s staring at her father. “Are you sure?”
Jesus Christ. We might actu
ally take the money. My head spins. I’ve been making headway on the loans, even though my rehab was expensive. My insurance option through Julian’s production company is kind of bottom of the barrel, so I had to shell out extra cash to go somewhere decent. I know it was worth it. The medical bills don’t even seem that bad compared to my student loans, but to have that huge chunk of money no longer owed … I can’t imagine it.
I shake my head. “Sadashiv, no. I can’t take this.”
He puts down the microphone and holds both of my shoulders. “If you had been my daughter, you would not have had to pay for college. We love you as a new daughter. Let us do this.”
I’m crying. My makeup artist will be pissed, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Pari leans into my side. When I throw my arms around Sadashiv, Pari claps and laughs through her tears. He’s an inch shorter than me, but I still feel protected when he pats my shoulders.
“Thank you,” I say, and then say it like five more times.
There’s hugs all around and more crying, and Niharika joins us too. I’m in a family. I have a family. It’s insane. It’s amazing.
It’s everything I ever wanted.
And it’s not a prize. I haven’t earned my happiness by dint of control. I didn’t have to be good or exert my will. It simply is. My duty is only to accept and appreciate the universe as a whole.
I look at Pari again, and I kiss her, and it’s still difficult to kiss when I’m smiling so damn big. But we manage. Our lips cling and slide. The room cheers.
I turn her away from the crowd. My back is to them all and at least somewhat obscures what we’re doing. I cover our cheeks with my hands. I kiss her deep enough to lick tongue to tongue.
Happiness is shining from Pari. Rays reach out and twine around me, and I know I’m sending my own joy in her direction. We’re forever in the flesh.
Forever in a kiss.
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Twitter. You are my soul mates. Yes, all of you. Except the troll eggs.
In particular, I’ll say:
Elisabeth, @duke_duke_goose (even if you fly south)
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Alishia Rai, @AlishiaRai (pls tell more baby sis and baby bro stories. They are adorbs)
Victoria Dahl, @VictoriaDahl (for convincing me to use alien-skin aluminum foil)
Jazz Baby
Catch Me
Waywroth Academy
Wayward One
Indiscreet Debutant
The Pacific Blue series
One Lesson
Riding the Wave
Ahead in the Heat
Club Devant
Lead and Follow
Chains and Canes
Command Force Alpha
Own
Bind
Snap
As Katie Porter
Fireworks (in the O Come All Ye Kinky anthology)
Come Upon a Midnight Clear
The Vegas Top Guns
Double Down
Inside Bet
Hold ’Em
Hard Way
Bare Knuckle
After a seminomadic childhood throughout California, Lorelie Brown spent high school in Orange County before joining the US Army. After traveling the world from South Korea to Italy, she now lives north of Chicago. She writes about romantic trysts that happen in warm places because sleet is a sad, sad concept.
Lorelie has three active sons, two yappy dogs, and a cat who cusses her out for not petting him enough.
In her immense free time (hah!) Lorelie cowrites award-winning contemporary erotic romance under the name Katie Porter. You can find out more about the Vegas Top Guns and Command Force Alpha series at KatiePorterBooks.com or at @MsKatiePorter. You can also follow Lorelie on Twitter @LorelieBrown if you like knitting, makeup, and people lacking social filters.
Connect with Lorelie:
Website: loreliebrown.com
Twitter: @LorelieBrown
Facebook: facebook.com/lorelie.brown
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Far From Home Page 17
