Page 99 of Finding Fate
I walk over to him and drop down to the floor, straddling his lap, and then wrap my arms around his neck and hug him tight. “Talk to me.”
He wraps his arms around my waist, holding me close so that I can’t see his face. “I don’t know how to repay this, Gab. I was a lone soldier fighting an army for so long it feels foreign to have people on my side. Konnor gave up his basement, our practice studio, and they footed the bill to make us an apartment? How do you thank someone for this? Everything I tried to come up with to say sounded stupid.”
I pull back and place my hands on his face. He turns away, fighting against my palm, ashamed that he’s crying like this. “Don’t hide. Not from me.” His eyes meet mine. I lean in and press my lips against his wet ones, my eyes briefly closing before I pull away. “I want to love every side of you. What’s the point in saying for better or for worse if you don’t mean it?”
He places his right hand over my left, pulling it to his lips for a kiss over the band of my engagement ring, and then lowers it. “I was raised to work hard, marry the girl you love, support your family, and love God. I don’t know if I can take this and be proud of myself. Your dad will never respect me if I do. It’s already hard enough for me. I’m not Greek. I’m not rich. I’m not from a prominent family. I finally got his blessing by fighting for it. I don’t want to lose it.”
“Mad, aren’t we past all that? I’m yours. How many times do I have to prove it before you believe that we’re going to be together regardless of what anyone tries to say? I gave you up to give you freedom. I let him go to protect everything we knew was true. I lived poor and sacrificed success because greed stole everything from me. I kept myself pure in hopes we’d find our way back to each other, to prove that despite what was forced on us, I loved you more than moving on. I took a beating instead of bowing to something I don’t believe in. I fought for us. There’s always something worth fighting for. That’s the point in warfare, after all—to overthrow dictators, to be able to live in peace and to freely believe in what we want to believe in. Why does anyone stand for anything? To ensure they don’t fall for everything. Christ was crucified to pave a way for an entire species. Who gives a damn about one person? He can respect that we chose each other or take the loss. Those couples like your grandparents that make it fifty years and are still going strong—they started with love and the will to make it work. Everyone has to start somewhere. This is our somewhere. And one day, when someone we know is in need, we pay it forward. That’s the way all love works, baby; not just love between two lovers.”
His eyes are watery. “Just when I think I can’t possibly love you any more, I fall deeper. It’s hard to believe sometimes that the love of my life and the mother of my kids was a girl I picked out of a crowd.”
“Maybe to most, but any real music lover would tell you hearts align just like words to form the perfect song. So many different options, but only the right ones come together for the perfect combination. There was just something about you for me like you thought there was something about me. The rest faded away and you stood out.”
“I couldn’t have said it better had I tried.” He wraps his arms around my shoulders and pulls me against his broad chest. I can hear his heart beating. “Is it weird that I like watching him sleep?” he says low, like he’s been talking the whole time, careful not to wake Madden. “When we were in Greece, every night after you went to sleep, I got out of bed and slipped into his room just to watch him breathe. When I do, for a little while, despite everything bad going on in the world, everything is right in mine, and I’m at peace.”
“It’s easy to understand when you never thought you’d get the opportunity.” I shrug. “It’s no weirder than me watching you watch him to get that same feeling.”
“What?”
“Now that I know what it’s like to sleep beside you every night, I wake up when you’re not in bed. There are nooks and crannies in that house you don’t know about. Every time you watched him sleep, I watched you watch him. The entire time I was pregnant with him I felt like I was betraying you. I knew you’d be a good daddy. Living with that secret was slowly killing me. I just wanted you to know your son, even if only for a moment like me, so seeing it happen is a beautiful thing to watch.”
He tightens his hold on me. “What do you think made your dad change his mind about the adoption?”
“One thing that will always hold true with a Greek—nothing is more important than family. Regardless of who helped make him, he’s a part of me, and I’m a part of my dad. I was too close emotionally to think about it rationally or maybe it would have occurred to me. In the end, he couldn’t turn his back on either of us, even knowing I’d hate him for taking him from me.” I smile as a tear falls off my lashes onto Maddox’s shirt. “My grandmother said he never missed a visit. He was always a constant in my life too, despite how busy he was. If he told me he’d do something he always did. He never left me. I never wondered if he was coming home when he was gone. That’s the dad I’ve been holding onto. That’s what made the rest bearable, like when he whipped me in a way he never had. With every lick I remembered a time he hugged me. And when it was over and I had all that time to think, I tried to imagine being in his shoes and how I would be if you left me with Madden and never came back. He’s never remarried. I’ve never even heard a rumor of him with another woman. Love makes people crazy and losing it can drive someone insane. I know that better than anyone.”
“It’s hard to like him after everything, but in some way, I get it. Like you said, I was a threat to him. I was the one that could take you.”
“Yes. The only one.”
We sit in a comfortable quiet as he holds me, and I cuddle up to him. He’s warm. I’m tired but I’m not ready for this moment to end. If he wants to sleep against this wall then I’ll do it. “Will you teach me to speak Greek?”
I sit upright. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I barely even use it.”
“I know, and I’ve never understood why. I liked hearing you say things in another language.”
“It made me different than the majority, and kids don’t understand the differences of the world. It made me a target to be laughed at. I just never cared to be in the minority.”
“Your differences don’t make you a target, Gab, they set you apart. If you get to love every side of me, I get to love every side of you. Don’t throw away the things that make you the most beautiful. I fell in love with a Greek American girl. I want to be a part of it too, and our kids, as in plural.” He pushes his hands under my shirt until both palms are perched on my abdomen. “I want this baby to be bilingual too. I want them to know where they come from.”
If only my father could be here now. He’d be damn proud. Maddox is such an amazing person. I love him inside and out. I smile at him. “You do realize it’s a lot easier to learn another language when you’re a child, right? Their minds are like sponges and their palate is still forming. That’s why my dad made me learn English and Greek from the time I could speak. And the difference in learning a language like Greek versus Spanish is that you have to learn an entirely new alphabet instead of a new keyboard that’s a variation of the English alphabet with added symbols.”
“I want to learn for you and for my kids. I know I’m not as smart as you and I’ll probably sound like a jackass, but I want to try. We can start now and maybe by the time the new baby learns it I’ll be somewhat fluent.”
I want to roll my eyes. Maddox is one of the smartest guys I know. He could glance at a study guide and ace a test in school. It finally dawns on me what he said. I never knew he liked hearing me say things in Greek. He asked a few times, but I just thought it was morbid curiosity like every other true-blooded American does when they find out someone is bilingual. They don’t really care. They just want to hear something so foreign.
I lean in and place my lips next to his ear, thinking, and then I whisper, “Páre me sto kreváti kai me agapó.”
He breathes harder as he hardens beneath me. Interesting. Why didn’t I do this forever ago? “Now translate it.”
“Take me to bed and make love to me.”
He grips me tight and gets to his feet, barely getting his balance before walking over to the lamp to turn it off. I hold onto him, all limbs wrapped around his body as I let him carry me to our new room. “I’ll make love to you if you speak Greek to me while I do.”
A naughty giggle slips when he comes in our room and tosses me on the made-up bed. This will be fun. I’m almost bummed I didn’t think of it first. He jerks off his shirt and tosses it aside, already coming over me. I smirk. “Min stamatísete méchri na fonáxo to ónomá sas. Don’t stop until I scream your name.”