Page 91 of When Sinners Fear
“Everything.” I smile and listen to the sound of her breathing, not really caring for anything other than her. We could stay in this suite for two weeks as far as I’m concerned. We'd fuck and she'd learn, and I'd breathe without worrying about her safety. “But before that, I want to say thank you.”
“What for?”
Her hand squeezes mine. “For all this. For the time together. I know it’s not what you would have offered, but it’s important to me.”
“I said I’d do anything to make you happy.”
“Well, you do. I need you to know that.”
~
Days go by in a slow wind of travel and cars and landmarks. She spends her time leading me around, eating enough sweet food for two, and laughing. We don’t plan anything other than the flights we need to be on. We exist in moments and let one lead to the next without thought about where that next moment might take us. In fact, she starts turning damn sassy about that on occasion, refusing to let me organise a damn thing. For once in my life the uncertainty becomes charming somehow, as if all the rest of the world could rot around us as long as we were still living in it.
I laugh, real fucking laughter. And I breathe a little more calmly with each passing day, as she points at places and looks back at me for my reaction to them. I have zero fucking reaction to them. They’re inanimate objects – buildings, sculptures, paintings. But what I do have a reaction to is her. Everything about her, and the child she’s carrying for me, for us. She’s a breath I never knew I needed, and she’s the space I never knew I craved.
“All this is good, but my favourite place is still the beach,” she says, as we walk up the Mall in London. “Is that a crepe vendor?” I chuckle and walk over to it, handing over some cash when she’s ordered what she wants. She looks at me and frowns, then up at the vendor again. “Make that two, please.”
“I don’t want one.”
“Yes, you do. You’ve barely eaten today. Coffee is not food.”
“It’s only been two hours since breakfast.”
She shoves the crepe and chocolate sauce at me. “Yes, well, we both need to keep our strength up. This walk must have already burnt the calorific content of this crepe off. We’re eating for two. And if the walk hasn't used excess calories, this scarf has. Why am I wearing it? It's not that cold.”
“Protective?"
“That's ridiculous. Being pregnant raises body temperature. I’m overheating.”
“You're keeping him warm. Stop whining. Also, you’re eating for two. I’m just one.”
She looks at the ground as we start walking again, tugging at her scarf. “You’ll never be just one again. You might be two and hopefully you’ll always be three, but never one.”
I keep walking, unsure why she needs to continue worrying about my commitment to her. “If I asked you to marry me, would that get rid of this fear you have?”
She stops and turns to look at me, mouth open. “Did you just ask me to–”
“No. I asked if you’d feel safer if I did.”
“I’m … I don’t know …”
“You don’t know if you’d feel safer, or you don’t know if you’d say yes?” She’s still looking lost for words. I chuckle. “Do you need lemonade to help your throat along with language? It worked last time.” My finger goes to her mouth to wipe the chocolate sauce off it, but she still doesn’t come back with anything other than floundering lips and zero language. “Alright, how about your beach then. Let’s talk about that instead.”
Her head tilts as I start us walking again. “The beach?”
“You said you still prefer the beach to all this. There’s another one we could see in Cuba – the one I described. I could introduce you to someone I’ve not seen in a while. You’ll like her. And maybe I get to try righting some wrongs at the same time. Explain them, at least.”
She doesn’t answer.
I look up at the trees and wander us off towards them, choosing the open space instead of the constant bustle around the city. Her hand twines into mine gently and I continue to breathe in the cool air slowly. Each breath calms me further, as does the smell of crisp leaves and some kind of chilled dampness that doesn’t live in San Antonio.
“Knox?”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t need a wedding if you don’t want one.”
My lips quirk. Yes, she does. “My creed is love and you are its only tenet,” I muse, wondering if Keats ever sat here. He must have known these feelings because she has ravished me away by a power I can’t resist. And he was right about his dear Fanny, men can only resist until they see, and even then, they try to reason against the reasons of love. That didn’t work for me. It didn’t for him either. He wrote, “I can do that no more – the pain would be too great.” It would be for me, too. I’d lose my mind if I lost her now. I’d spiral into chaos, with only the memories of what I did to her to think on. “My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.” I stop and look down at her, pulling her other hand into mine. “You wanna get married?”