***
Mike tipped the remains in his coffee mug down the sink and laid the cup down, leaning on the counter, his deep gaze wandering aimlessly over the gardens outside the window. Even in all the chaos surrounding my life right now, the kitchen never seemed to lose its homely appeal: the pale washed-green cabinets and the old oak table at the centre of the room always reminded me of a grandma’s kind of kitchen, and seeing Mike there made the world feel a little bit brighter
—all the more homely for the fact that he was such a big piece of my past and the only sure thing in my future.
I waltzed in
; well, kinda skipped really, chirping out a good afternoon as I headed for the fridge.
“Hey, Ar. What you up to?”
“Just came in for nourishment before I head back to the Training Hall.” I motioned to my basketball midsection. “Baby demands orange juice. Baby gets orange juice.”
He smiled, standing up from his lean. “Felt it kick yet?”
“It?” I grabbed the juice from the fridge and closed the door with my hip. “
It
is a girl, you know.”
“Yeah. It just feels strange saying
girl
, since you haven’t had an ultrasound.”
I grabbed a cup from the shelf and plonked it on the table. “Arthur says those ultrasound thingies won’t see through my skin.”
“Thick-skinned, huh?”
“I wish.” I poured the OJ and my mouth watered, already tasting the tangy citrus i
n the icy chill as it diffused the warmth of the glass.
“So, you felt
her
kick yet?” he asked again, moving over to stand beside me.
“Nah. But the Internet says first-time moms don’t usually feel their babies until about twenty weeks.”
“And how far along are you?”
I shrugged, taking a sip of juice. “According to Arthur, about twenty.”
“Can I…” He held his hand out. “Can I feel it?”
“Go for it.” I leaned back a bit and lifted my glass up so Mike could lay his hand, then his ear, to my belly. His warm, solid palm nearly covered my entire bump, and the spicy scent of his cologne rose up in a cool brush of air from his movements.
“Hey there, little bubba,” he said to my bellybutton. “I’m your Unci Mike.”
“Unci?”
He looked up at me and winked, then stood tall again. “You got a problem with that?”
“Not at all.” I raised my brows into my glass.
“I just can’t believe you’re pregnant,” he said, taking me in. “It suits you, you know.”
“What does?”
“Pregnancy.” He nodded at my body. “You’re … very cute.”
I couldn't help but smile, and at the same time wonder for a moment what it would've been like if we’d been married and had a baby of our own—if he’d look at me the same way. “Thanks, Mike.”
“Any time, baby.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and dropped a big, sloppy kiss on my cheek.
“Ew.” I wiped it off.
“You wipe it off, I do it again,” he warned.
I stopped wiping and let it air-dry.
“So, where’s the tail?” He checked over my shoulder.
“Tail?”
“Jason—your extra limb.”
“He’s not an extra limb, Mike.” I put my glass down and grabbed the juice carton.
“Coulda fooled me,” he said, slumping heavily into a seat like a spoiled teen. “Since David left for Paris, no one’s seen you without Jason two steps behind.”
“We’re researching, and we’ve been really busy setting up his lab.” I popped the juice away and shut the fridge door. “Not to mention, he’s guiding me page-by-page through this journal he gave me—from when he was learning to use Telekinesis. I’m actually getting good, Mike.”
“At what, exactly? Because I haven’t seen you use any new skills at training since you blasted that rock.”
“Jase asked me to keep them between us for now. But I bet I could read your mind if I tried—or maybe even tip this juice over your head without using my hands.”
He looked mildly impressed, contradicting what was in his eyes with a shake of his head as he rubbed the hairline above his forehead. “Yeah, well, you might wanna tell David you two have become a
thing
.”
“A thing?”
“An item—that you’re seeing each other.”
“For your information, until now, we’ve been hanging out
—nothing more.” I folded my arms and sat down in the seat across from him.
“Hanging out, huh?”
“Yes,” I said, showing my index finger. “And, I was going to add that, as of today, he and I have officially decided to date.”
“Date?”
“Yeah.”
“But
…” He looked around the room. “There’s nowhere to go on a date. We don’t exactly have a movie theatre—”
“Well, it’s not like we’ll go
on
dates, but we’re—”
“He’s your boyfriend.”
My throat seized up. “Um, well, I … I wasn’t really ready to use
that
word, but—”
“But, he’s your boyfriend,” Mike stated dryly.
“No.”
“What would you call it then? Because, excuse me for being ignorant, Ara, but I can’t find any other name for it.”
I sat back, the weight of a commitment I wasn’t ready for bearing down on my shoulders like an extra pound of gravity.
“So … have you told David you’re
dating
?”
“Mike, I haven’t seen David in over three weeks. Not since he left for the Ninth Order—”
“They have phones in Paris.”
“Oh, yeah, right, and he’s gonna accept a call from his ex-wife saying,
‘
Hi, honey, by the way, just thought you should know, dot, dot, dot
…’” I waved my hand around to let the sentence end in Mike’s mind without need for my narration.
He laughed lightly. “Okay, fine. But … maybe
I
should tell him then.”
“Why? He’s probably never even coming back, so what does it matter?” I slouched on the backrest of the chair.
“Actually.” Mike grinned, leaving me hanging.
I sat straight. “What? He’s coming home?”
“Next week.”
“Why?”
“He's finished his business at the Order. Prisoners are all free, he’s appointed a new House leader and a new Parisian Chief of Security, and I just got word that the new Lilithian Set leaders are in place around Europe, so he’s got no reason to be there.”
“Great.” I slouched again.
“Why? What’s wrong with that?”
“It means he’ll bring that heavy feeling home with him. I was just starting to feel good again.”
“He can’t live in Paris forever.”
“Why?”
“This is his home—what would people think?”
“I don’t care.”
“Ara, he has to come home. Like it or not.”
“But, ever since he found out about Jason and I, he’s made my life a living hell.”
“He hasn’t even been here,” Mike said dismissively, making a face like I’d just told a ridiculous joke.
“But you didn’t see what he was like when he
was
here.”
“Well, maybe now he’s had time to cool off, he might be different.”
I looked down at my bump, how it sat out just enough to roll the top of my shorts over, and wondered how disgusting he’d think it was now—since it was so much bigger than when he left. “Yeah, and maybe there’s a new breed of pigs that can fly, too.”
Mike laughed. “Give
’im a chance, Ar. He just had his heart broken.”
“I know. I was there.” I set my hands on the table and pushed myself up to stand. “And I don’t really want him to come back.”
“Why? I thought you were waiting out for forgiveness and a happy ending.”
“That’s just it, I was.” I sat down again, hooking my ankle under the leg of the chair to slide it under me. “But then
…”
“Then?”
“Then, the goddess I speak to on my dawn walks told me that I need to—” I stopped and bit my cheek, studying Mike carefully before deciding whether or not to continue. I knew what he’d say when I told him she asked me to be with Jason to save David, and his first words would be “Ha! Convenient.”
“What’d she say, Ar?” He leaned forward and reached across the table for my hand. “You can tell me.”
I eyed the fading tan line where his rolled-up sleeve usually sat, considering more than just the offer of his thick, square palm and confidence. “You won’t like it.”
“Try me.”
“No. It doesn't matter.” I decided, folding my arms, propping my feet on the chair beside Mike’s. “Fact is, I’m not ready to see David yet, and I’m not ready to be with Jason, either. Dating, maybe, you know, just to see where things lead
over time
, but I can’t just jump in with both feet yet.”
“Okay,” he said, gently unfolding my arms. “No one said you had to.”
I bit my lip again, realising I’d just raged at him over a conversation he knew nothing about. It wasn’t his fault the Mother wanted me to forget what my heart felt for David, forget trying to fix our relationship, and just jump ship and swim to the proverbial shore of eternity with Jason. “I know,” I said. “But I feel like having David back will put pressure on me to decide either way.”
“Either way?”
“Mm-hm.” I nodded.
“But … there’s nothing to decide. You either want to be with Jason, or you don’t. There’s no David option anymore.”
“I know,” I said, thinking back to the last fight David and I had. And I knew Mike was right. The David option was gone. Long gone. But I still had a choice over whether or not I let my heart believe that—let my heart give up eternally. The shitty thing about hope is that it clouds reason, makes you believe in things that probably aren't possible. Except, while he was alive and I was alive, I still, stupidly, held on to a tiny little bit of hope.
“So … look, I don’t like Jason all that much, you know that,” Mike said. “But you’ve liked him for a lot longer than any of us even want to
think
about. It’s not like you just met him. It’s not like you need to establish a new relationship, or anything. You pretty much left David for Jason—”
“No.” I held my index finger up. “That is
not
how it was.”
“Ara,” he reasoned, pausing for a moment. “You slept with the guy. He might as well make an honest woman out of you.”
“So you want me to marry him?” I asked, almost falling off my seat.
“No. I mean, yes. I—” He bit his lip, breathing out through his nose like a bull. “He did this. He wanted you; he wanted David gone, and he got it—”
“Mike, he—”
“And I don’t blame him, Ara,” he said, raising both hands defensively. “I’d have done the same thing—”
We both stopped and smiled for a second.
“But if you really do love him then you need to stop being afraid and just decide, with your own heart, what
you
want.”
What
I
want? All I ever wanted was to save David, and this whole Jason thing just blew up into a massive disaster—no, an apocalypse, where, in the smoke of the aftermath I saw a side to my husband I never
wanted
to see—one I always suspected was there. One that sometimes makes me wish we never got married. But I couldn't tell Mike that, no matter how much I wanted to. He had to believe, just like anyone else that knew I slept with Jason, that it was an affair—a love affair and nothing more. How could I possibly tell them I did it to conceive an heir so Jason could be king and, in turn, use the dagger to kill Drake. How could I stand there and say I had sex with someone they all
knew
I had feelings for just to save David? How could I then stand there and have them all tell me how stupid I am for believing that lie. Fact is, I was stupid. And so were Jason and Arthur. But
they
wouldn't look stupid.
I
would. “I don’t know what I want.”
“Yes, you do. I think you do,” he said, nodding once, maintaining complete eye-contact. “I think you love him, want to marry him, but you’re holding back because you're afraid it’s too soon.”
“It is.”
He nodded again, leaning back in his chair. We sat in silence then for a time, the songs of birds outside fading into the distance as they flew away, the gentle hum of the refrigerator homely and warm in the comfortable space behind me.
“Reason doesn’t change your heart’s desires,” he said softly.
“And desiring it doesn't make it right.”
“Then take all the time you need, baby.” He was staring right at me when I looked up at him. “And when you’re sure about what you want, I will support you one hundred percent.”
“A whole hundred, huh?”
“A whole hundred.” He winked at me. “Even if you choose the mad scientist.”