Chapter 32

Lucas

As we traipse toward the seats I reserved for us, Sofia asks me under her breath, “What the hell was that?” All around us, the auditorium gets dark, and a little cheer goes up. Parents scurry to find their seats, and a hundred feet are shuffling. I think this might be the safest time to discuss exactly “what the hell” happened back there, but I’m glad that Madison provides a foolproof excuse for me to dodge that bullet.

“We don’t need to talk about that right now,” I tell her loudly, forcing a smile and flicking my eyes down to Madison.

We settle into our seats, Sofia shooting gray daggers at me, her mouth tucked down into a furious pout. She doesn’t like that I’ve gotten the better of her here, but I do. She’s trapped watching this Christmas play, and we’re going to pretend like nothing happened, the way proper married folk would.

We watch as the young actor playing Rudolph—a red-headed boy in a headband with fake antlers protruding from it, wearing a red light bulb somehow powered through an otherwise basic-looking snout mask—learns that his nose is a deformity and is shunned from reindeer culture. After abandoning his village, he stumbles upon the Isle of Misfit Toys, and that ushers Charlie forth to say his two lines. He almost forgets them, but a ragdoll classmate pokes him in the side, and he jolts to life.

“I’m a soldier with a bent gun!” he cries, voice wobbling with trace amounts of stage fright. “No one will ever want me!”

The rest of the play passes in a blur that somehow takes an agonizing two and a half hours to complete. I think they needed to make sure every kid in the entire school got at least one line, and preferably their own subplot. If I remember correctly, the original Claymation was only about half an hour, but the school has several songs, and the choir and the band also perform at intervals. It’s mind-numbing, but now every parent has a little moment to be proud of, just like I do.

The tension simmers on my right side, where Sofia sits. It’s distracting.

I’m sure she’s thinking about what I said to that unbearable woman, the one who somehow knew that she was pregnant.

Somewhere in the second act, Madison finally falls asleep on my shoulder, and I’m free to speak with Sofia without fear of being overheard. Still, I cradle Madison’s head against my shoulder, capping her ear with my free hand, just in case.

“Look,” I hiss down toward Sofia’s ear. “I thought that lady was harassing you. I was trying to come to your defense.”

Mostly true. To be totally honest, I barely thought before I spoke. But that scares the shit out of me. This feels so right, but we’re moving too fast. I wish I could put my arm around her right now.

“I didn’t say anything,” Sofia says.

“Marriage would be insane right now,” I go on, heatedly arguing with myself at the lowest audible volume. “It would be Astrid-level crazy. We barely know each other. And yes, you’re mind-numbingly beautiful. Everything is raw and natural with you, pure energy. But it’s so sudden. I can’t do that to the whole family. It would send shockwaves.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself,” Sofia whispers back, gazing at the people seated around us. “I didn’t say anything.” Her smile looks fake, though, and she doesn’t say anything else throughout the show.

My heart pounds out of control without my consent, and I wish I could say more, but I shouldn’t. She’s right. Everyone is listening.

The truth is that I barely thought at all before I snapped at that woman. The words that came out of my mouth weren’t true, but they were reflexive.

She doesn’t smile more than twice throughout the entire show, even though she seems like she does love kids. She loves mine, at least. The two times that she smiles are during Charlie’s lines and at the end of the play, when all the children come out with linked hands and bow as their names are called. She springs to her feet and whoops for Charles Gray. I clap heartily while Madison continues to be dead asleep in my arms. I glance at Sofia, occasionally.

The light in her face is so pure.

But I school myself back into a more professional countenance when Charlie joins us for the drive home, and Madison finally regains a foggy state of consciousness in the backseat. Sofia is even better at this game.

She doesn’t say a word, except to congratulate Charlie on his performance. Charlie buzzes with adrenaline, and I tell him I’m proud that he overcame his nerves, but my mind keeps turning back to the woman in the passenger seat here. She stares out the window and seems a million miles away now. I wonder if part of her is running right back to Ohio now that she’s free.

After all, I paid off Agent Callahan. Sofia is no longer the caged bird she once was. She can fly free if she wants to, and no one will be looking for her outside of Platinum Priority. She could even see her sister again. She would want to fly under the radar, but she can be free from me—if she wants to be.

And that look on her face says that she does.

She haunts me late into the night, coming to me in her filmy, frothy negligees, wiggling her diamond-clad finger at me. I romanticize about how it would feel to curl up against her body every night. I think about how it would feel to watch her grow even stronger, into an even fuller woman than she is right now. I will see her become pregnant and give birth. I’ll see her as a mother.

Maybe it’s really starting to hit me.

I know what I have to do.

I nod my head and dutifully unlace my tie, ripping it from around my neck. I flick open each button and send the shirt flying across the room. And I shove open the door to our bathroom. I’m invading her territory.

I twist her knob and it gives for me. If she left her side unlocked, that means she wants to see me. If she doesn’t, she definitely knows better, because this has already happened a million times before.

I slip into the darkness of her bedroom. Her shape is curled up on the bed, outlined by her milky fleece blanket. I tug it up and slide into the warmth of her bed, curling against her heart-shaped bottom. Her cheeks are so high and round, I could rub myself against them all night. My mouth goes to the curve of her throat, pressing a trail of kisses there. She smells smoky and tropical, like coconut and vanilla.

“Sofia,” I whisper against her ear, nuzzling her curls out of the way.

She murmurs and shifts against me. I know she’s listening. Her body hums with our shared energy, and my hand flattens at the crux of her thighs. She’s mine. Her body stops subtly grinding and holds itself still and hard against my shaft. Her ass feels amazing, and I want to slam into it like an animal, but I restrain myself. Through lust-fogged eyes, I run my fingertips through her hair and whisper, “I do want to marry you someday, baby. I do want to marry you someday.”