I scrubbed a drop of sauce off my hand with a paper towel. “It’s real food from here on out, until they take you to MRE Land once more. I’m not what you’d call a culinary wizard, but I know my way around a kitchen enough to turn out edible dinners.”
“Same here. Do you have a grill?” He craned his head toward the back door.
“No, but we can get one,” I said. “How about we do some shopping this weekend? Food you like, a grill, some civvie clothes, whatnot.”
“Sounds good. Though maybe next weekend, we head up to see my folks? My truck’ll be here by then. It’s only about a four-hour drive.” He sounded hopeful.
“I’m game. Why don’t I take a half-day at school that day? We can leave at lunch and be at your parents’ place in time for supper.” I paused. “Unless you’d rather I stayed home. I’d understand if you did. I know you weren’t sure about all this. Maybe I’m not at ‘meet the family’ yet.”
He sat forward and caught my arm to pull me towards him. I could feel the power in those muscles I’d ogled, the ease with which they flexed and drew me in. When we were face-to-face, he said, “You are my husband. I married you on purpose. There’s- Mm. There’s places in my life I’m not ready to take you yet, but I can tell you’ve got those same places.”
I hadn’t managed subtlety, then. “A few. We’re married, but we just met each other. It takes time to trust someone enough to unpack a lifetime for them.”
“Mm-hmm. And it takes time for your gut to believe they’re not going to walk out on you.” His hand tightened on my forearm, a little squeeze I didn’t think he even intended. “So, yeah. It’s been a few hours since I first saw you. I don’t want to get burned again, or have to explain old wounds over and over. But you’redefinitelyat ‘meet the family’, and I can’t wait to introduce you to them.”
That warmed my heart. While I wasn’t sure he could avoid introducing me to his parents anyway, since that family didn’t seem so much enmeshed as quantum entangled, that hewantedto said I’d won a place in his heart. Then he leaned in to kiss me, and a different part of me warmed once again.
When the kiss broke, he didn’t pull far back. Green eyes glittered. “My stomach’s not going to eat my spine, now. Why don’t you show me our bedroom so I can stow my gear?”
He probably meant his bags, yet I didn’t rule out the possibility that he meant a whole different set of gear. My blush betrayed me, and he laughed, low and throaty.
That blush kept on burning as I got up and, with all the dignity of a British butler whose neck has decided to glow incandescent red for no reason whatsoever, led him to the bedroom.
* * *
“Is this new?” Jackson asked, as he plunked his ass on the bed and bounced. “Ooh, it’s memory foam.”
“It is. On both counts,” I said, as I slid the closet doors open. “Your section of closet. That dresser’s yours. There’s not much, I’m afraid. I kind of wondered if we ought to sell this place and buy another one.”
“Why? Unless there’s no laundry. Then we’re selling it tomorrow.” He frowned at his large duffel bag. A few items earned the right to come out and stay in the bedroom. The rest remained exiled in the bag, which flew into the hall with disapproval.
I laughed. “There’s laundry. We can dump all that in the washer and get it clean. No, I thought about selling because the outgoing sewer line needs re-plumbing, the place is small and old, and you might want better.”
“Let’s live here a bit and see what’s what. I like it enough on first inspection that I’m not gonna write it off yet.” He bounced on the bed again. “You bought a good one.”
“My old bed was a full. Not enough for two. So I upgraded. New bed, new frame, new bedside tables.” The old bedroom set had come compliments of a thrift store and wobbled.
Thank heavens for the Mail Call up-front bonus. I would never have managed a king bed with all the trimmings otherwise. I could buy two kidneys for that price.
As he set up his phone charger and laid out items on his nightstand, I put my own phone on the pad to charge. Five minutes later, it remembered I might want to use it and booted back up. Jackson leaned forward on the bed to stare at it. “That thing’s a piece of shit.”
“It is a giant turd on a charger, yes.” I gestured to it with the flair of a game show hostess. “Voilà. My phone. It doesn’t hold a battery charge longer than a couple hours and sucks my external battery dry. I’m in the queue for a new one, but the tech shortage has slowed consumer electronics production to a crawl. If I’m lucky, my number will come up in six months or so.”
“Lemme see what I can do about that.” Jackson sat down and opened the side table drawer to put in a tiny flashlight. One eyebrow went up. “Guess a bed wasn’t the only thing you bought.”
Another blush. I’d forgotten about the bottles of lubricant I’d tucked into each nightstand. They’d seemed important, for reasons. You know.Reasons.“Um. Yeah. I didn’t have any, so I thought, say, we might need that.”
“We might.” He closed the drawer then leaned forward to start shucking his boots. “So. Before we go any further, I’ve got a request.”
That sounded solemn. I ditched my own shoes and walked over in my socks to stand in front of him. “Sure. Anything.”
“Soldiers get wounded. You have to know that. Which means you know I’ll have scars.” He rubbed at his side idly, as though it ached him. “I’d rather you didn’t ask about them. Some people like to play that fucking ‘how’d you get this one, oh, lemme kiss it’ game. Those scars all have memories. I’d rather we didn’t.”
“Then we won’t,” I said without hesitation. “No questions about your scars. No comments unless a scar seems like it has something wrong with it, then the only comment will be, ‘Maybe you should get that looked at.’ You want me to know about your scars, you’ll tell me.”
Tension ran out of his posture. “You’re so damn easy to get along with, Bastian. I don’t know why I was nervous about that.”
“It’s a big deal to you.” I shrugged. “I get it. Bodies remember. Yours won’t let you forget. I’m not going to poke at tender places. You’ll tell me when you’re ready.”