He spits out his toothpaste and rinses. “Maybe? I don’t know. I don’t ask her about that kind of stuff, you know. Nobody wants to imagine their mother ...” He shudders, but playfully so. “You know. Doing anything other than being a mother.”
I poke him with my toothbrush. “Would you really be okay if they were? Or are?”
“You mean, am I okay with her having a personal life?”
I nod.
“First of all, it’s none of my business—”
“Please,” I cut in. “You know Astrid would totally never date somebody her kids disliked.
“But, for what it’s worth,” he says, “I hope she does find love and happiness in her personal life. I always have.”
I lean back against the counter. “Does she love him?”
He considers this. “What she feels for him is complicated. There’s a lot of history there, you know.”
“And ...?”
His adorable dimple makes an appearance. “Fine. Yes, she loves him. But I think she’s also worried that she can never live up to Molly’s memory in Cameron’s eyes.”
“That’s ridiculous! Cameron isn’t like that.”
“Love isn’t always rational, Chloe. Even when the most rational people feel it.”
Isn’t that the truth. I reach out and grab his waist, tugging him closer. “Does Cameron love her?”
“Have you asked him?”
“I am not going to ask him that.” I lean up and kiss the hollow of his throat. Goodness, does he smell good right now. “Besides. What’s the point of being in a relationship with an Emotional if you can’t ask questions like these?”
His head ducks down next to mine. “Yes. He loves her, too.”
“And Callie and Will?”
He kisses the tip of my nose before pulling back. “That is a can of worms that would take hours to explain.”
“Still?”
“Still.”
I sigh. “Love should be easy, and yet it’s the most complicated emotion of all, isn’t it?”
He takes my face in his hands. Stares down at me for such a long moment, I’m reminded of the night before, when we made love and I lost myself in those orbs of blue. My heart flutters uncontrollably, all butterflies dancing in their effort to break free of my chest. Can he hear them, know just how much he means to me? More than just the base emotions rolling off of my soul, but what’s hidden deep within, straight down to the molecular building blocks of what makes Chloe Lilycomb Chloe?
“Marry me,” he whispers.
I stare up at his eyes in wonder. Maybe he can hear me.
Fingers trace the length of skin from ear to chin so lightly that delicious shivers race up and down my soul. “I know we’re already engaged and all, but—”
Shimmering joy bursts through my veins. “Yes,” I tell him. “Yes.”
All I see is blue right now. Beautiful, wonderful, loving blue. “I wasn’t done, love.”
“The answer is still yes.”
Strands of my hair wrap around his fingers. “I’ve been thinking that life is too short—”
He’s definitely been listening to my heart. “Yes, Jonah. A thousand times yes. And it’ll be yes even after that.”
His mouth is close to mine now, his breath mingling with mine. “Are you sure?”
Silly boy. “Yes,” I whisper just a split second before my mouth meets his. And I show him just how sure I am.
After we’ve made love, he goes downstairs to tell his brother what we’ve decided. We’re going to get married sometime this week, despite our awareness this is the lull before the storm. Just because things have been quiet since coming out of the bunker doesn’t mean Enlilkian isn’t coming; after all, Bios keeps sending word, via the Guard, that his father knows I’m aboveground. But, we’re not going to wait, not when so many things in our lives are so unstable. And that’s a funny thing for both of us to admit, being Magicals, because for most of our existences, we’ve resented the rigid destinies created for us.
Because ... so many people have died. So many people have been hurt. Life is so precious, so short no matter how invincible we think we are.
I want to marry him. He wants to marry me. We don’t want or need big and fancy. The Magical equivalent of a Justice of the Peace down at Karnach will do nicely. And this may seem out of the blue, just ... incredibly sudden, but when I think about it, it’s not sudden at all.
When I was five, I imagined marrying him. He was my prince, I was his princess.
When I was eleven and he kissed me for the first time, I imagined it again.
When I was sixteen and losing him, I wished for it fervently.
When I was seventeen and standing in the middle of a snowy street in Annar, I hoped for it.
When I was twenty and finally sure of what I wanted, I told him about this wish.