Page 71 of Sweet Nothings

“No.” She faintly smiles. Her pink lips twitch. “At least not completely. But mainly because you broke into my office and proposed marriage as casually as asking me to join you for lunch.”

I laugh. “You eventually said yes, though. I still don’t know what it was that changed your mind.”

She doesn’t answer. Her face softens and the sadness returns. We let the silence descend upon the room until she decides to break it.

“That night has stuck with me ever since,” she whispers, turning to look back at me. She continues to keep our hands in the air, never explaining what made her accept my proposal. “You marked me, Lennon Harding. You scored my heart and claimed it as yours long before you broke into my office and proposed to me.”

“I blame it on my enormous black heart,” I admit with a smirk.

She smiles, but it quickly vanishes. She presses her lips to mine, selfishly and delightfully stealing the air from my lungs. When she pulls away, she slides her hand under my side, pressing it against my feather tattoo.

“Maybe it isn’t so black after all,” she teases. “But I do think you underestimate the size of your heart, Mr. Harding.”

TWENTY-THREE

If Lennon and I had a honeymoon, this is the closest we’ve come to it.

Over the past four weeks, since the morning I’d discovered his feather tattoo, Lennon and I have easily fallen into married life.

Unofficially revising our terms and conditions, we’ve slipped into our roles as husband and wife in more ways than in front of the public eye.

We spend all our nights tangled up in the sheets of our bed. I scream his name while he keeps one hand expertly around my heart. We fuck wherever possible, kicking Ray out of our apartment as soon as we make it to our front door. Every surface of the apartment is now marked with the memory of Lennon slipping his cock inside me or his mouth devouring me between my legs. And when he’s asleep, I stare at the feather tattooed across his ribs, still wrapping my head around the fact he got it for me. Some nights, my eyes close, with his tattoo being the last thing I see, forcing myself to believe it’s real.

For me, it’s difficult to come to terms with making a seismic impact on someone’s life in the matter of thirty minutes. But Imattered to Lennon that night. Enough for him to get a tattoo, permanently marking the memory on his body.

Although our relationship shifted the night he confessed about his nightmare, doubt and uneasiness still sits in the bottom of my stomach.

I’m waiting for the last string to snap or the ball to drop. I’m waiting for the moment I’ll wake up and this will all have been a dream. Or Lennon will come home telling me he wants a divorce before we’ve even made it to the twelve-month deadline.

I know the reason I agreed to marry Lennon is still the elephant in the room, though. I see it in the way he looks at me across the dinner table, studying me and hoping I allow him a glimpse into my soul, searching for the answer. He hasn’t outright asked me, but I can sometimes see it resting on the tip of his tongue. Pleading and begging for the relief of an answer.

Every few days, he’ll drop a not-so-subtle hint about wondering why I agreed to marry him. It’s fair for him to question my motives. Especially when he thought I’d hated him for not remembering our one-night stand. How or why would I agree to marry the asshole who couldn’t remembering fucking me in the back of his car?

That’s how Lennon thought I’d felt. But as with him, appearances are experts in presenting falsities instead of the truth. Reality effortlessly wears a mask.

He knows I didn’t agree to marry him for the money, considering I come from a wealthy family as well. Maybe he thought I was marrying him to restore my reputation. But if that’s his theory, he hasn’t said as such.

Aside from the constant worry our bubble of marital bliss will suddenly pop, I’m also constantly concerned for my sister.

My stomach wobbles as I hold my phone in my hand, staring at our text thread.

I quickly type out another message, my pale pink nails clicking across my screen.

Me: Roe, I know you said you weren’t feeling well, but you can’t ignore me like this. I thought we set up a schedule for you to message me every day at a certain time letting me know you’re okay.

I immediately regret my text coming across as harsh.

Me: We’re treading unfamiliar waters, sis. I’m just worried about you.

My thumbs hover above my screen, indecision weighing on my mind to wait for Roe’s response or simply cut to the chase and call her.

Roe’s chemo treatments have been wearing her down the longer she takes them. I wanted to vomit when I read a post in one of the cancer support groups saying beating cancer is a savage, unforgiving race. A race to beat the disease with chemotherapy before the chemotherapy kills you.

A never-ending, vicious cycle.

Since Roe has been growing weaker over the course of her treatments, we came up with a system in order for her to check in with me. It helps knowing she has Steven to take care of her, but I’m still her sister.

I also don’t know when her money is going to run out. Roe told me she could pay for the treatments up until the surgery, but I don’t know if that’s changed. The driving reason for me agreeing to marry Lennon was to make sure I didn’t drain my account helping Roe pay for her treatments, but she still hasn’t answered me on whether she needs me to help pay or not. I’mchewing on my thumbnail, willing my sister’s name to pop up on my screen.

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