Page 1 of Bae

Rimmel

Surprise(noun): an unexpected or astonishing event, fact, or thing.

I used to hate surprises.

In fact, I hated all unknown. I liked predictable. I liked safe. I liked books and quiet and knowing what to expect.

Romeo changed all that.

He changed my entire world, and frankly, it astonished me still. So to say I still hated surprises would be, in fact, like denying everything about life as I now knew it.

Some days—well, actually,alldays I woke in this house, I was still caught by surprise. Lying in Romeo’s warm embrace, with his heavy, muscled leg twined between mine and the feel of his smooth, chiseled chest rising and falling against my back was the best way to slowly arouse my conscience from slumber. Slowly, my eyes would let in the light of day, and slowly, they would adjust to their regular blurred state without my glasses.

I didn’t need to see perfectly clear to be surprised.

The silvery white walls stretched up to the trey ceiling, which gave way to pure-white wooden trim. The design of the trey ceiling was multi-layered, having three different levels that recessed upward. The edge of each layer was trimmed out with more of the silvery-white paint that made them stand out against the otherwise pure white like shimmering bands of ribbon leading up to the cool-toned grey shade of the highest recess of the ceiling.

From there, my eyes would travel back toward the windows, which lined the side of the room and overlooked the sprawling property our family home was perched upon. Two oversized rectangular windows all trimmed out in white stretched from floor to ceiling on each end of the wall. In the center was not another window of the same shape, but instead a large, round one, also trimmed in white.

On either side of the two great rectangular windows hung deep-grey and white-striped curtains, which stretched the same floor-to-ceiling length as the glass and grazed the floor precisely.

Actually, not entirely precisely.

There was one curtain somehow slightly longer than the other three panels. It pooled on the espresso-colored hardwood and sometimes appeared slightly askew. The designer was horrified the second it was hung and wanted to send it back.

I told her no.

I liked it that way. A little less than perfect. A little bit a mess.

Just like me.

She thought I was insane.

In the end, I got my way. A girl couldn’t be married for over a year to a man who always got what he wanted and not pick up a few tips.

The colors in here were serene, light, almost monochromatic… yet there wasn’t one thing that was boring or that I didn’t marvel at its beauty every time I looked at it.

From there, I’d turn my head and glance at the dark wooden side table beside the bed, the glass and silver lamp with an oversized, angular white shade and the few books I was reading at the moment taking up most of the surface area.

Just behind the table, on the wall, hung a mirror with more frame than actual mirror. The frame was some kind of glass that looked like shimmering pearls in a chevron pattern of white and grey.

Romeo’s beside table looked the same, except his didn’t have books. Instead, there were several copies ofGearSharkmagazine.

Our bed was massive. The white tufted headboard was made of creamy-colored velvet and resembled a cloud with all the different tones of luxurious white bedding.

All the sparkly coordinating pillows were flung around the room, having landed wherever Romeo had tossed them the night before. I liked them best that way, scattered, not in the places they were actually supposed to be.

This was my house now.

Our home.

It was more than I ever even considered dreaming of. More than I asked for. Honestly, more than I wanted and, most assuredly, more than I needed.

However, my husband was a downright bossy man when he wanted to be, and giving me this home was something he refused to bend on.

So every morning when I opened my eyes, I took it all in. I gazed upon our room with brand new, slightly blurry vision. And I was grateful.

But never more grateful than I was for the man who took up more than half of this massive bed.

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