Page 70 of Red Flag, Green Light

“What about them?”

“Were they…good to you?”

“Yeah.”

Nothing more comes, so I nose a bit deeper. “You said you understood Amelia’s situation, though.”

Ceres’s eyes close, and she drifts, for a moment, far away. When she comes back to me, I expect a guard to be up, but it’s not. “They weren’t what I needed. That doesn’t make them bad or abusive, but we’re very different people and sticking around wasn’t healthy for me. They fought. A lot. The arguments were contained and rarely became yelling matches; they always ended with apologies to one another and to me. It was fine. Normal enough for a lot of people. I just…” Her lips press together as she pats the soil in around her orchid. “It taught me not to expect commitment to look like kindness. It taught me, logically, not to expect commitment to look like anything close to loving someone enough not to fight about everything. And so, emotionally, I really…reallycrave something betterthan…all that. To unhealthy levels.” Facing me, she wraps her arms around her legs, which remain obscured beneath her long black skirt scattered with golden stars. “I understand Amelia’s situation at a level that lets me know it doesn’t matter if I understand it more or less. Even without abuse, or manipulation, or being taken advantage of, she is in a place that isn’t healthy forher. It doesn’t need to be a nightmare that leaves you bloodied and bruised. Unhealthy is unhealthy, and if options for better exist, it’s going to be hard to reach them regardless of what’s going on. Change is scary. It’s that simple. Most things are simple, when you really break them down.”

“I suppose…that’s true. It might just be complicated to get to where you understand how to break them down.”

She rests her cheek against her knee. “That’s fair enough. I am still trying to break down the fact you’ve brought me carrot cake on three separate occasions since we started whatever we are nine days ago.”

My brows rise. “I’m so sorry. Has it not been enough? Bringing you carrot cake only a third of the days since we became engaged is a tragedy. You should have access to carrot cake every day.”

“Became engaged,” she echoes, dry, but the tiny tip to her lips gives me hope.

“Do you want a ring?”

“No.”

“Would you like some other offering to commemorate our engagement, my goddess?”

Her eyes roll, then she’s sprawling in the grass beside me and releasing a breath as though being near me brings her peace. “Do I not get a proper proposal with you down on one knee right around the time you’re pretty sure I’d actually be inclined to say yes?”

“I’d get on both my knees for you anyday, anywhere, anytimeif you say yes right now.”

“More likely to say yes if you tell me to kneel, take my chin in your hand, and make me.”

Propping myself on an elbow, I lean over her and comb my fingers through her hair, laying it out against the grass. Green and red. So perfect. “Pretty sure making someone marry you is both illegal and usually frowned upon by the individual subjected to the force.”

Opening her eyes, she smiles.

Unable to help myself, I touch a chaste kiss to her precious pink lips. “I need you to choose me. Without being told. I need that.”

She whispers, “You’re kissing me on the ground in my backyard, Mars. What do I have to do to reassure you that, on some level, I already have chosen you?”

Heat crawls up my neck. “Not sure. I’m a raging insecurity.”

“I noticed.”

“You do make a really good point, though.”

“I am known for my ability to do that. It’s an occupational hazard.”

I flop back down beside her, stretch my limbs at my sides, and try not to lose my mind when her hand finds mine. Our fingers thread, and my heart shakes. Wetting my lips, I say, “This is veryUpof us.”

“Hm?”

I cut my attention toward her. “Up? The movie? When they’re having a picnic and looking at the clouds together?”

“Oh. I don’t really watch movies. I don’t even own a TV. If I did, I’d have to give up bookcase space, which is out of the question. Obviously.”

Obviously. Probably for the best, given how that husband and wife scene is singularly the most traumatic moment of my childhood…well…apart from Mom dying on us, anyway.

“You okay?” Ceres asks.

“Yeah, why?”

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