Page 12 of Just Say Christmas
He was doing dread anyway. His mum had been right. He wasn’t going to like this. He had to do it anyway, whatever it was, and it had nothing to do with the Tarot. He rattled the doorknob and said, “Let me in.”
“Geez, boy. I’m on the toilet.” The dread went away, and he leaned his forehead against the door and laughed. Then he got the hair-rising again. Why?
“All right?” he asked again.
“News for you,” her voice came back. “If I tell you I’m on the toilet, I’m not expecting you to ask for a report. I’m telling you that because we’re getting married. Call it important to me.”
He laughed. Relief, that was. Behind him, the door opened, and his cousin Ella asked, “What’s going on? It’s practically the middle of the night. Hi, Cat.” She picked the little gray animal up, and Cat allowed it, though she still stared at Marko with reproachful blue eyes, as if that had beenhisjob, and he hadn’t done it.
“Don’t know,” he said. “I’m asking.”
Nyree opened the bathroom door. “It’s a party,” she said. “Who knew?”
She was in a dressing gown—still the black silk one with the red dragon on the back, even though he’d have bought her a new, warmer one anytime she wanted it, and she had to know it. She liked what she liked, though, and as he liked that black silk dressing gown himself, he wasn’t complaining. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath it, either. He just needed to get rid of Ella.
“We’re good,” he told his cousin. “Go to bed.”
She leaned against the door frame, and now, Marko’s sister Caro came out to join her, her hands fastening the tie of her own dressing gown and her hair coming loose from its plait. “What’s happening?” she asked, blinking. “Something wrong? Geez, Marko, could you put some clothes on?”
“Nothing is wrong,” Marko said, wondering whose brilliant idea it had been to come down here. Too many people. In four days, he was leaving Nyree for his longest absence yet, and he wanted her with him now. Alone. “If you don’t want to see, close the door. We’re going to bed. See you tomorrow.”
“Actually,” Nyree said, “maybe it’s better.”
“What?” he asked.
“To know what you really think,” she said. “Unfair, though, maybe. Pressure on you to say something you don’t feel.”
“I never say anything I don’t feel,” he felt compelled to point out. What the hell? “We’re getting married, and we’re staying that way. We already decided. That one’s done.” He racked his brain. “And you’re painting, so that’s all good. What else could there be for me to think about?”
Nyree had her hands on her hips. Probably not a good sign. “Marko. You don’t just decide, job done.”
“Of course I do.”
She sighed. Caro and Ella, meanwhile, looked fascinated. Brilliant. “I mean,” Nyree said, “you don’t decide forme.Yes, I do need you to decide, but not for me. Or not exactly.” She shook her head. Her dark hair was rumpled, as usual, her body looked curvier than ever under that dressing gown, and if this was an argument, he knew how he’d like to settle it.
He forced himself into patience. If he tried to run her over, she’d call him out on it, and he’d have to apologize. He wasn’t fond of apologizing, so he said, “Tell me what it is. If there has to be an audience for some reason, tell the audience, too. Just tell me, so we can go to bed. Want to get married fast, before I leave for France? Fine. Suits me. Want to invite your mum to live with us? Not fine. Whatever. Tell me.”
“Nice,” Ella muttered, but Marko paid no attention. He focused on Nyree instead. She was hesitating, and Nyree never hesitated.
Bugger the audience. He took a step forward, got his hands on her shoulders, bent a long way down to press his lips to hers, felt the tingle that sweet contact always gave him, and said, “As long as you’re marrying me, nothing else matters. Anything else, we’ll get through together. Could be I haven’t said this enough. I’ve been gone half the time, but that’s no excuse. I should’ve said it anyway. I love you, and I want to spend my life with you. There you are. If you’ve got doubts because I’m leaving, stop having doubts, because you don’t need them. More time to paint, eh. No need to hide in the toilet for that.”
She sighed, rested her forehead against his chest, and said, “You can be pretty thick at times. I’m trying to tell you something.”
“And I’m trying to listen.”
“Well, not really,” Ella said. “You’re trying to get in ahead of the objection and ward it off.”
He glared at her. “Do you mind?”
“Nyree said it’s OK, though,” Ella said. “Could be she needs us. Sisterhood is powerful.”
Sisterhood was a pain in the arse. He decided to ignore her.“Laztana,”he told Nyree, using the Basque love word that made her feel special, “I can’t help if I don’t know. Worst case? If it’s cancer, or you’re worried about me misbehaving while I’m gone, because somebody told you that you should worry, or whatever else could have you sitting on the toilet and not coming out? That’s life, eh. We take it together. That’s the point.”
She’d lifted her head, at least. “Right, then.” She took a breath, which was unusual, and he didn’t worry, because he’d meant it. As long as she was with him, it would be OK. She pulled a white stick out of the pocket of her dressing gown and slapped it into his palm. A thermometer, he thought it was. After that, she looked him in the eye and asked, “Want to be a dad?”
His heart stopped. And then it speeded up like it was the eighty-third minute, the whistle had finally blown, and you’d won the championship. When the relief and the joy of it nearly took you to your knees, and there was no way to express what you felt.
Well, not exactly like that, because this was even better, and he did know how to express it. He lifted her off the floor, twirled her around, kissed her hard, then remembered and kissed her gently, laughed out loud, and said, the joy bursting through him like water from a fountain, “Yeh. I do. I want to be a dad.”
