Page 66 of Anyone But You
I warmed like I did whenever she called me by my middle name.
“What was what like?”
“Dying?”
Emotion clogged my throat—strangling the words in a chokehold.
“It… it wasn’t fun. For me, there wasn’t a moment of enlightenment or peace, just misery and what-ifs or what could’ve been. What if I had been a gentleman to you from the start? We could’ve had a good life with kids, ferrets, and the whole nine yards.”
“I fucking hate ferrets,” she responded, sounding like she was on the cusp of sleep again.
“What’s your beef with ferrets?”
“They sleep like the dead, they stink, and I don’t like how they flop around. They’re stinky sock puppets.”
Stinky sock puppets?
“Okay, it’s time for you to go to sleep.”
“Mhm. I’ll take the kids, not the ferrets.”
“It’ll be great, Tori. Nine months from now, we’ll have a beautiful—”
“No, sir. I’m no one’s baby mama. You’re officially marrying me, and we’ll see how a year of marriage post-island goes before we bring children into this world.”
I chuckled into her back. “Is this because you doubt your feelings for me?”
“What are you asking?” she asked hesitantly.
“Are you with me out of default?”
She laughed softly. “What is with you people?”
“You people?” I asked with mock offense.
“Yes,you peoplewho refuse to trust me with my own feelings. I spoke with my friends earlier, and they suspect I suffer from Stockholm Syndrome.”
I shrugged. “I think it’s a fair assumption. As a precaution, we should go to couples’ therapy.”
“You hate therapists.”
“I do, but I love you more, and I don’t want it to be a year from now and you look at your life and realize you made a mistake.”
“You’re not a mistake, Gio, but I hear you. You’ll never find me arguing with a man who wants to go to therapy.”
“Thank you, love. Were you able to check on your mother?”
“I did,” she admitted. “While we were gone, she was discharged from the memory care facility for non-payment.”
My brow tilted in confusion. “Non-payment?”
“After you paid me off, there was plenty of money available to cover her rent for nearly a year.”
“Did you get in contact with the bank?”
“I did. Apparently, I initiated two wires of $50,000 to Faith and Hope from my online banking a month after we were stranded.”
“Fuck,” I said, sighing.
