Page 85 of Ruthlessly Mated
I sit outside, fuming to myself, trying to think what I can do to get back at him. Can’t really run away again, but I can go ahead and make his life a nightmare in other ways.
“I was drafted into the military when I was seven years old,” Conroy says, dropping a wrapped sandwich into my lap. I don’t really want to talk to him, but that opening makes me curious.
“You were? As what?”
“As a mine detector. We were light, and less likely to set landmines off.”
“My god.” I stare at him. “That’s terrible.”
“It was less than ideal,” he says. “Eat your sandwich.”
I start unwrapping the paper. I didn’t really want a sandwich, but I know he’s only going to take it as some kind of rebellious act if I don’t eat it just like he tells me to.
“I want babies,” he says. “I want to have the family I lost when I was taken. I think you want that too. But it’s not back where youwere taken from. It’s here, it’s now. It’s with us. The past doesn’t have what we need. It’s just a catalog of badly remembered events and things we need to work to let go of. I know you think you want to go home, but what you really want is to make a home you probably never really had here with us.”
“Maybe? I don’t think I’ll be a good mom. I don’t know how to be.”
“You’ll work it out. You’ll have the advantage of being present, which helps.”
“That is true.”
The sandwich is chicken, cucumber, tomato, mayonnaise. It’s good. Unexpected, much like this conversation.
“So,” he says. “I love you. You know that?”
“Uhm.” I pick at the sandwich, wondering why this feels so awkward. If he’d picked me up and thrown me over the couch and fucked me roughly, I would know what to do. This gruff admission of feelings is different. “I guess?”
“I do. I love you,” he says. “And I want the best for you.”
“You want babies from me.”
“Yes, but I think that’s best for you too. You need a family. Something that stays, something that grows. Something that doesn’t explode.”
“Okay.”
I still don’t know what to say. I just sit there, stare at him, and try to work out why he is being so weird.
“I need the same thing,” he says. “I need something that stays, and grows, and doesn’t explode. And I need you to know I love you, and when I say nothing matters except you, I mean it. So when I say no to something, it’s not because I want to be mean to you. It’s because it’s for the best.”
“You want babies, right, Conroy?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not a baby. I’d be the mother of babies. And that means you don’t actually get to say no to me because something is for the best.”
“That is what Tailor said,” Conroy replies gruffly. “I think it would be easier if I could.”
“Uh.” I take a bite of the sandwich. It is tasty, and it buys me time from what feels like an impending argument.
“My favorite color is green,” he says.
“What are you doing?” I am so confused.
“We need to get to know one another,” he says. “That’s what I’ve been told.”
“Tailor told you to tell me what your favorite color is?”
Conroy frowns. “He was setting me up, wasn’t he.”
