Page 47 of Liberating Bells
I open my front door with a big smile on my face, but it instantly drops when I come face-to-face with my fiancé. He’s holding a few grocery bags and a bottle of wine.
“Mark,” I say, surprised. “I thought you were working a case tonight.”
He shrugs and offers me a cheeky grin. “My client canceled at the last minute, so I thought I’d come by here and make you dinner. It’s been a while since we’ve had a quiet night in.” Mark looks me over, and then narrows his eyes. “You look dressed up. Were you expecting your other boyfriend?”
My hands feel clammy as I quickly shake my head. I know he’s teasing, but the joke hits too close to home. I blurt out, “No, of course not. Come on in.”
“Great, oh, I brought you this too! It’s your favorite.” He holds out the bottle of Zinfandel. Red wine.
I bite back a groan, anticipating the pounding headache I’m going to have later tonight, but I offer him a tight-lipped smile. “Thank you.”
Mark moves by me and into the kitchen. I follow him, unsure of where else to go. Ingredients are laid out across the counter: lasagna noodles, red sauce, Italian ground sausage, mozzarella cheese. It looks like he had Italian food on the mind too.
Ryan.
I place the bottle of wine in the freezer to let it chill. Red wine is gross enough as it is, butwarm? No, thank you. I reach for myphone sitting on a side table next to my couch and begin typing out a text to Ryan.
“Hey, no phones. You know the rules.” Mark shoots me a teasing wink.
It was a rule. The two of us had come up with it almost a year ago after Mark started at the law firm. He was always getting texts and calls while we were trying to spend time together, so we made a ‘No Cell Phone’ rule on date nights.
Shit.I suppose I can explain it to Ryan tomorrow. Surely, he will understand. Hopefully, it won’t take him too long to catch on to the fact that I’m not coming. God, he’s going to hate me after this. Maybe I can sneak away and send him some kind of message in a few minutes. I place my phone face down on the counter, already plotting my next move.
Mark comes up to me and wraps his arms around my waist, his hands landing just over my rear end. Leaning down, he presses a kiss to the tip of my nose. “You do look lovely tonight.”
I offer him a smile, my first genuine one all night. “Thank you, Mark.”
“Were you going somewhere?”
“I was just going to meet a friend,” I tell him, knowing he’ll see through it if I outright lie. He is a lawyer, after all. But even he is not so good at seeing through my lies of omission—what he doesn’t know won’t kill him.
“Oh well, you can always hang out on another day,” he says, melding his lips with mine. He kisses me for a moment before letting me go and heading back into the kitchen to begin preparing our meal.
“Yeah, it will be fine. I’m actually going to run to the restroom,” I say, reaching out for my phone resting on the counter. I can send a quick text Ryan while I’m in there.
“With your phone?” Mark asks me incredulously. “I think you can survive a few minutes without it.”
I blush but leave my phone where it was, scurrying off to the restroom. Taking care of business, I wash my hands before heading back out to the kitchen.
“So, what are you making me?” I ask him as if I haven’t figured it out already.
“Lasagna,” Mark looks at me proudly. “And a salad. I thought we could watch a movie while we wait for it to bake.”
I’m reminded in this moment of how I fell in love with Mark in the first place. He’s looking at me with those big puppy dog eyes the color of chocolate. There is no malice, no superiority in them, just love and tenderness.
Since the night of the gala, Mark has been making a valiant effort to keep his emotions under control. We’ve been to a few counseling sessions, both together and then on our own, and I honestly think it’s helping. Or at the very least, they’ve given Mark an assortment of tricks to try to get his control back.
If we get into a tiff—which happens more than I like, but still—Mark will turn to those tools and use them. I’ve seen him straight up walk out of a room, or take a few minutes to catch his breath before responding to me.
Honestly, it’s refreshing. Mark is a motivated person, and when he puts his mind to something, nothing can get in his way. It’s how he did so well in law school and then got such a great job right after graduating.
I feel myself relaxing at the warm look in his eyes. “I think that sounds great. What can I do to help?”
Mark looks down at the spread of ingredients on the counter. “Could you start browning the meat and combine it with the sauce?”
I do as he asks but keep eyeballing my cell phone, trying to devise a plan where I can sneak off and try to explain to Ryan why I’m standing him up. Mark seems to notice.
“Will you just turn that phone off? You keep looking at it every two seconds, and it’s getting on my nerves.”
