Page 28 of Mating of Convenience
My great-grandma’s face fell in a way that almost made me want to apologize for the lack of bun in Raphael’s oven. “That’s too bad,” she said. “But keep trying. I’m sure you’ll have a bunch of little babies soon. I mean, even your father managed, and I was so worried about him after your mother left. What a tragedy that was.”
“Um...” I didn’t know what to say. When I looked to my dad, he only shrugged, as if to say he didn’t have a clue either. “We aren’t trying for a baby,” I said eventually.
“Raphael and he broke up,” Caleb added helpfully. “It was horrible. Nate was crying for weeks.”
I glared at my little brother. “I was not crying!”
Caleb only grinned. “Sure, whatever you say.”
“I saw the mountain of tissues,” Henry quipped.The little bastard.
“I got back together with Raphael,” I said, only to shut my siblings up.
“Really?” My step-father spoke up for the first time since I’d come back into the room. “That’s great news! Is that what you wanted to tell us?”
“Sort of.” Rhys seemed so happy for me I felt bad for lying. “Let’s just wait for him, okay?”
“Alright then.” Rhys leaned back into the leather of the couch and I allowed myself a moment to breathe. I had no idea how my family was going to react to the news that Raph and I had married, but I hoped they would be supportive. In any case, I knew this was going to be easier to face with Raph by my side. He had a way of distracting everyone from things he didn’t want them to focus on. And anyway, I always felt stronger with Raph by my side.
Not something I wanted to ponder too deeply right now, though.
When Raph finally showed up--a whole five minutes earlier than promised--he greeted me with a grin, obviously ready to jump into action. “Everybody in the living room?” he asked.
“Yeah. What did you need to tell me?”
“I’ll tell you after,” he waved me off.
“It sounded like bad news. You were really urgent on the phone.”
“I thought it was bad news at first, but... I don’t know. It might not be so bad. Now, c’mon.” With that, he grabbed my hand and let me into the living room. As soon as we entered, all eyes turned to us. I caught my dad glancing at the way we were holding hands. Even though I’d told them all that Raph and I were back together, I couldn’t blame him for being surprised. To be honest, I felt a bit off balance myself. Raph had grabbed my hand so easily.
“Hi, everyone,” he said into the room. “Sorry for making you wait.”
Rhys gave him a smile. “It’s good to see you back in Oceanport, and back with Nathan.”
“I’m glad to be back to.”
Was he really? How long was he staying, anyway? We hadn’t talked about it. While I was still wondering about that, Raph raised our joined hands in a way that everyone could see the rings we were wearing.
So this was it then.
“We got married,” I made myself say, because everyone was already staring at our rings and drawing their own conclusions.
For a few seconds, I looked into a lot of blank faces while nobody said anything, and then everybody started to talk at the same time. So many questions came at us from so many sides that I wasn’t even sure who asked what. It basically boiled down to ‘when did you get married?’ and ‘why the hell didn’t I know about it?’, though. That first minute after I’d made my announcement, my great-grandma was the only one who even thought to congratulate us.
“Three days ago,” Raph answered one of the questions shot at us while my great-grandma started mumbling something about having to make us some gifts.
“Three days ago?” My dad got up from the couch, gesturing wildly. “You got married seventy-two hours ago? And you didn’t think to tell any of us? Or invite us? Are you being serious right now?”
“I’m serious,” I said, standing straight, because honestly, I wasn’t a teen anymore and I didn’t need to cower while my dad scolded me.
“I’m sorry,” Raph joined the conversation. “It was my fault. I just couldn’t wait, and we decided that we didn’t care about the ceremony or anything. We just wanted to be married.”
“It was a really spontaneous decision,” I added, feeling like shit because I did not enjoy lying to my family. Raph sensed this, maybe, because he squeezed my hand as if to reassure me. Not that it was necessary. I’d promised him my help and I wasn’t going to let him down. I just never realized how hard this was going to be.
“You’re really married...” my dad muttered, looking between the two of us.
“We’re happy for you,” Rhys spoke up before anyone else could add to the conversation. Then he gave his husband a sharp nudge. “Aren’t we?”
