Page 17 of Eternal

Laura butts in, “To be clear, I understand what you kids are going through. I do. But you both must pull this off without any issues.”

Soren and I nod, and he speaks up, “Is that it? Myfianceand I are parched and would like to be able to get the festivities going.”

“Yes, that is all,” My mother responds.

Soren mutters under his breath and stalks out of the office, dragging me along with him. Instead of going towards the festivities, he brings me into a bedroom a couple of doors down the hall. He releases me for the first time when he shuts the door. He groans and looks down at the ground. I huff out.

“My mother was put in the same position as us. She was forced to marry my father, but she was 20. They never found happiness or love,” Soren speaks in a strained voice. I’m not sure if he’s talking to thin air or to me.

I look down at the floor, understanding where he’s coming from. Then again, my parents married for love. Kinda. Eventually, it became a convenient thing for them. “We can be different, but it’ll require work. It won’t happen overnight, but I believe we can do it.”

Soren looks up and stalks toward me. “Perhaps. But nothing is guaranteed.” He takes a deep breath, grabs my hand, and drags me into the hall.

Serena and Abe giggle and embrace each other as they start into a different bedroom.

“Oh! Look who finally decided to show up. I see you two were having a little fun. That’s a little early, don’t you think?”

I roll my eyes and keep walking, ignoring her. She can be a bit of an ass when she’s tipsy. Abe watches us with hard eyes, examining to see if we just fucked. Nothing is out of place on either of us to indicate that would be the case. Soren and I make our way to the crowd's noise when people approach us. I have no idea what their names are. I just know they are friends of my mother’s and are huge gossips.

“Look at you kids, all dressed nicely. I was over the moon to hear you two are dating now. How long have you been together?” The woman asks.

“We’ve been together for just over a year,” Soren answers. His voice is clipped; he’s not happy with all the questions.

“Oh, you met Soren while you were still with Tristan?” The woman directs the question at me, looking confused.

“Yeah, kinda. We met as friends then, but shortly after Tristan and I broke up, Soren and I got together. We just had a connection we couldn’t ignore.” I try to reason. Soren had no fucking clue what I’ve been through, so I’m sure this is the first of many hiccups tonight.

The woman purses her lips and sips her drink. “Well, I am very happy for the two of you.” With that, she walks away.

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding in; Soren looked down at me with darkened eyes. “Who is Tristan?”

The question I did not want to hear come out of his mouth. I try to think of something, anything to tell him.

“Um. He is my ex-boyfriend.” I say in a small voice. I’m definitely not ready to share that story with him.

He looks away and huffs out of his perfectly straight nose. “Okay, we can talk about this later.” If he means not for a long time later, then sure. That works for me.

We make our way to the bar across the room. More and more people approach us asking the same boring questions,

“When did you get together?”

“Do you live in Seattle with her then?”

Then the big question, “When are you kids planning on getting engaged?”

Soren’s hand rests on my waist as he answers, “Actually, we are engaged as of last night.”

The small group of people gasp and offer their congratulations and best wishes.

“Can I see the ring?”

I look down at my left hand. I never did get the cute proposal I dreamt about. Nor did I get the ring, either. Soren and I exchange glances.

“Well, he kind of did it as a spur-of-the-moment thing,” I answer simply.

“How did you propose?” A woman asks.

“She was making my favorite brownies last night. As we were watching a movie and eating brownies straight from the pan, I realized I wanted to do this for the rest of my life. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with the woman who turned my life upside down in such a great way. So I asked her, and here we are.” Soren fabricates the story.

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