Dad and I were laughing so hard, we could barely stand up as Rodney went on. Rodney jumped across the counter and stuck his finger in the sauce before holding it out to Dad. "You're gonna get it, old man."
I ducked out of the way, fearful of my own hair, and giggled by the fridge as they fought and wrestled. I felt Mom's hands on my arms and heard her laugh behind me. "Oh, my. Ava, what's going on?"
"Dad pulled the unforgiveable. He got noodles in Rod's hair."
She giggled and came around me with her blue silk robe on and bare feet. "Is all this for me?" she crooned sweetly, looking around at the mess on the counter.
"Mom, totally his fault." Rodney pointed at Dad shamelessly as he laughed.
"Oh, I believe you." She wrapped her arms around Dad's neck and wiped a smidge of sauce from his cheek with her thumb.
"You believe him over me?" Daddy asked, his voice changing like it always did where Mom was concerned.
She laughed, reaching up on her tiptoes and kissed him. "Thank you for cooking dinner. You didn't have to."
"I wanted to," he replied. His voice and eyes held a reverence that I'd always seen and heard about my whole life, but never experienced. "You earned it. You're such a good woman, and I know the reunifications take it out of you."
I had watched my parents for what seemed like centuries. The way they existed so effortlessly in each other's world and space. They could go minutes without looking away from each other. They kissed constantly. They hugged all the time, stole touches and wrapped their fingers around the other's wrist. I knew it was to feel their calm, to be wrapped in the little bit of bliss that their touch provided.
I felt like I was watching a romance novel play out before my eyes.
"I'm OK," she told him and whispered her next words. "Thank you for this. And for earlier. I really needed it."
"Eew. Gross. Stop," Rodney said, hands up. He threw some forks haphazardly on the table. "Don't you see the way my ears are singed?"
Mom laughed. "I was talking about the bubble bath your father made me, you goober." She reached up again, kissing Daddy on the lips, but he reached around her and drew her in even more. I turned to fill the glasses. It was disgusting, they were my parents after all, but I was also envious. Things were still a little up in the air with the imprints and everything. It seemed that things had gone back to normal for the most part, except there were no more age limits. You met them when you met them and that was that.
So instead of knowing I'd meet the person I wanted most in a few years while in college, I was forced to spend my days waiting.
The only thing a girl in high school, who's never dated anyone before, wants is to find someone to love her. I was breaking out and going my own way, and while I was reinventing myself to become the me I would always be, I was dying to throw my epic love story in the mix.
"I love you, Maggie," I heard behind me.
"I love you more."
"Go sit. I'll bring you a plate." And I waited for it…
The sound of Daddy's palm lightly smacking Mom's butt was my cue that it was okay to turn around now. Mom shook her head at Dad as she took a seat. Dad, smug as all get out, brought her plate, kissing her forehead as he sat it in front of her, before setting the rest of the table and playfully yelling at Rodney to sit down and behave like a Jacobson.
They were so predictable. And adorable. And so in love with each other it hurt to look at them.
Two
Six Years Later
Ava
I yawned and got the stink eye from Professor Gracco. I loved and hated class, but it was the last week of them before summer break. Every class was a yawn-fest. The teachers knew it, but I think it just made them that much more ornery.
The minutes crawled by and my watch kept winking at me, taunting, begging me to keep looking at it so the time would move even slower.
Only two more years of this and I'd graduate and could go work at the firm with Grandpa. Well, not for very long because he was retiring in a few years. But the chance to work with him at all would be worth it. He was happy that I'd decided to come work with them. A few other family members had taken a cue from Dad and went their own way, running a business that they wanted instead.But they always seemed to be good businesses. Our kind had a knack for smart ventures and risks that paid off. Businesses that were good for more than just us. Like Daddy with his learning centers and my second cousin, who has a horse farm, who started an equestrian riding school.
When the professor took the little golden bell from his desk and jiggled it in the air at us like it was a catholic school and not a college, we knew the class was over. I packed up my things hurriedly and rushed across campus to the coffee shop. Every Friday I brought the whole staff at the center whatever poison that was their favorite beverage.
I was running late. Professor Hubris back there thought that he held our literal futures in his sweaty little hands and it was his duty to teach more than what was lined out in the syllabus.
Like maybe, how to make someone late for work? It didn't matter that my dad owned the company. That actually made me want to be on time even more, so no one could say that I was just there because my father let me be. I wanted to be a good worker, have ethics and values that people could see on me like a Girl Scout badge.
I wanted to earn what I had, not have things handed to me.
So when I ran into the shop and saw Paul at the counter with a carton of coffee cups, I mouthed a 'Thank you' to him. I got the same exact thing every Friday. One white hot chocolate, one black, one vanilla cappuccino with cream and sugar, and for me, a salted caramel iced coffee. There was a long line today, so I waited in it, pulling out my cell to check messages quickly.
A napkin floated to the floor beside me and I reached absentmindedly to pick it up when someone was next to me doing the same thing. Our fingers almost touched on the napkin and my eyes lifted to see dark ones meeting mine. I felt my lips part, not just at his closeness, but at the sheer force of that gaze.
His hair was black and spiked up in the middle in a small faux-hawk. He was tan with a red t-shirt that hugged his neck.
"Thanks," he muttered, his voice as low as gravel. I had to admit that it made me smile for no other reason than the fact that he hadn't taken his eyes off mine yet. He finally, slowly stood.
"No problem," I replied and cleared my throat a little because my voice sounded entirely too affected.
I didn't know what else to say and he just stared, his eyes wandering around my face, before he finally smiled with just one side of his mouth and chuckled a little. "Sorry…you're just really…" He shook his head and stepped back. "Never mind. You go to school here?"
"Yeah. You?"
"Nah," he said, noncommittally. "Just getting some coffee. It was pretty good timing, I guess."
"What was?" I asked, shouldering my bag, refusing to let him go until it was no longer polite to keep him talking.
"Coming here at the same time as you." His smile spoke volumes of things he was thinking that I wasn't privy to. It reminded me of a romance novel…of my parents. I felt a stutter in my chest at what that could mean. "I'm usually here a lot later, but I was early today."
"You're early and I'm late," I said, chagrined that I had forgotten my purpose so easily. I looked over to the counter to see Paul staring an irritated yet intrigued look at my back. I knew he had a little crush on me, but there was no point in pursuing that.
I turned back to dark eyes. He whispered like it was a curse, "Am I keeping you? Do you need to go?"
I stepped off the plank, one hopeful foot in front of the other. "Do you feel that?"
He frowned with his brows, but smiled. "Feel what exactly?"
My spirits fell as fast as they had risen. This was just some college boy checking out girls in the coffee shop. He wasn't Virtuoso, he wasn't a human so intrigued by what was happening to him to press further, and he wasn't someone…that I could go any further with.
I smiled as much as I could, but stepped back. "I really do have to go. I’m sorry. I'm really late."
His smile fell and he took a step closer. "Uh…can you stay for one cup of coffee? I'm buying." He tried for a smile again, but I just couldn't let this go any farther.
"I'm late for work already." I turned to give Paul a twenty and told him to keep the change. When I turned back, I expected dark eyes to be gone, done with me, but he wasn't. I smiled and started to move around him toward the side back door.
He called for me to wait a second as he ran back to get his bag from the table, but I kept going. Before I reached the door, his hand gently caught my long sleeve in his fingers. I looked down at his hand first and then at his face. "I'm sorry," he said sincerely. "I'm not trying to be creepy, I just…" He licked his lips.
His red shirt had a fireman symbol on the front with the number 22 in the middle of it. His jeans were dark, worn, and ripped a little at the knee. He wore black boots and had a brown leather band around his wrist that had the word VIVERE on it.
Wow, this boy was going to be a problem if I didn't get away.
"I know. I wish I had time to talk, I really do, but I have to go."
"I do feel it," he said in a harsh voice. "I said I didn't feel it before, but I do."
Every movement but breathing stopped. "Feel what?"
"Like…" He moved his hand to my face and I froze in hopeful awe. He swept my hair back behind my ear. "Like we were meant to be here at the same time."