There were tabs, with paper between. He couldn’t read them because her hand was in the way, and she was flipping.
Though, good or bad (he picked bad), she explained.
“All we need, but that’s up for discussion. You might have additional categories. Family.” She flipped a tab. “Friends and Enemies.” She flipped a tab. “Schooling.” She flipped a tab. “Work experience.” She flipped a tab. “Travel.” Another flip. “Food.” Another flip. “Entertainment, like movies, books, TV.” And another flip. “Music, because obviously, that’s its own category.” Flip. “Hobbies and Favorite Activities.” One last flip. “Miscellaneous.”
He felt her gaze so he turned his attention to her.
“Did I miss anything?” she asked.
“What the fuck is that?” he asked back.
She assumed a mystified expression that simultaneously made him want to take a picture so he wouldn’t forget how cute it was, at the same time it made him want to kiss her.
“A life binder. I have sheets”—she looked to the binder, and with trepidation, he did too, to see pages flying as she flicked them off her thumb—“and so do you. My pages are white, yours are yellow. I fill in. You fill in. We study, passing it between us. Though, if you want your own binder, I’ll make you one. And look, I’ve already started my part.”
She flipped to what he knew was the “Entertainment” tab because he saw five precise columns with shit written under them. The headers were “Books,” “Movies,” “TV,” “Other” and “Dislikes.”
There was stuff written under those headings, but he didn’t bother reading it.
He turned back to her. “Are you being serious?”
“You don’t think it’s a good idea?”
“Hello, Mr. Sharp.” He looked down to the binder, reaching out a hand with fingers spread in order to use his fingertips to adjust it his way. “I’m marrying your daughter, and she enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit and found Michelle Obama’s Becoming moving and inspirational.”
And yeah.
She’d written “moving” and “inspirational” with precise, bracketed arrows pointing to the words on the two lines under Becoming.
“Well, you wouldn’t recite it like that,” she mumbled.
He straightened away from that crazy binder, turned fully to her, looked into her eyes, and said quietly, “We’d known each other for a while. She annoyed me because I thought she didn’t know how to handle the fact I’d lost my legs. But we found ourselves one night at a bar, talking about shit that mattered, and around the time I noticed she had the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen, I realized it wasn’t that. She was attracted to me and she’s shy. She didn’t know how to handle how she felt about me. You can imagine, for a guy like me, to meet a woman like your daughter, after life had made me a different man, knowing how attractive I was to her meant a lot. It took some work, she’s no less shy, but I got in there. And a little while later, because she’s all she is, I gave her my ring.”
She was breathing heavily, and it was then he noticed her full tits.
But he wasn’t about her full tits.
He was all about those eyes.
“Are you a different man?” she asked softly.
“I don’t fight fires.”
“You’re fighting one for me.”
His middle rolled back, and he felt winded.
He would be forever grateful that she let that slide and declared, “I still think we need the binder.”
“I’m not recording my life in a binder.”
“Okay, tell me, and I’ll transcribe it.”
“Sweetheart, I gotta know you stay away from beef…and why. I don’t gotta know you liked The Queen’s Gambit.”
“Did you like The Queen’s Gambit?”
“I haven’t seen it.”
Her eyes got huge.
Goddamn.
Fuck it.
It was time.
“We also gotta be comfortable with touching, and kissing, a lot.”
Even bigger eyes.
“Uh…why?”
Her last word came out on a squeak.
Mm-hmm.
They were totally going to be kissing a lot.
“We’re getting married,” he reminded her.
“Yes. Of course. Cheek kisses and pecks on the lips. My family isn’t about demonstration.”
“Well, your fiancé is.”
“Rix—”
“We gotta sell this.”
“I know, but—”
“Babe, we’re gonna be making out.”
And even bigger eyes.
“I—”
“It’s gotta be done.”
“But—”
“And you know it.”
She pressed her lips together.
She knew it.
“This isn’t about what your family does or expects.” He turned to the binder, closed it, and for good measure, shoved it so it slid several inches across her kickass table. He looked back to her. “It’s about who we are…together. And I’m affectionate.”
“I’m reserved.”
He nodded. “You are, except around me.”
“My family is going to think it’s weird if I’m pawing at you.”
He grinned. “I don’t want you to paw at me,” he totally fucking did, “and it’s not like I’m gonna be grabbing your ass. But there are things you can’t fake. And intimacy is one of them.”
The squeak was back. “We’re going to be intimate?”
They were.
How far that would go, he had to get his head straight about, because however that was, it had to be right in the end. It was going to be her call entirely, but whatever call she made, Rix had to make it so when it was done, there was not even a little bruise for her to feel, and he could walk away knowing that.
So yeah, he was nowhere near having his head straight about Alex.
“You know it’s always up to you how far that goes.”
Her shoulders slumped with relief.
“But we have to know each other in that way. What our touch feels like. What each other tastes like. You’ll be safe. You’ll like it. And it’s always in your power to start or stop it.”
She looked longingly and maybe a little desperately at the binder.
“Honey, give it up with the binder.”
She turned to him. “I don’t know if I can marry a man who hasn’t watched The Queen’s Gambit.”
He let that settle in for a beat.
Then he burst out laughing.
And while he did it, not for practice, not pretend, it came natural when he swung his arm out, hooked her at the waist and pulled her into his body.
Oh yeah, she had big tits.
And she’d put on her perfume.
He finished laughing while holding her eyes and felt her hands where she’d rested them, not pushing, but not quite comfortable with it, on his chest.
“Feed me, and we’ll watch that show,” he said.
“It has seven episodes.”
“Okay. We’ll watch a couple tonight and we’ll watch a couple when you come over to dinner at my place on Wednesday.”