“We eloped,” she says with more conviction than the tremor in her body says she feels.
“You did what?” Her father’s cool expression gives way to a horrified glare. He turns to look at me and for a second I forget where I am. I’ve stared down the barrels of guns and climbed out of the jaws of both death and life, but something about his glare feels eerily colder as he steps toward me.
“Why would you do that, Beth? That’s not like you,” he says and her mother goes back into the kitchen and turns off the stove before coming back out with a broom pointed at me.
“What did you do to my child?” she screams, charging toward us.
Beth steps up between us and my brain registers that she’s done this a lot today and it’s annoying.
“Mom, stop.” Her arms are held up, but she’s in fight-flight stance and something tells me she’s not about to fight her parents and she’s also not about to run away with me.
“Mom please,” she pleads, “I love him.”
22
I’ve been lying to my parents ever since I agreed to this stupid marriage, but as the words fly out of my mouth, my own tongue tries to recoil on itself.
Liar, traitor, fool – the words pound in my chest so hard I feel like my heart’s about to make a clean escape.
“I love him,” I hear myself say, and both my parents freeze. Everything is suspended in time, just the way it always is when something terrible is about to happen. I’m almost sure Maverick stops breathing behind me. Good. At least he’s found something to knock him a little toward reality.
My mother drops the broom and walks over to me slowly, pulling me away from him.
“If we’ve all tuckered ourselves out with all this unnecessary drama, I think we can actually start over and have the guest in the house be greeted properly,” Maverick says and a smile shakes on his face.
I cringe at his disrespect. Somewhere deep down, between the softness of his voice as he spoke the words, I know he doesn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that Maverick has never been taught common human decency and when any emotion hits him – be it fear or anger or nervousness – his brain and his mouth don’t quite know how to work in harmony.
“Young man,” my father says calmly, “I’m quite sure people worship you where you’re from. You have a handsome face and you’re British, I assume. Girls must love you. But I’ve heard about you. We have all heard about you and your friends. We know how you’ve treated our Beth over the years. You are not a guest here. You’re a trespasser and we’d like you to leave. Now!”
“Dad,” Beth says calmly.
“No, Beth. You’ve clearly lost your mind. You can’t possibly expect us to believe you married this guy.”
“She did,” Maverick says. Everything about the tone of his voice says that he’s offended.
“Don’t do this,” I chide, and his face darkens, but he holds his tongue. I’m sure he’ll figure out a way to punish me for all this later, but I will not have him disrespect my parents in their own house.
“She’s moving in with me,” he informs them, his eyes never leaving mine and I can feel my soul wither away slowly. I don’t need to look around to see the looks on their faces. I can hear it in the gasp that escapes my mother and feel it in the sudden shift in the temperature of the room.
“I see,” my mother says quietly, and I turn around to see her going into the kitchen, before drawing the curtains around her emotions shut.
Dad sits down on the plastic chair and I walk over to him slowly and kneel before him.
“I promise you, I’m not crazy. I promise you, this is a good thing. I’m doing this for us. Please help her to see that. I’m doing this for all the right reasons. I love you guys with all my heart. I swear that will never change. I’m so sorry.” My cheeks are wet with tears as I look up at the disappointment on his face. I know I’ve hurt them both, but this had to be done. There was no other way for me to help them. None at all. The restaurant was not offering me enough to pull more than my weight and with the both of them out of a job...what choice did I have? They will understand. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually, they will.
“I’m sorry daddy,” I whisper, clasping his hands in mine before standing up to cross the room into my small bedroom to gather my things.
I’m startled when I hear Maverick by the door. “There’s no way you’ve lived here your whole life,” he says, all the regular torture missing from his tone. “It’s so…” he pauses, as though searching for a better word, but coming short, “- small.”
“Maverick, please - ”
“I’m just saying - ” he starts, and he almost sounds apologetic.
“Maverick-”
“Beth,” he whispers, drawing nearer, closing in on me. In an instant, he’s completely engulfed the space between us. “Shhh…” he instructs.
“Maverick, please-”
“I’m just saying-” he starts, but has the grace to stop talking when our eyes connect. I can sense his awkwardness. Being in a place like this must be very new to him. If he were someone else, I would probably be ashamed to have him here. However, after what just happened in the sitting room with my folks, I can’t bring myself to care.
“They seem like nice people,” he says quietly, taking me by surprise. “Your dad…well…he’s certainly very different from mine.”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the tone in Maverick’s voice brushes on jealousy, but that just isn’t possible. What could I have that would make Lord Maverick here jealous?
He inches even nearer and I’m pulled in by an undercurrent of confusion from having him this close to me for the second time tonight. Every time it happens, an unfamiliar rush courses through me and stops in my most delicate place. Maybe my parents are right. Maybe I have lost my mind.
I can feel my eyes dilating as Maverick stares intently into my face as though searching out my secrets. Almost instinctively, I squeeze them shut to stop them from betraying the insanity happening inside me and I can feel a traitorous tear welling up against my eyelid.
The room is so quiet I can actually hear his breaths as they enter and exit his lungs, the sound becoming more and more prevalent with each second that passes – as though he’s getting closer to my face.
My pulse quickens when I feel a tickle of his breath brush against my cheek. And then his breath is replaced by his touch as he tracks a fallen tear down my cheek before completely wiping it away.
My father clears his throat and my eyes fly open. I can only imagine what this must look like. Which is exactly what I should want it to look like, but still, is nothing close to the truth.
“I think it’s time for you to leave.”
“Dad-”
“Tomorrow, Beth,” he says quietly. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
I stare around my cramped box of a room one last time before picking up my bag and throwing it over my shoulder.
“Don’t forget, Eloise,” he whispers, and I nod, lifting an old bed sheet off the multi-purpose table by the wall to reveal my most valuable possession.