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It didn’t escape my notice that she hadn’t taken hers off when she’d pieced together what those and our souvenir T-shirts meant. A faint memory of an argument over the shirts was teasing my consciousness, but I couldn’t connect those dots just yet. I figured with more quality sleep and some nutrition that wasn’t chugged, details would start to line up.
I groaned aloud and quickly clapped a hand over my mouth. Definitely wanted my little storm to sleep a bit longer. Just thinking of the hell I was going to catch about the marriage made that noise erupt from my body on its own, though.
Yes, I was old enough to live my own life. If my parents didn’t approve of the choices I made, they should at least respect me enough to be kind to Agatha when they met her.
Not holding my breath on that one, though. My mother had been trying to set me up with several women my age that she had met at church, and she wasn’t just going to accept a stranger.
My father was a traditional man. He ruled the house and everyone in it. He put in an honest day of work, six days a week, and the United States Postal Service was lucky to have him.
My mother was more opinionated than anyone I knew. She was a beautiful woman when she was young, but now she was bitter about everything, and her bad attitude made her unattractive. If you were excited or happy about something, she could strip you of your joy in one sentence or less. It made being around her very unpleasant. Now that I had my own place, I didn’t visit them very often. Or at least as often as I should, according to her.
But Sundays in the Sandoval house meant church and family, and I still showed up for both. Week in and week out, I dreaded the entire day but did it anyway. The hell I’d pay for not going was way worse.
Graziella, my sister, was younger than me by just under two years. She still lived in their house, so she was still under their rule. Gray, as I’d called her since childhood, was a stunning young woman who had more boyfriends, friends who were boys, and boys who wanted to be her friend, than any one girl should have.
Remarkably, she’d remained a virgin—or at least my parents believed so. Honestly, I didn’t know if she was or not. We didn’t typically discuss our sexual escapades.
Not that I had them by the dozen or anything. I had dated the same girl from high school until last year around this same time. She finally got tired of me dragging my feet about marrying her and had left me for some dude in the Marines.
Funny, though, since we’d broken up, we’d hooked up around eight times for middle-of-the-night booty calls. Either she’d text me after getting home late from a club or I’d message her when I just needed a release that wasn’t self-performed.
It worked out fine for both of us until the Marine found out. Then all hell broke loose. She vowed she would never do it again, and blah blah blah, and the dumbass took her back. She texted me two weeks later for a midnight run, and I turned her down.
It was shitty of me to be a part of her infidelity, and there were plenty of other willing, able, and single young ladies out there. I didn’t need to be adding more meat to my guilt sandwich.
Then I met Miss Farsey and, well…here we were.
Thankfully, her snoring stopped, and I grinned widely as I looked at her buried up to her perfect pink lips in the downy comforter. Each feature on the woman’s face was textbook perfect. Put all the components together, and my wife was completely beautiful.
As if she could sense my attention, she slowly opened her tired eyes. For a long, silent moment, she stared at the ceiling overhead and didn’t speak.
I thought maybe she might drift off again, but she turned her face in my direction instead.
“Did you sleep? Or have you been staring at me the whole time?” She smiled as she asked, and missing from her tone was the acid that could lace any of her comments. The woman would definitely keep me on my toes.
“I slept a bit. Too much in here at the moment.” I tapped on my temple.
Agatha rolled toward me completely. “We’ve got a big mess, huh?”
I then rolled toward her and propped up on a bent arm. Without thinking, I reached out and tucked a wild section of hair behind her ear. She didn’t bite my head off or make a sassy remark. In fact, she might have liked my small gesture, because she slowly closed her eyes while I touched her skin.
I stroked the backs of my fingers over the soft skin of her cheek, and she hummed low in her throat like a content little kitty. I liked this version of her. Very much.
There was a good chance I would blow the sweet moment if I voiced the decision I’d made while she slept. But it needed to be said, and sooner rather than later. We needed to be on the same page as we mounted the war against our families.
“Maybe it doesn’t have to be,” I said by way of continuing the topic she introduced.
Her big blue eyes popped open wider, and she seemed much clearer and more focused than I’d seen her in days.
How much had this girl been drinking when no one was around?
“You’re so beautiful.”
We hadn’t been physical beyond holding hands and innocent touches here and there. Something about lying in bed with her during broad daylight seemed to be sending signals to parts of my body that did not have permission to be involved in our conversation just yet.
“You’re a really sweet man, Carmen. Thank you.”
“Well, I’m not just saying that to be sweet. You have a natural beauty I haven’t seen in a long time. Most girls our age are more worried about makeup hacks on TikTok and plumping parts of their faces that aren’t meant to be plump.”
