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But at least it would be clean.
11
DARCY
Iwoke up in a strange bed and took a long moment staring up at the ceiling as sunlight seeped in through a window to figure out just where I was. When I felt a slight ache in my knee, yesterday came rushing back.
I was married.
To a man who was currently nowhere to be found.
I sat up so fast it made my head spin. The dizzying sensation wasn’t helped by the sudden intrusion of my mom’s voice crisply telling me that a good wife should never sleep later than her husband. She should rise with the sun, groom herself to perfection, and prepare her husband’s breakfast before he got up.
Well, the sun had risen it had left my tangle-haired, drool-smeared self behind. The one thing I’d been taught how to be my whole life – a proper wife – and I was already failing.
I lurched out of bed, resolving to make up for lost time.
My homeworld of Terratribe II was largely an agricultural planet. My father may have been a politician, but I knew enough farmers to understand that, even with the assistance of robots and tech, they got up ass-crack-of-dawn early. Fallon didn’t seem to have any special technology around to help him, so I had no doubt he’d already been up and at it for a while now. I wondered if he’d skipped breakfast. If he had, I could at least make it for him now.
But when I stumbled into the kitchen, I stopped short.
There was a plate laid out for me at the place I’d been sitting yesterday. Slowly, I inched up to it, staring down to find what looked like two pickled eggs and a slice of some sort of alien bacon.
In the shape of a face.
A smiling face.
There was no sign of Magnolia being up yet, so this had to have been Fallon’s handiwork.
Instead of waiting for me to cook for him, my husband had put two eggy eyes and a bacony smile on a plate. For me.
Was this man for real? Was he actually this happy all the time? What the hell was his deal? I shook my head, mystified but smiling a little bit despite myself.
“Don’t give me that look,” I sternly told the plate. I snatched up the bacon smile and shoved it into my mouth.
By the time I was finished eating, had visited the outhouse beside the house, and had gotten dressed for the day, Magnolia was awake and venturing out of her bedroom.
“How did you sleep?” I asked. I grabbed her a plate from a cupboard and then quickly realized I had no clue where the food in this house was. Huh…
“Really well, thank you! And thank you again for hosting me. I hope I’m not intruding. I’m sure you guys want some alone time…”
“It’s fine. Believe me,” I said.
She gave me a bit of an odd look.
“I mean, I’m just so glad to help out,” I said quickly, hoping it didn’t sound weird. “The whole Oaken-not-showing-up-thing really sucked.”
“Yeah…” She looked so disappointed. For a second, I wished Oaken was the one promised to me. It would give me some breathing room and then Magnolia wouldn’t have to wait around for the husband she so very obviously wanted. But then, that would mean she would be the one married to Fallon. And the idea of somebody else marrying Fallon, even someone as lovely as Magnolia, made my stomach feel kind of wonky.
Must have been the food. Stupid smiley bacon.
“It will be alright,” I told her awkwardly, not sure what else to say to cheer her up. “And, of course, you can stay here as long as you need.”
She smiled, but it looked more like putting on a brave face than actual happiness.
After discovering a door into a cold cellar where most of the food was, I filled Magnolia’s plate.
“I don’t suppose there’s coffee here,” she said with a wistful look around the kitchen.
