“I’m sure they would be if you cooked them a meal like you did.”
“The way to your heart is through your stomach,” he says with a nod. “I shall keep that in mind.”
You’ve already found your way to my heart, I think and for once, the thought doesn’t scare me. Tonight, I feel emboldened.
Yet when he hands me a wet dish, my eyes focus on drying it, afraid to look at him. He’s so close, his elbow and arm brushing mine as he works, that gorgeous scent of his mixed with the lavender and the lemon dish soap are burning a memory in my head. My skin feels tight and hot and the nerves in my stomach dance in a constant conga line. Every part of me feels alive.
The fact that I think I’m falling for him doesn’t scare me but what does scare me is what happens after that.
“So, when does the interview start?” he asks after a long bout of silence.
Oh right. That.
The truth is, I don’t want to write about this dinner even though that was his intention. I feel like what I witnessed tonight, the quiet charming moments between him and my family, I want to keep that just for me.
“Tomorrow,” I tell him. “It starts tomorrow.”
“So then what is tonight?” There’s gravity to his voice, the low tone making electricity burn in my stomach.
I look up at him and try to read his gaze. “I guess we’re just getting to know each other,” I say. Because what can I say? That this is a date? A date with me and my brothers and sisters? I don’t think so.
He nods in response, hands me another dish.
We work together in silence but it’s comfortable. It’s the kind of silence that lets you be lost in your head without having to explain your thoughts, the kind that tricks you into believing you’re deep in the stages of domesticated bliss.
And I am lost in my thoughts. Thoughts about him, the kids, my life, my future, that it takes me a moment to notice that we’re done and Viktor is taking off his apron. He’s standing right in front of me, folding it in his hands, and staring at me with such intensity that I feel like I might have missed something, like he was saying something before and I didn’t hear him. Something heated. Something I want to hear.
He tilts his head, his eyes settling on my lips for a moment before he looks up to meet my gaze again.
“Can I kiss you?” he asks, his voice low and smooth.
Oh my god.
Did he just ask if he could kiss me?
I knew the guy was a gentleman, but I didn’t know how much of one he was.
I swallow the brick in my throat, fireworks going off in my heart.
“Of course,” I say softly, wishing my voice was steady.
This is it. This is it.
Fucking finally.
I close my eyes, my lips parting open, just enough.
I wait.
Nerves on fire.
Heart dancing.
Lips aching for him…
No kiss.
And I don’t feel him come any closer.
I open my eyes and look at him.
He hasn’t moved. Instead he’s just watching me, wearing the cockiest smirk I’ve ever seen.
“I didn’t mean now,” he says. “I just wanted to know for future reference.”
My eyes narrow, my body growing hot with embarrassment and sexual frustration. “You’re a jerk.”
He laughs playfully. “Someone has to keep you on your toes.”
I shake my head and snatch the apron from his hands, bringing it to the small hamper we have in the pantry and tossing it in there.
“So your nickname is moose, huh?” I say, trying to cover up the awkwardness. Even with my back turned to him, I can tell he’s still grinning. “Maybe your nickname oughta be dick.”
“Who’s to say it isn’t?” he answers.
Once everything is dry, I tell the girls to do their homework and tell Callum he has to get ready for bed. Like I thought, he makes a huge fuss, not wanting to miss out on what’s going on with Viktor and the “adults.”
Then I bring up story time.
Then, to my surprise, though honestly, I don’t think I should be surprised by anything he does now, Viktor volunteers for story time.
And suddenly Callum is racing to his bedroom to put on his pajamas and get in bed.
“Do you even know what story time is?” I ask Viktor as we go up the stairs.
When he doesn’t say anything I look down at him over my shoulder and see that his focus is completely on my ass.
His eyes flit up to mine. “Sorry,” he says, not sounding very sorry at all. “And story time, that sounds like when you make up a story, a bedtime story.”
“Callum usually has Pike read from a certain book.”
“Nah, I think I’ll just make something up,” he says.
“Suit yourself, he’s a tough critic,” I tell him as we step into Callum’s room. He’s already sitting in bed, big grin on his face, in his faded Superman pajamas. Viktor pulls up a chair from the desk and I sit down on the end of the bed because there’s no way I’m not going to be here for this.
“I know you usually have a book read to you,” Viktor notes, “but I have a special Swedish story to share with you. Do you like trolls?”
Callum shakes his head.
Viktor looks at me, trying not to smile. “Okay, do you like dragons?”
Callum shrugs.
“What about dragons and Vikings?”
Callum sits up straighter. “Are there battles and axes and swords and blood?” he asks excitedly.
“Of course,” Viktor says to him and then he looks at me. I’m shaking my head. No. Not a good idea before bedtime.
“Or maybe not,” he corrects himself.
“Awwww,” Callum whines.
“Or maybe a little.” Viktor nods at me. “Your sister can just cover her ears at that part.”
I raise my brow and try to bite back a smile.
So Viktor launches into a story about a Viking prince named Erling. At first I know he’s making it all up off the top of his head, but the more he goes into the story, the more it seems natural, real, and the more I get involved in it. Soon both Rosemary and Thyme are sitting together on Callum’s bean bag chair and listening intently to the battles and the wars and the Viking boats and the dragons and even the fair maidens that need rescuing. There’s an evil king and a supernatural queen and a witch and flying whales.
By the time it’s all over–almost an hour later–Callum is both wired and half asleep. And out in the hallway is April, skulking around outside the door, having listened to most of it even though she would never dare admit it.
Now it’s late and everyone is tired and Viktor says he should get going.
I want to protest, but he’s right.
The cab is called.
I follow him out in front of the house, waiting with him for the cab. After that whole “can I kiss you” thing, I’m feeling a little slighted but still hopeful. Maybe this is it. Maybe he was waiting until we were really alone.
I gaze up at him, the moon rising behind him. He gazes down at me. But the moment I start to think it might happen for real, Viktor’s eyes fly up to the windows behind me.
I turn around and look up to see everyone watching us from the bedroom windows, goofy smiles on their faces. I wave, sigh, and look back at Viktor with a wry smile.
“Always an audience, huh,” I say.
“I’m used to it,” he says just as the cab pulls up. “So tomorrow we’ll get more…professional.”
Professional? Fucking great.
“Of course,” I tell him, pasting a smile on my face. “Thanks again for dinner.”
“It was my pleasure,” he says and does a little bow.
I curtsey to him in return which makes him burst out laughing. Then he gets in the backseat and the cab drives off.
Chapter Twelve
Maggie
“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit,” Viktor says, seemingly out of
the blue. We’ve been talking about the Swedish football (you know, soccer) for what feels like forever, so this change of conversation throws me.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, folding my legs up under me, careful not to knock over the bottle of wine between us.
It’s Wednesday evening and after two days of Viktor and I having rather “professional” meetings after work, either in coffee shops or in the minivan, I decided that enough was enough. I wanted to have some fun.
Actually it was Viktor who decided it. Maybe he could tell the interview was coming out stiff and formal after a while. Maybe it was because I was so damn rusty at it, maybe because I don’t actually like interviewing Viktor. I like talking to him, having an exchange of ideas, being honestly invested in what he says, because I want to, not because I have an article to write.
To be honest...I don’t think I want to do the article anymore. I haven’t completely vetoed the idea but I’m leaning toward it. Even with the formalities of asking rote questions and listening to the playback to make sure I got it all, scribbling notes when something strikes me later, I keep feeling the same feeling I had when he made us dinner. That our relationship, whatever it was, our time together, it was just for me and him. No one else. I want to keep it close to me and protect it like the fragile and precious thing it is.
And so today after work, Viktor picked me up in his sweet mustang, now fully-fixed thanks to some help from Pike, and we’re here, sitting on the top of the highest hills to the south of town, a plaid blanket I found in the garage laid out beneath us.
We have a bottle of wine. Actually two. Plus tubs of olives, slices of cheese, and onion and fig jam, and crackers. The sun is setting to one side of us, bathing us in gold that shines on the soft fresh grass of the rolling hills below us. From here it looks like Tehachapi is another world, a beautiful world. Viktor wanted to go somewhere enchanting and this was the only place I could think of.
Right now, it feels like we’re the only two people left in the world.
Right now, it’s perfect.
He sighs and leans back so he’s propped up on one elbow, one of his long legs stretched out, the other knee bent, and though he has sunglasses on, his gaze is focused on the setting sun. “I’m talking about everything, Maggie. Everything you do.”
“We’re not talking about me here,” I tell him.
“We never talk about you,” he says. “It’s been nothing but me the last two days. Frankly, I’m boring.”
“You were the one who suggested I interview you,” I point out, popping an olive in my mouth. And you’re never boring.
He looks over at me. “I know. But tonight, it’s all you.”
“Then why have you been talking about soccer this whole time?” I ask with a teasing smile.
He takes his sunglasses off to give me a steady look, the blue of his eyes popping like cornflowers against the sunset. “It’s called football, my dear.”
“My dear. So formal.”
“Did you ever want kids?”
He just lays that question on my lap, just like that.
I blink at him. “Excuse me? Did I ever want kids? Shouldn’t the question be, do I want kids? No wait,” I wave my hand dismissively, “why are we even talking about this.”
“Because I’m curious,” he says gravely. “Because the last two days I’ve been talking, and I’ve wanted nothing more than to hear you talk. Because I want you to tell me the things you keep inside, I want to be the man that you confide in, that you trust, that you want to let in.”
If that’s what you want, what even are we?
But I don’t ask that. Instead I run my hands over the plaid, the scratchy wool pricking the sensitive skin of my palm. “Kids? Honestly, I never gave them much thought. When I was younger, having a family wasn’t on my mind. All I wanted was out of this town. I wanted to be the journalists you read about, the ones out there getting the important stories, making a difference in people’s lives, shining light on injustices. That’s what I wanted. I thought that getting out of this town and going to New York would change everything. So no, I never really wanted kids, I guess. I certainly didn’t think I would be saddled with five of them, that’s for sure.”
“And did it? Change everything, that is.”
I shrug, trying to ignore the pangs of regret, the disappointment. “It might have. I was never really given the chance. You have to understand, one minute I was just a student at NYU, studying for classes, partying with friends, just trying to figure herself out on her own. The next I was here, and I was in charge of my brothers and sisters. I lost my mother, my father, hell, my dog. It’s only been a year. I’ve had no time to adjust.”
“I think you have,” he says.
I can’t help but glare at him. “You have no idea,” I snap.
His forehead creases in sympathy. “I know I have no idea. I have some idea, but not to your extent. I just don’t think you see yourself the way that I do, the way that others see you. That you’ve adjusted more to this than you think you have.”
I gnaw on my lip. I want to ask how he sees me, but I don’t have the courage right now. Suddenly I’m his focus. I think I’ve always been his focus but now he’s looking at me like I’m some puzzle he has to get to the bottom of and he won’t stop until he does.
And I should open up to him because he’s a stranger. No, he’s not a stranger anymore, he’s Viktor. He’s not the crown prince of Sweden either, he’s just Viktor. But Viktor leaves in a couple of days.
He leaves in a couple of days.
And I both want to let him in so I feel like someone out there knows me intimately, knows who I am and what I’m made of, and I also want to shut him out because if I let him in, a piece of myself will leave me and I’ll never get it back. I’ll always think back to this and think, there’s a man out there, a prince, and he knows my deepest thoughts and feelings and it might be freeing or it might be the opposite. Giving Viktor my heart might just put me in a cage.
It doesn’t seem fair to have someone get to know you right before you never see them again.
“So, how do you see me?” I whisper.
He stares at me for a few long moments, taking in the different corners and features of my face. In this light, with the sun setting behind him, the gold in his brown hair glows like a halo.
“I see a young girl, a strong girl, who had to give up her dreams and everything she wanted in life in order to do the right thing. I see a woman who made a choice to do the right thing, which was to take care of her family. Her brothers and her sisters who mean the world to her. She decided to step up and be their guardian, the one to protect them, the one to raise them. I see a woman whose strength not only lies in the day to day but in the choice to be there forever.”
I look away from his gaze, feeling like he’s peeling back too many layers and only seeing what he wants to. “I had no choice.”
“Of course you did,” he says. “You had a choice to tell the courts that you weren’t capable of raising your siblings. Legal guardian or not, they would have taken one look at you and seen how young you were, seen your lack of experience and education, maybe even the trauma that you had gone through when you lost them. They would have given them to a state worker or whatever you call them here. But that didn’t happen. That wasn’t even option for you, was it?”
I shrug. “It had to be me. There was no one else.”
“You wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t think you were strong, if you didn’t think you could handle it. You would have quit. But you didn’t, Maggie. That’s strength unlike any I have seen. And, in time, maybe you’ll see it too.”
“I don’t feel strong though,” I tell him. “I just feel like I’m constantly trying.”
“There is great strength in trying. It’s like working a muscle. The more you try to do something, the more you try to do better, the stronger you’ll get.”
A silence falls between us as the last of the sun disappears. Dark blu
e seems to drift down from above.
“I’m only strong because I’ve been lucky so far. I don’t know what’s around the bend, especially with April. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it. I never asked for any of this.”
“I know. But that’s life. Life is about making the best out of what you’ve been given.”
I stare at him, sometimes so lost in the beauty of his face that I forget to see that sadness swimming beneath his eyes. Somehow it seems even more apparent in the dusk. “It sounds like that should apply to you, too.”
He gives me a slow nod and looks away. “You’re good at switching the subject.”
All of our conversations the last couple of days–or at least the questions I’ve lobbied his way–have been quite shallow and safe. They have to be. Something painful and in-depth, Viktor would never agree to that. He’s as guarded to the others back home, the public, his family, as he is to me here.
“You’re good at avoiding the personal questions,” I rally back.
“You’ve never asked me any personal questions.”
“Okay, then I will,” I tell him, adjusting my position to pour myself my second glass of wine. “You had told me on our first date, well, our only date,” he frowns at that, “that you were running away from something. What was that?”
“Is this on the record?”
“Of course not,” I tell him before I have a sip of wine. “This is between you and me.”
“All right,” he says. He turns over so he’s on his side, facing me, his face open. A breeze ruffles a few wisps of hair. He clears his throat deeply. “My brother committed suicide.”
I still, the wine nearly slipping out of my hands. I place it down on the blanket and hold it upright, my grip tight on the stem.
I had no idea this was what he was going to say.
He goes on, voice lower, maybe trying to mask the tremor in it. “He took a bunch of medication our doctor prescribed him. I was the one who found him. Not his guards, not his secretary, not his parents. Me. I found him because I wanted to check up on him. You see,” he trails off, looks off, wrestling with a bitter smile, “he had actually called me a few days before saying he needed to talk to me and I blew him off. I couldn’t even tell you why. Maybe because I was going through a rough patch myself, maybe because Alex was always the strong one, the perfect one. Of course we all knew better. My parents pretend they didn’t know, but they all knew fucking better.”