Page 132 of Perfect Satisfaction

She waves her hand as she darts up the back steps.

A few minutes later, I follow after assuring her that I know how to start a fire. Amusement is dripping from my voice when I come upon him in the sunroom, just staring out at nothing. “Gramps! You’re not going to believe this. Sula’s never roasted a marshmallow!”

“There’s a lot I’d believe about her.”

Taken aback, I approach him warily. “Is everything all right?”

“I have never been so disappointed in you.” My grandfather has in his hand the wedding photo I mailed to him not long after Sula and I took our vows in Vegas.

I need to prepare for her surprise, so I don’t even pretend to not understand. “I made the biggest mistake of my life.”

“Do you think I’m not aware of that? You hurt that girl because of what? Pride? What did I teach you about the kind of love you should be so lucky to find?”

Remembering the comforting scent of my grandmother’s perfume in one kitchen growing up and seeing my grandfather’s heartbreak in another, I murmur, “Sleeping with pride isn’t going to keep me warm.”

“How’s your bed been without your Sula in your life?”

“Freezing.” Then I drop all pretenses. “And lonely. God, Gramps. You were right.”

“Then make it right with her.”

“I’m doing everything I can. I wish I had your confidence.”

His arm hooks me around the neck. “You can do anything, Arek.”

That’s when Sula bounds down the stairs asking, “What’s my surprise?”

“Love forgives and helps time forget.” My grandfather lays that wisdom on me before calling out to his now “favorite” grandchild on his way to the kitchen, “I heard a rumor someone has never roasted a marshmallow.”

There’s a moment of silence before I follow him. When I cross the threshold, I’m brought up short by my grandfather holding my tearful wife.

“Tell him what you told me,” I hear him murmur. Before he steps outside to give us privacy, he kisses the top of her head, which barely reaches his chest since she’s not wearing those ridiculous heels.

“Tell me what,” I ask frantically. I move a step toward her, but she backs away. I wonder what could have gone wrong in just a few minutes. “Sula?”

Sula dabs at her eyes with the hem of her shirt. “You made the biggest mistake of your life? Me?”

“No! Sula, what did you overhear?”

She sniffles. “Just enough to hear your grandfather was disappointed in you about me. Then I ran back upstairs before coming back down less quietly.”

I capture her hand and reel her close. “Come here.”

She glares at me. “What if I don’t want to?”

“I need you close when I tell you this.”

She drags her feet so much I’m surprised she doesn’t trip. My lips quirk with tenderness. “Give you a pair of heels and you look like you could squash a bug from a thousand yards. Throw you in a pair of Chucks and you’re all of eighteen again.”

Her cheeks turn beet red. In perfectly precise English, something one of her father’s tutors must have taught her, she clips, “They are called trainers.”

I throw back my head and roar with laughter. I give her the last little bit I thought I could hold back until I knew where her heart was at until Gramps reminded me there’s no place for pride. “God, I love you.”

That’s when she trips—right into the edge of the coffee table. Hopping on one leg, she glares at me. “Ow! Ow!”

Yanking her into my arms, I absorb her pain and her fury as my due. I don’t care if I have to pay for the rest of my life. I’ll do so every day. “I love you, Sula.”

A part of my heart throbs because she doesn’t say it back, even though I know she does. I don’t even need to search deep down to know why: I still haven’t told her the truth about Liza. Despite that, my little bear feels our love so deeply that she’s willing to trust our bonds again.