“But he’s your kind,” he insisted. “Isn’t that better to you?”
“Are you trying to convince me of it?”
“No!” he practically exclaimed, far too loud for someone right next to him. “No,” he said again, quieter now. “I just…I just want whatever is best for you. Whatever makes you happy, and if that’s not me…” He didn’t seem to be able to finish that thought.
“And if it is you?” she asked, finally getting him to look up.
“Is it me?”
“It’s looking like you,” she said and kissed him.
CHAPTER 32
She left his embrace breathless. He was looking down at her lips, licking his as if he still wanted more. She wasn’t quite so sure she was done herself, and she pulled him in for another kiss.
At some point though, the water’s chill was starting to eat away at her and it was either get out of the water and go inside to warm up or start swimming, and since she wasn’t quite ready to part with him, she pulled away instead.
“Like you said, so far you’re the only one who’s done any swimming. Look at these moves!” she cried, twirling into a backstroke.
He spun easily as well and came beside her laughing. “You’re so slow,” he said, his face all tease.
“Oh? How about now?” she said, switching to freestyle, giving it her absolute all.
But he caught up to her just as easily and spun her into a hug. “Aww, my little human, you’re so easy to catch,” he laughed.
“Well, I bet I’m a whole lot faster than you on land,” she grumbled. He had grabbed her from behind and now she hung limp like a grumpy doll.
“Undoubtedly,” he said, “but you are quite graceful.”
“I don’t think you mean that,” she said, spinning around and poking his chest. “Or do you mean to say more graceful than what you were expecting?”
His face said yes, even though he dragged out, “Well.”
She laughed—they both did—and then she put her arms over his shoulders again. “That was a very short swim. If I don’t keep moving, I’m going to get too cold.”
“It’s getting late anyway,” he said. “You should get your rest.Join me for a real swim in the morning.”
“Okay,” she agreed easily. “Kallias?”
“Yeah?”
“I just want you to know. Well, you said, ‘Wouldn’t it be better to be with my kind?’ but I don’t really fit in with ‘my kind’. I’m nothing like what they expect a woman to be. I’m not soft-spoken or demure or gentle or kind—”
“You’re kind,” he interjected.
“Okay,maybe, but not like how these ladies are. They all wear dresses and makeup. They can embroider and play the piano. That’s the kind of wife ‘my kind’ wants. Meanwhile, I haven’t been able to untangle my hair for three weeks and I get woken up to the sound of pebbles by some contraptionIdesigned and I don’t wear a bathing dress—I don’t even have one—and I’d probably break a piano if I so much as looked at one and I don’t wear makeup. I don’t even know how to, and I can only cook five things and…and…”
He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. The act was so tender that any further words died on her lips.
“I like your hair.” It was a single sentence, but the way he said it was like he rejected all the other statements as well, and her heart seemed to swell with what she could only guess was love.
“I’m not trying to say I’m some reject you shouldn’t want,” she murmured. “I guess…maybe I was hoping that it seemed you wanted something different from the men of my kind, that maybe you could accept all my unladylike qualities.”
“Which one of them makes you any less of a lady?” he asked.
He said it in such a way that she could only stammer that she didn’t know.
“Well, they’re fools,” he said. “You’re perfect, hair and pebbles and pants and all.”
