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No one was happier than my mother, and I didn’t have it in me to break her heart.
She'd long been more of a parent to Lino than his father, offering him the affection he'd never had from his own family growing up.
I could still remember the way she used to sneak him pieces of candy when his father wasn't looking, toys that his father would have never let him have. She couldn't afford to buy them, but she did it anyway.
Because no boy should be deprived of the right to be a child, she'd say.
The dynamic should have made Lino more like a brother to me, growing up with my brother as his friend and him adored by my mother, but even their relationship hadn't been enough to curtail the attraction I felt for my poor, deprived Lino.
I treasured every display of affection he'd ever given me, because I still recalled the way he'd recoiled the first time I tried to hug him. Like it was a foreign concept.
Like he'd never just been hugged.
She came over, taking my hands in hers and grinning at me with her cheeks flushed from champagne. "I'm so happy for both of you. I never thought you would get your shit together and just be together. Lord knows everyone else knew you two were in love with each other from the first day you met." She pulled back, turning to Lino and pulling him into a fierce hug. "Why did you make me wait twenty years to see you marry my baby?"
He laughed against the top of her head. "I married her as soon as I could," he answered. "My father—"
"Oh, I could strangle that man. I should. It would be a gift to humanity," she hissed, backing away to cup his cheeks in her hands as she looked up at him. "You're finally officially my son now. No matter what that devil of a man tries to tell you."
Lino's face twisted with the force of her words. I knew my mother was one of the few people in his life who openly showed him how much they loved him, and I also knew that sometimes the force of that love proved too much for the man who had never known the love of a woman or girl before us.
By the time she darted away to talk to Don—who watched us from the corner with amusement—Lino just tilted my face up to his and took a kiss. He’d done it since we said, “I do.” Stealing random moments of affection like he needed the touches to remember that it was real. That it wasn’t a dream. That we wouldn’t wake up and go back to just friends.
But I knew that wasn’t the case, no matter how much I might wish it.
So I guzzled my champagne, watching Ivory laugh in the center of the room with her daughter in her arms and her husband looking over her shoulder to coo at the four-day-old baby that I wanted to hold more than anything.
But her words that I could have one stuck with
me, teasing me. Luna felt like a threat, a reminder of something I would never have, but that would awaken the want inside me.
It was better not to want anything at all.
There was no disappointment that way.
Nineteen
Samara
No matter what someone wanted to say about how unorthodox our relationship may have been, we were familiar with one another, probably more content in each other's presence than some newly married couples. So, we had that going for us.
We’d changed out of our fancy clothes the moment we got home, letting go of all the pretenses and going back to what we knew. There would be no romantic honeymoon for the two of us, or even a night of lovemaking.
"What are you thinking about?" Lino whispered, curled up on the couch next to me as I read on my kindle. His laptop sat on his legs where I would have loved my head to be, and he paused his typing to watch me.
"What if we fuck this up? I don't want to lose you," I whispered, voicing my fears I had for our future. Everything was uncertain, and I felt like with Lino and I's relationship shaken there was no longer a rock for me to cling to. Everything had changed, in a way I knew it would never be the same.
"You will not lose me. You're my wife."
"That doesn't mean things won't change. It doesn't mean that we won't resent each other for making this decision so suddenly. We both know I will resent you for the way you threatened me into it. Things are already changing," I sighed, setting my kindle on the coffee table when he moved his laptop there and shifted to lean over me.
"You'll forgive me," he repeated his words from earlier. The way he stared down at me as he lifted my chin to touch his lips to mine gently felt like he was trying to sear something into my soul. Branding me, imprinting me with something I didn't understand. "You won't have a choice. I'll spend my life wearing you down until you accept that I did what needed to be done for both of us in the long run."
"There is absolutely no benefit to you. I don't understand why you did this. What do you gain from marrying me?" I whispered. "I'm just me, Lino. Just, promise me that if you're seeing or sleeping with someone outside this marriage, we'll always be honest with each other about it? I understand this isn't a normal relationship, and we might need to adapt to suit—"
"No," Lino hissed. His lips tensed into a frown. "There is no one else for either of us. You're my wife. I'll not dishonor you by having affairs, and I expect the same in return."
I sighed. “I can't compete with the variety you're used to and the women who own their sexuality. I have open wounds and scars, and no one has touched me since he—" I broke off, not able to admit the truth again. It seemed that once was my threshold.
