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Frenella, ever the doting mother, gave him a beaming smile. “I’ve tried to bring him up well.”
Apollo ducked over to kiss her cheek before taking his place next to me.
“You’ve done a lovely job,” I assured her. “He’s very thoughtful.”For the most part.
“I was thinking it’s about time to have your parents over for another dinner, Harlow,” Archer said to me from behind his newspaper as Frenella asked Apollo something about Valen.
“Oh, yes,” she said, her focus off her son’s best friend in favour of more pleasant topics. “That would be lovely. It’s been too long since we’ve seen Sissy and Rex.”
“Yes,” Archer continued. “It’s about time Rex and I smoothed over some finer details.”
“Not everything’s about business, Archer,” Frenella chided.
Archer bent his newspaper to look at his wife. “Everything is business, Frenella,” he said. “They’re in their final year of school. It’s only a matter of time now. Which reminds me. Apollo?”
“Yes, Dad?”
“We’ll need to meet to discuss your…” Archer spared me a quick glance. Part of me wanted to say it was apologetic, but I knew it wasn’t. “Conditions. I’m sure Rex has been redrafting his weekly since Harlow’s first period.”
I choked on my tea, but no one else seemed bothered about the mention of my menstrual cycle.
Of course, no one needed to consult me regarding my conditions for the marriage. No one cared what I wanted to get out of it or what I wanted full stop. I suppose I had to at least appreciate the fact that, while we were contractually obliged to marry, there had been no time limit set. We weren’t waiting on my eighteenth birthday, or my twenty-first. I suspected, were I to hit twenty-five and there still be no ring in sight, they would have had something to say. But at least that was one less pressure.
“What did you two have planned for today?” Frenella asked, as though to diffuse the situation.
She hated any talk about business, believing what she’d been brought up – told – to believe; that it was the purview of the men locked away in their offices. She couldn’t help being a product of her time or her upbringing, but that didn’t mean I was happy being a product of mine.
“We’ve got a fitting for our Halloween costumes and then we were just going to hang out and watch some movies,” Apollo answered.
Naturally, I hadn’t been aware of any of that, but I’d had worse plans made for me, and worse were still to come.
“Oh, that sounds nice. What are you going as?”
There was a silence and I looked up to find Frenella watching me. Apollo had a cheeky smile in his eyes. One I couldn’t help returning.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “Your son’s keeping it a surprise.”
“It’s going to be good. I promise,” Apollo said.
“Yeah?” I asked. “It better beah-mazing.”
Apollo’s nose wrinkled in humour. “Watch out, your Florence is showing.”
I stuck my tongue out at him and he laughed. As I went back to my breakfast, I saw Frenella watching us with a happy look on her face. She honestly believed we were the perfect couple. Madly in love. Totally devoted. Couldn’t live without each other. The stuff of legends.
I wasn’t looking forward the day she realised it was all bullshit.
† † † †
Late that night, Apollo and I were sitting in the rumpus room watching our fourth movie. I sat curled under his arm, with my head on his chest. I’d been doing the heavy lifting on three packets of cookie dough, and Apollo was doing the heavy lifting on a bottle of scotch. Not exactly the most cultured of pairings, but it worked.
About half way through the movie, Valen stalked into the room and dropped onto an armchair with a weary sigh. There was a new gash at his left eyebrow and he seemed to be favouring his left side. He wore grey tracksuit pants and a white short-sleeve tee that showed where his hair still dripped water from his shower.
“You look like shit,” Apollo chuckled.
“Yeah?” Valen answered icily.
“Yeah. And this is after you showered?”
