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“I would be, too,” Ilarion says. “If we have a girl—no beauty pageants.”
I feel a tingle when he says that.If we have a girl…
And just like that, I picture the two of us with a baby girl. A cooing little thing swallowed up in Ilarion’s arms. A daddy’s girl. An angel.
“Is it my turn?” Ilarion asks.
“Huh? Oh, right. Yeah. Shoot.”
“I earned my pilot’s license three years ago. I was thrown off a horse when I was sixteen. I watchedTitanicand shed a tear. Just one.”
I clasp my hands together and offer up a prayer to the heavens above. “God, please let it be theTitanicone.” I glance at him out of the side of my eye. “But even I’m not actually that hopeful. What kind of horse was it?”
“None,” he says, straight-faced. “I hate horses. I hate planes, too, actually.”
My jaw drops. “You’re not—You can’t be—No fucking way. There is no fucking way you cried at a movie.”
Ilarion chuckles. “Mila forced me. I got surprisingly emotionally invested.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Would you judge me if I said that I was a full-grown adult?”
“Yes.”
“Then no, I wasn’t.”
I giggle, and instinctively, I reach out and take his hand. His eyes betray the unfamiliarity of the gesture, but he doesn’t let go.
“Again,” I say with renewed excitement. “So we can find out what other movies have made you bawl like a little girl. Here are my three. I almost became a child actor. I dropped out of college. I’m a self-taught guitarist.”
“If your father hated making your sister a beauty queen, I can’t imagine he would’ve liked you ending up on a casting couch.”
“Yeah,” I say, suddenly crestfallen. “Not his favorite plan. There was an agent who thought I had some spark, but…yeah. Dad said no.”
Ilarion frowns. “I get the feeling that he wasn’t really into exposing you two.”
I nod in agreement. “He was always an intensely private person. It got worse with age,” I explain. “You can give it one more shot, if you want.”
“Has to be the guitar one, then.”
I smile. “Correct. Dad signed me up for lessons, but I hated the teacher so much that I used to snip the guitar strings when he wasn’t looking so the lesson had to end early.”
“Why didn’t you just tell him no?” he asks. “Why are you so afraid to ask for what you want?”
I stiffen and rub my arms against the suddenly invasive chill. “They’re my parents,” I offer up weakly. “I felt like I owed it to them.”
“Because they fucked once upon a time and produced you?”
“Thanks for that image; it’ll haunt me to my grave.” I shiver again. “I guess what it comes down to is…I love them so much, I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make them happy.”
“At the expense of your own happiness?”
When he says it like that, I feel like a fool. But then, everything always seems simple when you let him tell it. The world in Ilarion’s eyes is black and white. You love what you love. You kill what you kill. You take what you want. You leave behind what you don’t.
“It seemed worth it at the time,” I mutter. I sigh deeply and add, “It feels good though…to admit what you want. You taught me that.”
“Now, maybe you should startdoingwhat you want,” he suggests with a gentle nudge to my side. “It could make a world of difference.”
