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She nodded. “Yes. And maybe another glass of wine.”
* * *
The ride back home was mostly silent, and as she stared at the side of Joel’s face, she wondered if they were on the precipice of their first argument as an engaged couple.
His voice pierced the silence. “Ayesha, there’s something you should know about me. Something that could cause issues for us, even though I’m working on it. I’m…not that great at communicating.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I’ve never had an issue with you in that department.”
“That’s because in the past, if I walked off and a guy tried to strike up a conversation with you at Trader Joe’s, I could seethe, but I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“How quickly we forget Isaac. Then, let’s see…there’s the salmon guy from Whole Foods. Then there’s the time we went to the beach, and those college guys kept trying to guess my name, and you’d learned all theirs by the end of the week without, if I recall correctly, ever saying a word to them. And the example you used? The guy at Trader Joe’s? Oh, you seethed. You just did it quietly. With your eyes. You burned a hole in that poor guy’s confidence with only your eyes.”
“You said you weren’t interested, and he kept going.”
“You were a foot taller than him, and I’m pretty sure he was only around twenty-four, twenty-five.”
“Which meant he should have known better,” he insisted. “A woman like you deserves a man, not some twenty-four-year-old who nearly got his life cut short because he doesn’t understand the rules of basic boundaries.”
“You guys aren’t right in the head.”
He shrugged. “I know.”
She rolled her eyes, laughing quietly. “Joel, my point is that you might havethoughtyou couldn’t have done anything about it, but that didn’t stop you from doing something about it.”
“Yeah, but you never stopped me.”
“Maybe I like you getting all possessive over me. Maybe I like the fact that you’re not ‘right in the head.’”
He glanced at her. “I swear, keeping men off you is a full-time job.”
“Serves you right for getting involved with a beautiful woman.”
“You’re not wrong there.” He released a quick, deep grunt. “In the least.”
“So, you’re bad at communicating…”
“I keep things in,” he explained. “Especially if I’m upset.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never seen my dad upset.”
“Doesn’t mean he never was.”
“I know.”
“Are you afraid of anger?”
He took a moment to respond. “Only in some cases. When I get upset, especially in a relationship, I see myself from the outside looking in, and I don’t like how it looks. I’m a big guy. You’re a pint-sized human. If I get upset at you, to me, I feel like it’ll make you afraid of me.”
“Tayler’s pint-sized,” she argued. “I’m average height for a woman.”
“Which is roughly a foot shorter than me.”
“Joel,” she eyed him, “why do you see yourself that way? You won’t hurt me.”
“I know.”
