Possibility of the Future

Chapter Four

Unedited.

“You—amaze me.” 

I smiled and rested my chin on his shoulder, biting my lip so I wouldn’t laugh.  “Hmm,” was all I said.

He pulled back and cupped my face, his green eyes searching mine. “It’s true; ever since the first time I saw you. At the Tavern. You were so unlike anything or anyone I’d ever seen before.”

The reminder of when we first met sobered me up a little. “That was a long time ago. People change.”

I knew where this was going and I hoped he wouldn’t. As amazing as it was to let go of the tight grip we both had on our control, what was coming next would ruin it. It always did.

“No they don’t. Not really. You may act like a tough, cold fish to everyone else but you can’t fool me.”

And for that, I was grateful. “Never could, could I?”

He kissed me, deeply, putting more meaning and feeling into it than he had in a long time. “Marry me,” he whispered.

And there it was, what I was dreading. He’d asked me so many times and every time I’d turned him down. After the first rejection, it amazed me that he would try again. He kept asking and I never understood why. Over the years, the extravagance diminished and I had to watch as the hope slowly died in his eyes each time he said the words.

I looked at him now, those green eyes reading everything about me, and I knew I wanted to say yes. This could very well be my “different” and unlike the several times before this one, there was a spark of hope in his eyes. It was small, just a glimmer of the the full blare it used to be. I didn’t want to kill it; I didn’t want to have to push him away anymore.

“Gregori…”

“You’re the leader now, Geo,” he said simply, insistently. “You can do what you want. Marry me.”

“I’m not the leader yet,” I whispered. “I’m just the successor.”

“Until Friday. And then you will be the pinnacle of the pyramid that is Sword & Arrow. Everyone here respects you, most of them already know about us. Marry me, Geo. Please.”

I searched his face and suddenly I could feel the coldness of a necklace against my chest, hidden away by my shirt. I still wore them, all of them: Sophie’s owl and Aidan’s flying hawk. Michael’s tag. They were reminders of the past I swore I wouldn’t repeat. I’d wanted to move forward, that’s why I’d taken the position in New York. But I could never bring myself to take them off. Most of the time I forgot they were there…

“I love you. And I don’t care about what happened before you came here,” he said almost as if he was reading my mind. “Marry me now.”

I wasn’t the only one carrying the weight of my past. Despite it all, he did love me, regardless of all the rules we’d put in place to prevent it. I couldn’t say yes, there were so many reasons why; one of them being a promise I’d made a long time ago. “I can’t.”

And there it was. I watched him close down, shuttering the emotion in his eyes before he closed them. “Why?”

I always felt horrible and I felt as the flicker of happiness I’d grabbed a hold of only moments before slipped out of my fingers. This would be the last time he asked, I sensed it.

“You know why. We talked about this when we first started. I can’t marry you for the same reason I asked you not to fall in love with me. It has nothing to do with becoming leader or you having been my mentor. March is only a few months away and I’ll not make you a newlywed then a widower in one season.”