Page 92 of Fragile Beings
He heard a voice on the other side of the door, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her face. Something pulled tight in his chest when he asked, “What will our anniversary be? The day you summoned me?”
Her eyes moved back and forth across his face as if she were searching for something. “I’m not sure,” she answered, suddenly quiet. Watchful. “Having an anniversary usually means you’re together for years, Cal. It’s a… well, it’s a sort of celebration of permanence.”
That tight band across his heart pulled even tighter. Right, he thought bitterly, and I set a fucking time limit on our relationship.
Cal opened his mouth to inform her he had no intention of letting her go even after she finished the damn book, to tell her he wanted this kind of life with her, to say how desperately he wanted her, but he didn’t get the chance. The front door swung open, forcing him to swallow the raw emotion bubbling up his throat.
Elise’s parents were not what he expected. Her father was a small, compact man with thick glasses and a dense, salt and pepper mustache. He wore a flannel shirt tucked into wrinkled khakis and had what appeared to be permanent frown lines etched into his forehead.
Her mother was taller than her father. Willowy, with the same athletic frame as her daughter, she had a long, kind face and a cap of short, silvery curls. He could feel the magic radiating off of her almost immediately. It was a stormy, chilly sort of power that he knew well.
Both, he noted, had a small, long-healed sigil burned between their brows.
“Oh, goodness gracious, baby,” her mother exclaimed, laughing nervously. “You didn’t tell me you were bringing a supermodel home for dinner! I would have put on something other than my old jeans.”
Cal glanced down at Elise to find her cheeks flushing a familiar dark red. “Mom, Dad, this is Cal. Cal, these are my parents, Bob and Rachel.”
He didn’t know what to do, so Cal defaulted to his usual habit of keeping quiet. Squeezing Elise’s hand, he gave them both a small nod.
After a moment of awkward silence, Bob put his hands on his hips and barked, “Quiet one! Gonna have to find that voice if you want to be Elise’s boyfriend, kid. She needs someone with a spine!”
Elise and her mother wore identical expressions of mortification. “Dad, please do not—”
“I am not her boyfriend,” Cal calmly explained. He didn’t like talking to people, but in this he wanted there to be no confusion or room for doubt. Holding eye contact with her father, he announced, “I am her mate.”
* * *
“You’re going to tell me why you didn’t mention that you’d found a mate in the most strikingly attractive man on the planet soon, right?”
Elise was impressed by her mother’s restraint. She’d held her tongue all throughout the awkward, pre-dinner smalltalk phase and even through dinner itself. Only now that she stood alone in the kitchen, packing the leftover cake her father shouldn’t have into a to-go container did her mother pounce.
“It’s complicated, Mom.” Knowing that wouldn’t satisfy her — or anyone, really — Elise snapped the lid on the container and added, “We just met a few weeks ago. Things are new.”
Her mother leaned her hip against the old kitchen island and crossed her arms, her expression skeptical. “Uh-huh. Is that why that elemental looks like he’ll die if he doesn’t touch you every five minutes? Seems like he’s pretty certain about things.”
“Well, yeah. I’m his first relationship.”
Elise kept her eyes down, afraid that if her mother looked too closely, she would see how well and truly fucked her daughter’s heart was. No, she didn’t intend to just give Cal up, but he also hadn’t said anything about the future beyond the book she was supposed to be writing. If he wanted to stick around, he would have said something. Cal was always direct, which was why she was having this conversation with her mother in the first place.
He said ‘I’m her mate’, but with him that could mean anything. She didn’t know if elementals had permanent, monogamous relationships or if Cal even truly wanted one. She did her best to push the thought of him leaving her aside, but it was getting harder and harder to do so. Perhaps that was the real reason she hadn’t yet made it clear that their deal meant nothing to her. Without it, she would be forced to face the truth: Cal might not actually want to stay.
Her mother’s warm hand slid down her back. Dropping a kiss to the crown of Elise’s head, she said, “I don’t think that means as much as you probably think it does, sweetheart.”
Tears threatened, but Elise stubbornly refused to let them fall. If she started crying out her heartache and worry now, her mother would never let her leave the house.
Instead of weeping like she was sixteen and just got stood up on homecoming night by Daniel fucking Kerber again, she leaned into her mother’s embrace with a grateful hum. “We’ll figure it out,” she promised them both.
“I’m sure you will.” Her mother straightened and brushed the hair out of Elise’s eyes. “Well, if it makes any difference, I like him. A little grim, maybe, but I think that’s good for you. It’ll keep you out of too much trouble.”
Elise let out a watery laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never get into trouble.”
“Uh-huh. And that’s how you’ve ended up with a mysterious, brooding elemental for a boyfriend, right?”
She winced. “Fair enough.”
Goddess help her if her mother ever found out what she’d done to get Cal’s attention in the first place. They had agreed it was best for this first meeting to go without the explanation of who exactly Cal was, but the moment the truth came out, Elise was certain her mother would put the pieces together.
Smiling her wide, beautiful smile, her mother gave her back another gentle rub before shooing her out of the kitchen. “You should go rescue him from your dad’s lecturing by offering him a tour of the annex.”
