Xander wrapped his arms around my waist, put his head on my shoulder and swayed us from side to side slowly as I was finishing the preparation for dinner.

“I love you,” I admitted.

He stopped for a few heartbeats.

“I love you too,” he confessed.

“We’ll do this, we’ll get married, we’ll have this beautiful house, and Eloim will get over all this ordeal, and grow into a strong and capable young man.”

He kissed me on the cheek. “What would I do without you.”

I shrugged.

He took the spoon out of my hand and put it on the counter so that he could spin me around in his arms.

“Eloim is going to be hungry,” I said.

“I’ll help you.”

I kissed him. He kissed me back and the heat built up very rapidly. I gave a quick side glance at Eloim who was at the table, with his headphones on, drawing in his book with all the concentration he could muster, his little tongue tight in between his lips.

Xander used this opportunity to give me a row of kisses from my jaw to my neck and going slowly down. I couldn’t withhold a giggle, which was followed by a sharp pain in the middle me back.

I squealed and pushed myself away from the counter and against Xander. Had I pressed myself against a flame, or a knife?

“What?” asked Xander confused.

I gave a quick look around but saw nothing that could give me an injury and Eloim had heard nothing and was still drawing.

“What happened?” Xander looked worried, probably questioning if he’d hurt me somehow, but the burning sensation was not receding.

I tried to contain a whine of pain. “My back,” was all I managed to say.

Xander turned me around and raised my shirt to take a look.

“Is there something there? Because it hurts like a bitch.”

Xander said nothing for a few seconds.

“Xan?”

“Claw marks,” he said.

“I want to see.”

He took his phone and took a picture of my back, then showed it to me. There were three long lines side-by-side in dark pink with little pearls of red welling up along them.

“I don’t want Eloim to see this. Get my shirt down,” I told him.

He did and I resumed my cooking. Xander put his phone back inside her pocket and looked at me strangely.

“You act like nothing happened,” he told me.

“What do you want me to do, it’s not like I can make it stop.”

He looked at me some more.

“This is not the first time isn’t it?” he asked.

“Never this deep,” I confessed.

“Dammit Mila, I need to know this stuff.”

“To do what, worry?”

“It’s not something for you to carry on your own, we’re doing this together. Hiding information doesn’t make it go away.”

“You can’t protect me from this, Xan.”

I could have stabbed him and I don’t think I would have hurt him as much as I just did and I instantly regretted this.

I put my utensils down and turn around, making sure that my voice was soft enough so that Eloim wouldn’t hear it.

“I’m not accusing you of anything.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“I just don’t want to add to what we have to deal with already.”

“And how exactly do you expect me to make good decisions regarding what is going on if I don’t have all the data?” he asked, equally softly, but it didn’t take the edge out of his voice. He was angry, and my emotions randomly decided that they had been quiet for too long and they needed some fresh air.

I felt water well up in the corner of my eyes and I tried to stop it pointlessly, and turned around as I failed.

“Mila,” said Xander, the edges in his voice smoother now. “Mila.” He turned me around to face him.

“I’m just trying to help,” I said my voice breaking.

“You are,” he said hugging me.

“I don’t want to make things worse. I don’t want Eloim to see this, he’s okay when he sees nothing upsetting if I’m upset all the time it’ll be worse.”

“I know,” he said, moving his hand soothingly over my back.

“I can’t fall apart.”

“I’m here.”

I snaked my arms around his waist and took long inspiration. I just loved his smell, and focused on this instead until I calmed down. It took longer than I wanted, but he stayed there patiently, smoothing my hair out of the way and holding me.

I really needed this.

The thing when you live alone for a while is that you forget what it is to rely on someone or how much strength you can find in a shared burden. I had forgotten.

“I really want to marry you,” I admitted.

It made him laugh. He had a good laugh, booming and jovial, I loved hearing it, there hadn’t been many occasions lately and I missed that.

“I want that too,” he finally admitted.

I looked up at him smiling too. The remnants of tears crusting on my cheeks, but his laugh had changed the mood and I felt a giggling fit about to emerge, and it was hard to suppress.

Stress tends to do that to me.

He kissed my forehead and I wanted to rip his clothes off, but there was a dinner that required my attention and a kid a little too close by.

“Well, handsome sir, you promised to help with the dinner, and you’re going to have to live up to the expectations now.”

He grinned broader. “Handsome, huh?”

“Very,” I said. “I really want to see under all those pesky clothes, but alas, we need to eat.”

He quirked his eyebrows and looked me up and down, very slowly. His eyes said he agreed about my statement about taking off pesky clothes.

It made me squirm a little. So I decided to turn around and focus on food before it became too hard to do.

He pressed himself against my back and there was at least a part of him that had different ideas about what came next.

Then he dropped on his knees and my eyes widened.

“Make sure Eloim doesn’t look our way,” he said.

I slapped his hand away, which made him laugh again.

“You help me now or there will be trouble,” I told him firmly.

“I’m all for trouble.”

“Eloim’s watching.”

He got up, looked at his son, clearly oblivious, and gave me a rebarbative look.

“Food now, sex later,” I said shaking a celery in his face.

He knew as well as me that later might be difficult, but again, we could try for creativity, who knows, maybe it’ll work this time.

He didn’t look happy, but he helped me regardless.