bag beside me. He cleared his throat. “Look, I’m really sorry about earlier. We really did intend to go shopping up at Polaris, but in the car I started talking to the Warlock about how bummed I was about Smoky dying and he said he wanted to cheer me up and before I knew it we were at Hooters—”
“You guys went to Hooters? What, were all the strip clubs closed or something?”
“They have pretty good chicken wings there.”
“Breasts, too, I’ve heard.” My tone was brittle as ice.
He held up his hands. “Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking, and things went from dumb to stupid. I’m sorry I made you mad.”
“I was already pretty mad. You just made it worse.”
He gave me comically sad puppy dog eyes. “Forgive me?”
I sighed. “I suppose I have to, seeing as you made me the most kick-ass burgers I’ve had in over a year.”
“Hug?”
I gave him a hug, and he held me close. I could feel an odd tension vibrating in his body.
“You know I love you, right?” he said.
“Yeah?” I replied slowly. He never asked that. First the baby talk, and now this … what the heck was going on with him? I knew spending time in a hell was bound to change a man, but I never expected it would make Cooper want to start talking about our Relationship, capital R. I worried about where this was going.
He took a deep breath. “You don’t feel that I’ve been taking advantage of you, do you? Sexually, I mean?”
I sat up and stared at him. “No, why do you think I would think that?”
“It’s just … well.” He rubbed his face. “We’ve been together almost five years now, and …”
“And?” I prompted.
“I mean, your—Some people would think we should have gotten married by now. But you don’t want that, right? I guess we haven’t really talked about it.”
True enough; we hadn’t ever discussed marriage as far as I could remember. Not that I’d really cared one way or the other. I was never one of those girls who dreamed about being a bride in a fancy white dress. The only wedding I’d ever attended was my stepfather’s, and that little soiree left me with a lasting impression of needless stress, unpleasantness, and expense. Until that weekend, Cooper and I hadn’t had any family to stand up in front of and declare our love to, and none of our Talented friends seemed to view weddings as anything other than an excuse for a party.
As far as I was concerned, being in a committed relationship was being in a committed relationship, whether a priest and a ring and a piece of paper were involved or not. And if you needed a religious contract and the symbolic equivalent of a shackle to keep you from stepping out, well, how committed could you have really been in the first place? I’d always figured that a decent person does the right thing because it’s the right thing, not because he’s expecting some kind of cookie in the afterlife.
“I guess I kind of thought we more or less already are married,” I replied. “I love you, you love me … how would our lives be any different after a formal wedding ceremony?”
“Things would be a lot different,” Cooper replied, that odd strain coming back into his voice.
“How?” I wondered what he was getting at. Had my outburst at dinner and the fire and my not being all gung ho about having a baby with him given him second thoughts about being with me? Was he finding the scars on my face repulsive? Dammit, I’d gotten those scars rescuing him. My stomach began to clench. “Wait, is this your subtle way of saying you want to break up with me?”
“No!” Cooper looked alarmed. “No, no, that’s not it at all.”
He paused, his expression smoothing into a look of mild worry. “I just … I just want you to be happy.”
“I am happy,” I said. “I’m happy I got you back and that we’re both in more or less one piece.”
“Okay,” he said, seeming to relax a little more. “I’m glad.” Then he grinned. “Wanna go make brownies and play Halo?”
chapter
ten
Faery
The next morning I got Mother Karen to try another healing poultice on my face. I sat in the rec room watching cartoons with the littler kids for close to an hour with a wet tea towel over a clammy green mudpack that stank like someone had slathered Vicks VapoRub all over a