That's Amore! - Janelle Denison [60]
Efi smiled softly, longing to push a stray lock of his thick dark hair back from where it rested against his brow. "Until it came to me, that is."
He quickly looked at her. "How do you mean?"
"They didn't want you to marry me."
His spine snapped straight. "I never told you that."
"You didn't have to. I figured it out all by my lonesome."
Nick looked hurt.
"Listen, what your parents thought about me way back then is neither here nor there now," she said quietly. "What's important is that when I needed you to back me up, or at least give me the room to speak my piece, you told me to stick a sock in it."
"I did not."
"Essentially, yes, you did."
He deflated again. "Okay, maybe I did."
Efi pulled the robe more tightly around her, feeling suddenly cold. "All this is more complicated than we thought it would be, isn't it?"
He nodded but didn't answer.
"Can I ask you a question, Nick?"
He indicated with his gaze that he was waiting.
"Do you want me to stop working after tomorrow?"
One of those wary expressions kids wore when they'd been asked if they'd washed their hands before dinner crossed his handsome face. "I don't know. Do you want to stop working?"
Efi fought the urge to roll her eyes. "I'm not one of your parents, Nick. There's no wrong way to answer the question."
"Oh, yeah? Then why do I feel like there is?"
"You want me to stop working, don't you?" she asked, surprised.
He turned his head to stare at his hands. "Okay, I admit it—I want to support you. You're going to be my wife and I want to provide for you. For our family."
Efi absorbed his honest answer, a part of her touched by his proclamation. "You know earlier, when I put my wedding dress on, I realized how much I've been looking at this, our marriage, through rose-colored glasses."
He shifted to face her more fully as if something she'd said struck a chord with him. "How so?"
She shrugged and faced him more fully as well. "I don't know. So much energy has gone into planning the wedding, into shopping for dresses, juggling relatives and guests, wrapping boubounieras, going to parties … well, I don't think either of us have much talked about what comes after. I mean beyond the obvious. Yes, we'll have our apartment. But aside from that?"
She'd warmed to her subject, finding a string she thought she could follow until it led to the answers she so desperately needed to find.
"I didn't understand until right this minute that you'd wanted me to stay home."
"Do you want to work?"
She stared at him. "Yes, I want to work. What in the world am I going to do all day at home by myself?"
"Raise our children?"
"Children? What children, Nick? It's not like we're going to start popping them out one after another the day after tomorrow."
"Why not?"
She gasped. "Are you serious? You really want my full-time job to be looking after our kids?" She held a hand up. "And where's the plural coming from? Let's start with one—a few years down the road—and see what develops from there."
He looked confused. "But I thought that's what happened. You get married, you have children and…"
Efi waited.
When it appeared he wasn't going to continue, she asked, "And what, Nick?"
He looked at a loss for words. "What what? I don't know. We go on family vacations to Greece. Buy a house in the suburbs. Go to soccer games…"
"And you have a career."
"No, I work."
Efi squinted at him. "Is that really how you view your job?"
"What, you think I enjoy crunching numbers all day, every day?"
"What, you don't think there's something wrong with spending your life doing something you don't like?"
"I didn't say I didn't like it. I said I don't enjoy it."
Efi shook her head and turned her hands palms up. "I love my job at the shop."
He blinked at her. "Really?"