Page 55 of Pretend You're Mine
“As most of you know, I’m Xander, and I live right here in LA, unlike most of my family. The times we do get to see each other are few and far between, so when we do, we try and make the most of it. Tonight is no exception. If you’re here, that means that you’re important to my family and I, so we celebrate you.” I lifted my cup of wine. “Here’s to all of us.”
“To us,” everyone said and drank, then talk started to simmer up again. But I wasn’t finished yet.
“Before I leave off and leave you all to your feasting,” I said. “There’s one more thing I’d like to say. Many of you know my wife Naomi.” I gestured over to her table, again without looking at her. If I looked at her, I might lose my nerve. “What you don’t know, however, is how much I love her. So, this next toast I want to raise to Naomi. Here’s to you, my stunning wife, the woman who makes me the happiest man in the world.”
And then, when the whole room was rumbling with, “To Naomi”, I finally dared look at her.
32
Naomi
Had I just heard Xander right? Had he just told his whole family that he loved me – and had it been real or for show? And what was I going to do about my earlier decision?
The only thing to do was to down my wine in one go. And just like that, Xander materialized beside me, smiling. On my other side, somehow Aunt Edna had hobbled up without me noticing. Shaking her cane, she declared, “Xander told us everything. I’m just sorry he put you through all that nonsense. You poor girl.” She waggled her cane some more. “But I’ll just say this – I like you two together.”
And with a final stab of her finger, she was gone as fast as she had come.
Now, it was just Xander and I, and the insane impossibility that had just happened.
“Are you hungry? I’ll make you a plate,” Xander offered.
I could only shakily nod.
There were still so many questions, and all I had was this wine.
Xander returned with a plate overflowing with enough food to feed me and my family for the next week. As I dug in, he explained everything. How our whole accidental marriage had gone down, and how he’d been determined to keep up appearance. How, in the end, he’d really fallen for me, crazy enough. That was when he came to the part he’d clearly been the most nervous about.
“About the annulment,” he said. “If that’s what you want, I’m all for it. I just want to be with you, whatever way I can have you. If you don’t want to be married, we can just date. Either way, I just want to be with you Naomi. For a very long time.”
How was it, that he was saying the exact words I would’ve dreamed of him saying?
“And I want to be with you not because it’s going to keep my family off my back.” He made a face. “Something tells me that even when I’m dead they won’t be off my back. I want to be with you because I love you. I never thought I’d feel the way you make me feel. It’s crazy and it’s scary, and it’s wonderful all at the same time. I love you Naomi. I really do.”
As he took both my hands, I could only smile dopily at him.
“So?” He said, his grin having a frenetic quality to it.
“So.” I kissed his one hand and then the other. “That sounds good to me.”
Xander practically choked on the cookie had been he’d been tentatively nibbling on. “That sounds good to you? What the hell does that mean?”
Xander was all serious now. Taking my hands up to his chest, he said, “What do you want Naomi?”
The question was laced with intensity, for good reason. This was it, I realized, as the Christmas music jingled, and some people laughed, and my heart pressed up tight against my chest to see what I’d do.
Even though it was obvious what I’d say, what the right answer was.
“I want to be with you too,” I said.
Finally, I’d told him. I’d told him what I’d decided myself before, funny enough; that, for better or for worse, I knew I had to go with my heart – that I wanted to be with him.
“Guess this is the part where we’re supposed to say Merry Christmas,” Xander said, smiling at me as if he’d gotten his present already.
In a way, we both had.
The rest of the party went even better. I wasn’t just Xander’s new companion to his family now, I was family, and they treated me as such. Alliana was nowhere in sight, and the few people I didn’t know from the other engagements came up to introduce themselves. There was Xander’s godmother, Emma, who was a wide woman with a little smile, and a collection of moles on her the right side of her neck, who just about whooped when she met me. There was Mr. Weber, a friend of Xander’s father, who told me in no uncertain terms with his long horse teeth and fish breath, that I was “a keeper”. And then there was Xander’s father himself, who pulled me aside at the end of the meal.
