Page 29 of Below the Shadow of the City
CHAPTER 29
NOVEMBER 30
T hanksgiving came and went.
While the city is already gearing up for another jam-packed season of holiday tourists gawking at the tree in Rockefeller Center and gazing at decorated store windows, my quiet corner of Brooklyn has chaos of its own entirely unrelated to the upcoming holidays.
I’d spent Thanksgiving Day with Matthias, Declan, and Margo. My dad is still not back to his full health and my parents wanted a quiet day for just the two of them. I could hardly fault them for it, I envied that they didn’t have to clean or prep or cook. While I did love them, holidays with them always felt stagnant and sad, even. I would never tell them, but a day spent drunk in Margo’s living room while she shouted orders at Declan was practically idyllic. Save for the lack of one particular body in the mix of the people closest to me.
While watching a replay of the parade, I imagined a massive frame hulking in Margo’s kitchen. I know him well enough by now that he’d insist on helping, and Margo likely wouldn’t refuse. He’s impossible to resist with his cheeky grin, and maybe the pinky-length fangs also inadvertently help him be a tad more persuasive.
Instead, Maddox spent the holiday at his father’s lake house with his sister and extended family. We’d discussed my attendance, but between logistics and him unsure of how his family would react to a human at their family gathering, we decided to have a slower introduction.
In every previous relationship I’d avoided meeting family until I was positive without a shadow of a doubt that we’d be long term. When I think of Maddox, I have a deep sense of longing to be a part of his life. I actually want to be a woven into all of the chaos and camaraderie. And, curiously, I want to see this large gathering of monsters in a fancy lake house.
I’ve talked more with Inez a few times over video and twice in person when she’s come by Maddox’s apartment. She has a regal look about her that intimidated me the first time we met, but was immediately broken when she saw me in person again. She practically squealed with delight at the very sight of me in her brother’s kitchen. Her protective nature was shattered once she’d realized he and I were the real thing. Already she’s gotten my number, my Instagram, and coaxed out my life story. She’s as bold and effervescent as Maddox, and when she asked me to grab lunch, I didn’t run from the opportunity.
Their father, on the other hand, is still much of a mystery to me. I know he talks about me, I’ve been in his apartment while his father has called him. The two have stilted formal conversations as most grown sons have with their father. Among the grunts and one word answers, I’ve heard my name a few times. I assume I come up outside of just the conversations I half overhear, and the thought warms me.
My parents are another story. They have been receiving information in miniscule bits. They’re well aware that I’m dating someone . They have a name, vague details, and the knowledge that he was the one who brought me to the hospital and stocked their fridge. That fact alone will make breaching the conversation about his species easier, though I think they’re both secretly relieved I’m in a relationship with a he this time around.
It hurts that my parents will never fully understand my identity, and that being with Maddox doesn’t erase the fact that I’m attracted to women and others as well. But for now, they let on that they’re happy that I’m happy.
They just don’t know that this particular he is a seven foot tall monster. I’m waiting until my dad’s heart heals more before subjecting him to something as shocking as meeting Maddox. Truthfully, my own heart stops sometimes just looking at him and all of his strangely perfect features.
So much of the dust has settled regarding my relationship with Maddox. I’ve breathed easier knowing that he and Margo have met, and Matthias and Declan are at the very least aware of who Maddox is, and we have a planned dinner party scheduled for the five of us. In kind, Maddox has also planned a similar event with his group of friends and sister.
As our lives have converged, I’ve loosened my grip on preventing such milestones from happening. I’ve allowed things to progress between us rather than forcefully keep us stagnant.
My life still moves in rhythms, just like it always has. Instead of the drilling snare drums that followed me and seemed to march me towards a meaningless existence, it’s now a symphony.
Mondays mean phone calls with Maddox as I commute home, Tuesdays I more often than not find myself at his place. The rest of the week flies by because once Friday hits, I’m his for the weekend. Even together, he and I move in rhythm. There’s a perfect coordination between us, not just sexually, but in everything. I can sense him, almost, when he wants me. And the idea of him wanting me, constantly, has been nothing short of incredible .
That’s not to say the angst has been completely shaken out of me. When he says my name or calls out to me out of the blue there’s still a quick lightning strike of anxiety. When he says, “Sigrid…” I still fear it will be followed up with “I can’t do this anymore” or “you need to leave.” Each time, I brace for the inevitable. And each time, it never comes.
When Maddox coos my name it’s to grab my attention, and it forces me to swivel my head towards his. When he calls out to me from across the room, nine times out of ten it’s to show me something funny he just watched on his phone.
The other one instance? It’s just to kiss me.
When it comes to Maddox and I, I don’t feel the weight of the cursed relationships that came before. And it’s so nice to no longer shoulder that burden of fearing someone is going to leave me. It’s the first time in my life I can remember feeling this…light.
I never got some sickly satisfying revenge against Perrie. And I don’t think that’s actually what I ever wanted. I’d spent months just wanting her to love me again, and when I found a love that was safe and freeing and felt like air, it didn’t matter that Perrie didn’t love me.
It didn’t matter that any of the names before her didn’t either. Because Maddox loves me. And I love Maddox. Perrie never got a redemption arc, either, as villains in those fairytales sometimes do. And honestly? It’s fine that she didn’t. Sometimes bad people are just that, bad people.
None of the bad people matter when you have a really, really good person by your side.
Now, the biggest concern I have is coming up with a final recipe for the cookbook. The doomsday clock on my relationship may have been dismantled, but I still have a massive countdown to missing out on this massive professional opportunity.
I stand at Maddox’s counter, my laptop open with the document thoroughly walking through the baked goods. Next to me is the list Maddox started all those weeks ago, his neat handwriting at the top, with my loopy additions towards the bottom. I tap the pen on the counter over and over, hoping that the striping in the white marble will inspire me.
Maddox had gone out for a run, and I think it was because he could sense how tense I was. I still am, truthfully, even alone in the apartment without him to distract me.
I hear the lock on his door click and I look up from my laptop. He enters, slightly out of breath and damp from sweat. His shirt is stained and is clinging to him. This realm below is temperature controlled, always staying around sixty five degrees. Jackets aren’t required, so he can run in shorts and a t-shirt without any of the late November chill.
“I know the final recipe,” he states firmly as he dabs at his forehead with the hem of his shirt. I’m focused on him intently now, his chest on display. His muscular build is sculpted by the gods. He pops his headphones out and places them on the table, switching the music to play over the Bluetooth speakers in the apartment. Indie rock fills the silence that had hung in the place since he’d left. He told me to put on whatever I wanted but my eyes barely left my laptop screen.
“What’s that?” I hum, half distracted by his presence and half thinking about the challenge at hand. If I didn’t have fewer than 24 hours to conceptualize, test, and write down a recipe, I’d be taking my own shirt off beside him.
“The cookies,” he says with a grin. I don’t have to play dumb and ask what cookies, because I know exactly the ones he’s referring to.
“You just want me to make them for you again,” I jest.
“Not true,” he retorts. “Well…partially true. Think about it Sigrid, these recipes have been sort of a journey for us. It makes sense that it ends with where we began.”
Maddox is incredibly correct. The first recipe I’d written down for this was the “romcom confession” cake. It was the night he offered up his apartment as my test kitchen, and every following recipe has been coinciding with a milestone in our blossoming relationship.
The cookies are more or less a throwaway recipe. Something I could make with my eyes closed and know how they’d turn out every time. The cookies are safe and predictable and a little boring.
“They’re just cookies—” I start, wanting to list all the reasons why they’re hardly noteworthy enough to be considered.
“They’re not just cookies. They’re what made me fall for you in the first place. Selfishly, I don’t know if I want anyone else falling in love with you like I have, but I think those cookies hold magical powers or something.”
“Magic?” I wiggle a brow.
“Sigrid,” he says my name the same way he always does, like it’s a pet name and a prayer. “Not your half-baked ideas of what magic is, I mean something real and tangible. Things like love, and fate, and cookies that make someone fall for you. That’s what magic is.”