Page 45 of Time After Time

“I got no fucking idea.” The alcohol is working through my system and warming me from the inside. “Then, I thought it was poetic and painful, and that she meant that I was a beautiful house but not a home.”

“Olivia was…isinsecure as hell.” Aksel thumps a hand on my shoulder. “She made your life miserable with her constant need to be fucking adored.”

I groan as I remember, and then groan again because the feeling that’s been tightening in my chest when I’m with Calypso reminds me of how it had been with Olivia.

“Calypso, I thought, made sense,” I explain. “We get along. She’s smart. Well-connected. Fun when she lets herself be. But….”

Aksel leans back, watching me carefully. “But?”

“She wants more than I can give her. Or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe I’m the one who’s holding back. Either way, I don’t know if it’s fair to keep going the way we are.”

He gives me a long look. “You’re not twenty-five anymore, Ransom. You’re not supposed to know exactly what you want, but by now you should know what you don’t.”

“I don’t want drama.”

“That’s a stupid answer, and you know it. No onewants drama. We just have it in our lives, and we deal with it,” Aksel throws back at me.

That’s the thing with good friends, they don’t put up with your bullshit.

“I don’t know how you feel, but I’ll tell you what I see.” Aksel’s voice is quiet but firm. “When you were with Olivia, you were miserable. From the start. That was a toxic fucking relationship. Then after that, you shut yourself off—didn’t get involved emotionally—and you were…fine. Content, maybe.”

He turns to look at me, holding my gaze. “But the only time I’ve seen you genuinely happy about being with a woman—really lit up about it—was a few years ago. We met in New York, remember? You were relaxed, grinning like an idiot. You said you were seeing someone, but that she was younger.”

My heart stops.

“I thought, there,he’s fallen in love,” he adds.

I start breathing again, slowly, though my chest is tight. “I…I wasn’t in love.”

“I’m telling you what I saw. I don’t know what was actually happening in your head. How much younger was she?”

I lick my lips, down thechacha. If Aksel knew it was Ember I was talking about, he’d take the bottle of Georgian moonshine and hammer it on my head.

“Doesn’t matter. It was…it’s in the past.”

“Well, your present is with a woman who I think is…. You are welcome to tell me it’s none of my business, and if you do end up with her, I’ll make it work with her, but I feel you should know what I see.”

I remember when he introduced me to Latika, and I told him that he should put a ring on that and close the deal. I’d never seen him that happy.

But I remember the women before her. Like the one who kept hitting on me, and he didn’t believe me until he saw it for himself. The one who was nasty to all his friends. The one who made him feel like he was constantly failing some invisible test.

I told him the truth and didn’t sugarcoat it. He listened to me…ultimately.

Now, the tables have turned.

“What do you see?” I urge.

He gives me a measured look. “Do you know that Calypso told Mama you’re going to propose soon?”

My jaw falls open.

Aksel tosses up his shoulders. “Mama told everyone. I asked Mama about it today. Calypso announced it when Mama asked how long you’ve been together. I asked her if she may have misunderstood, she told me she wouldn’t dignify that with a response.”

I close my mouth.

The fuck?

She tells Ember that I told her about our affair, and now she’s told Margot that I’m marrying her? Is that what Ember thinks? Is that why she kept saying I was serious about Calypso?