“All the more reason to get a breather.” She places her coffee cup down and leans in closer. “Look, just tell him you will be out helping me with wife duties to prepare for your own role. You want to be as ready as you can be for when the Divine gives you a chosen husband.” She pulls away, delighted with her scheme.
“That won’t work.”
“Try it.” She grins at me. “But when you do it, you have to pout like this.” She gives me her best puppy-dog look that has me willing to say yes to this bad idea. “See. It will work. It was about to work on you.” I open my mouth to respond. “Don’t even lie! I saw it all in your face! You would cave in, too.”
I shut my mouth and take a gulp of my latte.
Am I really going to try and pull a fast one on Samuel?
How can I really think that will work on him?
* * *
“I just want to be ready for the Divine’s choice when They honor me with my husband,” I remember to give a puppy-like look to Samuel as I lean into him at the dinner table.
He looks me over with a wary eye. “You want to be ready for your... husband?”
His voice sounded puzzled.
Crap. Did he not buy into my puppy-dog look? Did I say it right?
“Yes. Whenever the Divine is ready for me to be honored with him, I want to be the best wife I can be. In all areas.”
I don’t know why I added that last part, but I bite my lips, hoping I didn’t overdo it.
His gaze surveys me, watching me pull and release my bottom lip in between my teeth. His expression softens, then returns to that of a statue.
“I suppose that is fine.”
I smile, jumping into his arms. The dinner plates clink around on the table.
Samuel has been so consumed with his new role as the placeholder of the Divine’s Vessel he hasn’t been home a lot, and he knows I am lonely.
He says the Divine has been speaking to him about new plans and the vision of what Everton will be like once he has full reign of the community. It has been a lot on him these days.
I squeeze him harder.
He lets me embrace him shortly before he pulls me away, concern grazing his face. “And if I hear of Lianne doing anything foolish. It ends right then and there. Got it?”
“Got it.” I salute him, and he chuckles.
“I think your husband would like knowing you want to be the best for him, Eden.”
His eyes gleam as he speaks.
“You think?”
“I know.”
His voice is firm, and the light in his eyes darken.
15
Eden
Lianne and I sing in unison as the stereo of her car blasts Britney Spears’s “Hit Me Baby One More Time” through the speakers. A song Lianne says her birth mother used to play on repeat when she was young.
We made it out of town without a problem. Did I think Samuel was going to change his mind at the last minute? One thousand percent, yes. Did it help me he had interviews for entering Everton and the Divine today? Again, yes. I used it to my advantage.
