SEVEN MONTHS LATER
As I park my car, I look up at the house that Marco gave me the address to.
Squinting, I try to figure out if I can make out a name on the post box.
I can't because there isn't a name on the post box because there isn't a post box at all.
"Marco, what the hell have you brought me into?" I ask, under my breath.
In the past seven months where Marco and I have been dating, he has managed to get me into the stickiest of situations.
He made me try a pickle with Nutella just so that I can break the ice with Jesse, despite my telling him that Jesse and I get along just fine.
He's pushed me into the pool at his house no fewer than three times in the past ten months.
I have now perfected the art of standing far away from the edge of the pool.
It doesn't help, though.
He just carries me and throws me in now.
So, I've taken to wearing mostly water-friendly clothes and absolutely no suede shoes whenever we might be near a pool.
He's tried to bring the scariest movies he can find to watch with me and gets increasingly amused whenever I laugh at the jump scares, but still promises that one day, he will find one that genuinely frightens me. I think he's made it his life's mission to scare me now.
Whenever I send him infuriated texts during the day about a grumpy old, white man telling me what to do, he shows up at my office with a stock of supplies for the most imaginative recipes of dough and we make bread together.
I can't even count the number of drawings of buildings and bridges that I've been gifted, all because he gets the idea because of something I say or do. He gets this strange look in his eyes and looks at me the way cartoon characters look at each other when they're really hungry and see the other as a juicy steak. Then, he kisses my forehead and rushes off gleefully to find his drawing book and sketches saying, "I've got it, Bonnie. I've got it". When he's done, he shows it to me with the enthusiasm of a three-year-old showing their mother the drawings they did on the wall.
All those sketches adorn the walls of my office room.
He even bought me my own blow-up ball to roll around the lake in.
He even made a point to kiss me in front of his mother once and then had the audacity to say, "Hey, Mom. Remember when you walked in on this once?"
Suffice to say that the only reason I didn't annihilate him on the spot is because his Mom gave him a motherly look and she seems to be awfully fond of him.
God only knows why.
I certainly am not.
Fond of him.
At all.
His life is hanging on by a thread as far as I am concerned.
He's currently walking down the cobblestone path from the house towards me, waving frantically like he hasn't seen me in fifteen years, despite the fact that he was on the phone with me not five minutes ago, practically screeching for me to get here soon so that we can start having fun.
He sounded like an absolute five-year-old with a dollhouse that could fit your pet cat.
He's beckoning to me.
I can hear him from the other side of the street, from inside my car.
"Isa, come on! Before all the cookies are gone!"
I get out of my car and lock it, before looking both ways on the street before I jaywalk. "What are we doing here, Marco?" I ask, approaching him.
Marco takes my hand in his. "Come on. Just know that you'll get a cookie."
"Alright," I drawl, letting him lead me up the cobblestone path to the house, "But if there aren't any cookies in there, they're going to be dragging the lake for your body in the morning."
Marco turns and smiles at me. "Always so graphic." He shakes his head before kissing my cheek.
As soon as he opens the door to let me walk in, I'm hit by the scent of freshly baked cookies. With my eyes closed, I inhale deeply.
When I open them, I see that Marco and I aren't the only people in the house. There are dozens of other people milling about and almost all of them seem to have a cookie.
I lean into him, looking at all of them. "What kind of weird ass cookie factory is this?"
"You'll see," he says, cryptically, ushering me inside the house, towards what seems to be an open-plan kitchen.
There, on the kitchen counter, are business cards of a realtor.
She's speaking to everyone in the kitchen about how the fittings are all Italian, durable and beautifully match the aesthetic of the kitchen.
I look at Marco. "You brought me to an open house?" I whisper to him.
Leaning over the counter, Marco grabs two cookies from a plate and hands one to me. "You'll have to find another time to kill me."
"Why are we at an open house?" I ask, taking a bite of my cookie, "I know you didn't design this place."
Marco shakes his head. "I didn't."
He's not looking at me.
He's pretending to be very interested in what the lady is saying about the built-in refrigerator.
"Marco," I hiss.
Putting an arm around my waist, Marco pulls me over to a corner. He's beaming.
"Remember how you told me that you love looking at old French castles online?" he asks.
I nod. "Online castle window shopping, yeah."
"Well, since you told me that you don't really have time to take a trip to Europe to see those castles in person, I thought that we might as well do some real-life house window shopping."
I feel myself smiling. "So, our date night is an open house."
Marco waves a finger. "Aha! No. There's more than one open house."
I laugh. "Marco, have you forgotten something? We already have a house. Remember? We moved in about a month ago? You designed it? It's beautiful? You have a drawing room and I have an office room? There's an at-home theatre where you try to scare me with different horror movies? We even had our friends over for a movie night? We christened every single room in the house the first week we moved in? There's a mailbox on the front lawn that says 'Bonnie and Clyde'? Is this ringing any bells?"
Putting his arms around my shoulder, Marco guides me back towards the more crowded parts of the house. "Yes, I love our home, Isa. But this is fun. We get to pretend!"
He's gleeful.
His voice is gleeful.
His black eyes are shining.
Gleefully.
Whenever his eyes shine gleefully, I know that I'm in for a ride.
He's walking over to the realtor, who is standing near a dome-shaped archway.
Oh, God.
"Excuse me, Ms. Francis?" he says, in his most polite tone. I'm almost convinced that he actually wants to buy this house. The lady turns to him and smiles. "I was wondering, how soundproof are these walls?"
Oh, dear God.
Ms. Francis slowly slants her head to a side and looks back at Marco. In all her years of being a realtor, I'm sure no one has asked her that question; especially when buying a quaint house in a cul-de-sac. "Oh, well, you have absolute privacy."
Marco nods. "Oh, that's great." Taking me by the hand, he pulls me over to him. "Because we can get really loud, if you know what I mean." He laughs, casually, in a way that makes you want to laugh with him.
Oh, they're definitely dragging the lake for his body tomorrow.
This woman actually laughs back.
The audacity.
Reaching out, I run my hand down a wall. "And exactly how dart-board-like are these walls?" I ask.
She looks confused.
I explain. "Well, you see, Ms. Francis, sometimes, in our house, we like to throw things. Knives, hammers, daggers." She looks increasingly horrified. "Oh, nothing terrible, really. We're training for the circus."
Marco snorts, but conceals it with a cough.
"Since we're on the subject of surfaces," Marco adds, tapping his foot against the tile, "These tiles? Do liquid stains come off it easily? Paint, sauces, blood? The only reason I'm asking is because my lovely wife here" – he pulls me closer by the waist and places a kiss on my cheek before looking at me lovingly, really laying it on thick – "Has the notion that she's somewhat of a ... what do you call it, darling? Oh yes, Satanic sympathizer."
Ms. Francis lets out the noise of a strangled seal.
Marco turns back to face her. "And you know what we spouses must do for love." He's smiling so convincingly that I can tell Ms. Francis doesn't know whether she should aw or call the cops.
Marco has his arm firmly around my waist.
As I wait for Ms. Francis to give him a response, I reach up and kiss his gently at the tip of his shark cheekbone.
It makes him turn away from our speechless realtor and look at me.
When he does, his smile changes.
It's not the pretend innocent one anymore.
It's the one I see him use only for me.
One corner of his mouth lifted more than the other as he scans every part of my face before settling on my eyes.
He pulls me a little closer and kisses me.
"And kids," he says, once he releases my lips, "How many kids can we fit into this house?"
He knocks against the wall closest to him. "We need space for lots of kids, don't we, dear?"
I hold him a little closer. "Oh, yeah, Ms. Francis. With all that practice, we want to start our own circus and how better than to do it with your own flesh and blood, eh? We've planned to name our kids after vegetables, Ms. Francis. I think it's quite unique. Baby Pumpkin, baby Celery. We still can't decidedly say whether Tomato is a vegetable or not."
I look at Marco.
"It's obviously a fruit, darling," Marco says, "Don't you agree, Ms. Francis?"
Ms. Francis lets out another strangled noise.
"Wait, does this house have a pool, Ms. Francis?" Marco asks, inquisitively.
She shakes her head, dumbfounded.
"Oh, shucks." Marco actually looks crestfallen. "That simply won't do, Ms. Francis. My beautiful wife and I just need a pool. I love throwing this one in the pool. And not to forget all the sex pool parties we have."
"Se – se – se –"
"That's right, Ms. Francis," Marco nods, "On the seventeenth of every month. How did you know? You must join us for our next one. But I can see that this house just won't work for us. So, we'll be leaving. I'll hold on to your card and send you an invite for our next" – as Marco leads me towards the door, he winks exaggeratedly at her – "party."
Once we're outside, behind a closed door, Marco pulls me in close and whispers in my ear. "Don't you dare laugh until we get to the car. She needs to know that we're legit."
It's too late.
I'm already in tears.
I can barely walk.
Marco has to practically carry me towards the car.
"Where the hell did you come up with all that?" I ask, wiping my eyes.
"Me?" Marco asks, taking the car keys out of my bag, "Where did you get all the circus stuff? Is there something you're not telling me?"
He unlocks the car, but I stand there, blocking the way for him to open the door for me. I turn to him and run my fingers down his lapel before pulling him towards me for a kiss. "This was so much fun," I tell him, "How did you think of this?"
"Remember our first date?" Marco asks.
I nod. "Yeah, you set up a dinner for me on Ace's rooftop and then, made me watch the stars with you while we ate, I think, an entire cake."
"Good times," he says, "Well, I wanted it to be fun like that, but different."
"I love you, Marco."
Marco smiles the way he always does when I tell him that I love him. "I love you, Isabella."
He gazes at me for a while. "Come on, let's get going. There are three more open houses that we need to get to and a million more stories we need to invent."
We both climb into the car and Marco drives in the direction of the next house.
"I don't know why you're lying about our marital status," I tell him.
Marco looks at me confused.
"You told her that I was your wife."
Marco only shrugs. "What can I say, Isa? One day, you'll be my wife, and you'll be planning satanic rituals in the middle of our living room that I so lovingly curated for us."
I slug him on the shoulder. "Those satanic rituals will be for your doom."
"Ah," Marco puts his free hand over his heart, "The love of your wife. There isn't anything like it."
"You're ridiculous." I shake my head at him.
"I know," he grins.
He pulls up and puts the car in park.
He looks out through my window at the house we're parked outside of.
There's a For-Sale sign in the yard.
I look back at him.
He's smiling.
Gleefully.
"Ready to do that again, my wonderful wife?"
"This time, I'm telling the realtor that I want a soundproof basement without any windows."
I know that the title might have gotten you excited, but not yet you guys. ;)
I wanted to showcase what Isa and Marco are like in their relationship. I hope you enjoyed this surprise chapter and the little details of what they're like together.
I will be back with the epilogue soon.
With regards to Elliot's story, I have an idea for a slightly different approach to what I've done in this series so far and portray various part of a relationship. I hope you guys will like that. Have you guys found the title of it yet? I have it up somewhere. Let me know if you find it. ;)
Compliments of the season to everyone and I hope you all have a wonderful 2021!
Much love!
Stay safe!