Getting up from the table, I went to say my goodbyes. Dad told me he would talk to my mom, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. She was as bullheaded as it came, and once her mind was made up, it was hard to change.
After I was done and grabbed the bag that contained the leftovers, I went back to Xylina, letting her know we could leave.
Xylina didn’t speak the whole way home. Only sound that came from her was her nails tapping against her phone screen.
Once we arrived home and I turned the car off, I stopped Xylina before she could get out.
“We’ve had a good couple of days. Don’t let my mom’s words ruin it.”
Xylina didn’t say anything at first. She faced outside for a long minute before slowly turning to face me. Her eyes dropped then rose to my face.
“Do you have feelings for me, Yosiah?” she questioned. I don’t think I had even seen or heard her be so serious before. “Or do you see this marriage as a sham too?”
My brows furrowed. “I told you earlier that I planned on giving things a fair shot.”
She bit the corner of her bottom lip and dropped her eyes. “You say that, but you didn’t even bother to put on your wedding ring.”
My eyes widened. In the beginning, Xylina made a fuss about me not wearing my ring, but eventually the complaint died out. She wore hers faithfully, even now it blinged brightly on her left hand. I always said the ring didn’t mean anything since the marriage wasn’t meant to last anyway. Since Xylina stopped mentioning it, I figured she didn’t care if I wore it anymore, but maybe that wasn’t the case.
Her eyes told so many things her mouth didn’t.
A toothless, somber smile spread on her lips. “Right,” she said lowly before pulling away from me and stepping out of the car.
My eyes dropped to my left hand once she was in the house, my bare ring finger on full display. My mom’s words got to Xylina, that was clear. I thought about Mama Chelle’s words. Our marriage was spent with Xylina pushing for my attention. Normally she would push, whine, and pout when things didn’t go her way, but tonight it was like a different person was in control of her. Flexing my left hand, I thought of my ring, a simple silver band, upstairs in my room, on my dresser and still in the box. Not much thought was put into it. It felt more like an anchor than anything. Still, I thought it was something that had been put to rest and irrelevant, but it was clear Xylina hadn’t let it go. Before I wouldn’t have cared. I’d brush it off as her upset for not getting her way, but I wasn’t a heartless monster. After our trip and seeing the effort she put in to make me happy, it would be cruel to just disregard her feelings.
I thought about the storm forming in her eyes right before she got out of the car. It was clear that she was upset but refusedto voice anything. It made me curious just what else she wasn’t saying.
Adeep sigh escaped my mouth as I loosened my tie and opened my front door. It had been a long week already and we were only three days in. A few snags happened with some of the equipment we were due to release and it’d been a pain in the ass to get everything fixed.
My brows furrowed and my mouth turned upside down hearing the smoke detector going off mixed with Princess’s barks.
“What the hell!” I muttered, shutting the door and hurrying to the kitchen.
“Damn it! Just shut up!” Xylina shrieked, waving a towel in front of the detector. A hint of smoke caused my eyes to sting and water.
“What’s going on?” I questioned, causing her to jump and turn around. She looked like a deer in headlights. If I wasn’t already annoyed from work, I might have laughed.
“Yosiah!” her voice squeaked.
The alarm caused my growing headache to worsen. Stalking over to her, I lifted my hand, pressing the button to silence the device.
“That’s all I had to do?” She mugged the device as if it had physically harmed her.
“You don’t know how to use a smoke detector?”
She avoided my stare. “I know the basics, or I thought I did. I thought that thing was only supposed to go off when there was a fire.”
Squinting, I gave the kitchen a quick scan. Thankfully it didn’t seem like a fire had actually occurred.
“It’s okay, Princess baby. Daddy turned off the bad noise,” she cooed, making her way to the dog and kneeling to stroke the top of her head.
“If there’s intense smoke, it goes off too. Care to tell me what the hell happened?” The kitchen air was stifling and my eyes continued to sting. I walked over to the patio doors to open them before starting on the windows.
“I was trying to cook dinner but something went wrong.”
Scrunching my face, I looked in the direction of the stove. “You didn’t turn the eye off,” I mentioned going to the stove.
“That’s because I was trying to turn that damn alarm off!”