Finally, the old girl hopped it and moved as quickly as a heifer could move toward her meandering comrades.
Ian and I dropped to the ground right next to the fence and laughed, out of breath from pushing the cantankerous bovine. The lights from our jeep lit us from behind, bathing us in an ethereal glow. He leaned into me, wrapping his hand around the nape of my neck and tugging me toward him, kissing me softly on the lips.
“What a Christmas,” he told me, gazing at me and brushing his thumb across my lower lip.
“Indeed,” I agreed.
“I love you,” he professed, running his fingers through my hair before meeting my nape once more.
Earlier he had undone my braids for me and I never thought I had ever experienced anything as sexy as the way his eyes danced when it fell across my shoulders.
“I love you,” I told him, my hand coming to rest on his forearm at my neck.
His face became serious and I searched his eyes, his furrowed brow.
“Stay with me,” he whispered, the hand that had been resting on my hip moved to meet the other side of my neck.
I swallowed, forcing my gaze downward. I’d had no idea how I was going to answer that because it was a forbidden topic, a forbidden thought. I was scared.
“I don’t know what to say,” I told him truthfully.
“Say you’ll stay. Give it all up, Soph. You have nothing really to go back to, you told me so yourself.”
“Excuse me? I have plenty to go back to,” I said, affronted.
“Yes, but none of it means anything.”
He was right, of course, but I didn’t like how he dismissed my old life so readily. Yeah, I was different since Masego but I could still have a righteous future in the States. But can you leave Ian? Really leave him? How about Mandisa?
I shook my head of the thoughts.
“I don’t have a choice,” I told him.
“You do. Choose me, Soph.”
But with Ian comes responsibility. Could I choose a Masego life for myself? For the rest of my life? Could I commit to it?
I hedged. “I’m due back in court at the completion of my sentence, though.”
“Then I’ll come with you and we’ll come back together,” he said, hugging me to his chest tightly. “It would probably be good to have a Masego rep there anyway.”
I pushed at him slightly. “We don’t have to decide now,” I told him.
He widened the distanced I’d created. “Why are you being so difficult about this?”
“I’m not,” I said. “It’s a really heavy decision, Ian. I want to be careful.”
“What’s to decide?” he asked, incensed. “If the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t hesitate!”
“Of course you wouldn’t! You already live here!”
His hands fell to his side and my skin felt bereft of his warmth. I missed his touch almost immediately. I just stopped myself from grabbing those hands and placing them back. My chest ached from our fight and I didn’t know how to go forward with him. This was such a huge thing. I just wanted him to understand that it was such a huge decision, I needed time to come to terms with it.
“I see,” he said, dejected.
He stood and made his way to the back of the truck to grab his tools. I stood and hesitated reaching for him like my gut was screaming at me to do. Don’t lose him! it nagged. I followed him to the back to help but he had already gotten what he needed and was making his way back to the fence.
I stood next to him holding up the loose plank and the quiet was a heady thing. It weighed on my shoulders like nothing else before, a million pounds of unrequested pressure. Whenever I’d ever been faced with a difficult decision, I ran. Always. I ran as fast as I could and never looked back, constantly distracting myself from making any kind of decision that would alter my life one way or another.