Limits (12 page)

“No, not really. Looks fun, but I’ve never tried. I love the ocean, though.” I force myself to let go of the knife, steady my voice. Chill the hell out.

“Never surfed?” Cohen asks. His voice comes out a little choked as he shakes his head, this time rolling his eyes at Deo before he and Enzo share a look that clearly communicates,
Where the hell did Genevieve pick this loser up?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.  My plan was to win them all over. We should have just eloped like Genevieve wanted.

“Ignore them,” Genevieve says, shooting her brothers and Deo disapproving looks. “Cohen acts like he was born on a board, but he only started surfing a few years ago. And while Deo and Enzo were becoming pro beach bums, you were on your way to becoming an amazing scientist. But if you want to learn, I’d love to teach you someday, baby,” Genevieve purrs next to me. “Trust me, if you go out with me for one day, I’ll teach you everything you need to know. Promise.” 

I have to do a double take when I hear her voice, tinged with tease. She rubs her hand up and down my arm, and I can’t help but wish it was more than an act for her family—that it was a reflection of how she feels about me, instead of a detail in a ruse to trick them into believing we’re insanely in love and committed to each other.

When I look up from her eyes, it’s obvious the tone caught more than my attention. There are several sets of eyebrows raised, and all attention is now zeroed in on Genevieve and me.

“So, how long has all of this been going on?” Lydia asks, motioning between Genevieve and me with her unused butter knife.

“Adam and I have been seeing each other for a while now. We just kept it quiet until it got...serious,” Genevieve says. She tips her chin up with a bit of defiance. 

“How serious?” Cohen meets my eyes with a steely, predatory glare that’s probably punched into your genetic coding when you’re an older brother. He’s looking right at me, directly challenging my place by Genevieve’s side. I have to be the one to answer.

“Serious enough that we’ve decided to take things a step further,” I announce. Genevieve’s hand flounders under the table, finding mine and squeezing so hard, she cracks my knuckles.

I realize then that her fingers are bare. She has no engagement ring.

I should have stopped at the pawn shop. I have a microscope that I could have traded for a couple hundred dollars at least. Damn it.

“Holy balls!” Genevieve’s quieter sister finally joins the conversation. Her grin is disarmingly similar to Lydia’s, but Cece seems to smile because she’s genuinely happy. Funny how much prettier a real smile is. “Are you guys moving in together?”

“Cece!” Genevieve's mom cries, clearly horrified. The smile droops slightly, then morphs into more of a shit-eating grin. I definitely like Cece.

“Not exactly,” Gen says, smoothing her napkin on her lap. “So, Adam and I are...we’re crazy about each other. I mean, we spend every second together—”

“You do?” Cohen asks, drawing the words out and leaning back like he’s running an interrogation. “When?”

Genevieve cuts her eyes to her brother and scowls.

“We have so much fun, and we’re just...we’re really good for each other.” She looks over at me, begging me to back up her weak case. I want to. I do, but I have no idea what I can say that won’t make at least one Rodriguez look at me with dark hatred.

“What are you trying to say, Genevieve?” her father asks, his tone making it clear he wants us to get to the point.

This was a really fucking bad idea.

Genevieve reaches under the table and squeezes my hand.

Man up, Abramowitz.

“I’ve asked Genevieve to marry me,” I blurt out.

Her hand goes slack on my leg. Her face is tight with pure shock. She knew today was the day, that it was going to be said at some point, but I don’t think this was how she envisioned it.

Deo snorts.

Cece does a half-choke thing on her mouthful of food.

Cohen glares at me, his nostrils flaring like a gored bull’s.

Maren smacks his arm and whispers frantically in his ear.

Enzo shakes his head with disgust and looks like he wants to spit in my face.

Lydia crosses her arms and glances at her sister’s hands, twisting on the table. Her smile is pure triumph.

Gen’s parents are stone cold silent, staring from Genevieve to me and back again.

“Do you even have a ring?” Lydia finally asks, pointing to Genevieve’s hands.

I can’t believe I didn’t buy her a ring.

Why didn’t that detail occur to either one of us before this?

Oh, probably because this entire thing is a farce we threw together half on a dare. This is a mockery of marriage. Especially of marriages like the
Rodriguezes’ here, that have stood the test of time and produced this huge, intricate family.
              What are we doing?

I can’t let Genevieve do this. This family? Genevieve deserves her own just like it, based on love, founded on mutual desire to do all this, have all this. She doesn’t deserve some sham of a life. Not when there’s someone out there who will earn a place in her heart and love her. Someone she’ll look at like Maren’s been looking at Cohen since we got here...or how her mom looks at her dad.

“Maybe I should—” I start to push my chair back from the table, but Genevieve stops me.

“Of course he bought me a ring. I left it back at his place. It needs to be sized anyway, and I thought it would be disrespectful to show up here with it on before telling you all the good news.” She gives one of her signature, radiant smiles.

There’s a beat, maybe two, of total silence before everyone is talking at once.

“Congratulations! That’s fantastic news, Gen,” Maren says, her elbow digging discreetly into Cohen’s ribs. He’s not attempting to even fake a smile.

“Wow, this is....Wow...” Enzo mutters, rolling his neck and rubbing a hand over his face. He leans over the table, shoots a cautious look at his mother to make sure she’s not listening, and asks in a low voice, “You knocked up, sis?”

“What is this? Because Deo got married, and now Cohen and Maren are getting married, you're throwing a jealous tantrum?” Lydia sneers, then sighs. “Marriage isn’t some game, Genevieve.”

“I don’t think that’s what this is—” Maren tries to interject, her reasonable voice drowned out by a horde of angry naysayers.

I don’t look away from her parents. I’m waiting for her dad to go get a gun and come back to shoot me. Or scream at me in Spanish, and I won’t understand a word he’s saying. I wonder if someone will translate when he gets to the part about me needing to run before he shoots me.

“This is very fast,” her mom finally says, her fingers dancing over the pearls at her throat.

“Stupid fast,” Lydia pipes in again. I’ve decided Lydia is a miserable human being.

“Lydia, enough,” her dad says, his eyes blazing. I’m glad he reined her in, until he turns those eyes on me. “Adam,” he says my name slowly, like it’s a foreign word. “What does your family think about all this?”

I push my sleeves up past my elbows. I’m suddenly sweating my ass off.

“We haven’t told them yet, sir.”

The pressure of coming up with lies is making me feel woozy. Why didn’t Genevieve and I hash this all out before we came here? These are the normal questions people ask when you announce you’re getting married. But I have to come up with something, and fast.

“We felt like it was important to tell you first, since your family is so close. And, anyway, my family doesn’t live in the country, so we’ll call them and let them know the good news as soon as we receive your blessing.”
              Genevieve scoots in close to me and I’m so fucking glad she does. I need her right now. And as soon as that thought flashes through my mind, it confuses and scares the shit out of me.

“Where are they?” her mom asks.

“Well, I was born and raised in Israel. They’re all still there,” I explain. “Mostly Tel Aviv. And I’d love to take Genevieve there. Show her where I grew up.”

Weird how I thought I was going to be flustered from lying to these people. What’s making me sweat is how damn true every word I’m uttering is. What’s freaking me out even more is that I never realized any of this until it came pouring out of my mouth, but now it hits me that I’ve felt it for a while.

I watch the smile creep across her mother’s face. She puts her hands to her lips and closes her eyes like she’s praying. I think this is good. I think.

“Mazel Tov, you two!” Cece
laughs. “Score one for Gennie bringing home the nice Jewish scientist. Shit, how am I going to top that?”

“Cece! Language!” her mother scolds, but she’s still smiling and shaking her head like she can’t believe her luck. “Well, I think this is very fast, Genevieve. I think it would have been nice if you’d brought Adam to dinner once or twice before you two announced your engagement. But you seem very happy. And Adam, you seem very responsible. So, if this is what you kids want, your father and I will support you, too. You have our blessing,
motek.
”

I feel like I can breathe again, but Genevieve’s father doesn’t let it go that easily.

“Where will you live?” her father demands, ticking the questions off on his fingers. “When are you planning this wedding for? Have you spoken to the rabbi?”

He wants logistics. I respect that.

“Well, sir, I have a dorm on campus, but because of my position working in the lab, they’ve offered to move Genevieve and me into the married dorms, which would be a much nicer space than I currently have.”

I’m actually not sure what the married dorms are like, but nothing can possibly be worse than my spare, antiseptic dorm room. And I’m only guessing they’ll let me move right away. More frantically hoping than guessing, actually.

“So, this is all happening soon?” Cohen asks, his voice on edge. “What’s the rush?”

“We just want to be together, same as you and Maren,” Genevieve shoots back.

“My family is all in Israel, Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez. And I would love nothing more than to be able to fly them all here to celebrate with me and Genevieve. But that’s just not in the cards right now. I do have a break coming up, and Genevieve and I would love to make the trip home to visit them all together...as husband and wife. Then, we’ll be able to celebrate with my family as well...after it’s official.”

I leave out the part about how we have to get married before my student visa officially expires, because that would make this whole charade look even worse and give us that much more red tape to cut through and more lies to tell.

Her parents are nodding, and I feel like we’re getting somewhere. I also feel like a scumbag for lying to them in their home, at their dinner table. But Genevieve is right: I don’t have a lot of other options. And even though I thought the entire plan was nuts at first, I’m starting to see that it may be kind of nice to have Genevieve in my life, by my side...as more than a tutee.

We talk details for a while longer. Genevieve and I want something very, very small. I’ve told her parents not to worry about the cost, that I’ll use my savings to cover it all. It’s the least I can do, and it makes me feel less like a schmuck and more like a man who’s about to marry this incredible woman and take proper care of her.

Dinner is cleared slowly, and everyone moves to the backyard. The air has the typical evening crispness that’s pure Southern California. It’s probably one of the things I love most about this place: how it can be hot as Hades during the day, but once the sun goes down the air turns so cool, it hardly feels like it could be the same weather system.

Maren and Cece pull Genevieve aside to talk flowers or something, and I’m left standing alone in the
Rodriguezes’ backyard, overgrown with gorgeous plants and backlit by the roaring fire Mr. Rodriguez lit in the chimnea. I’d be fine just soaking in the calm night, except I feel like I’m on some nature show and maybe about to be hunted and eaten.

“Beer?” Cohen creeps out of nowhere and hands me a cold bottle.

“Thanks, man.” I take it and a bitter sip runs down my throat. I take a second, extra-long swallow, just to numb what I know is coming.

“So, marriage?” He lets the words hang in the chilly night air like an accusation.
              Here we go.

I take another substantial pull from the bottle, wishing it was bottomless and I could drown myself in it.

“Yep.” Short and simple is probably the best way to go with Genevieve’s brothers.

“No one means to be a dick, Adam.” Cohen’s eyes glint in the night. Like a wolf’s. “You seem like an alright guy I guess. It’s just, you sort of came out of nowhere—”

“Genevieve and I have known each other for almost a year now. Maybe even longer than you and Maren?” I can’t remember, but I’m pretty sure Genevieve mentioned their relationship progressed really quickly. My words come out rougher than I intend.

“Fair enough,” Cohen says with a nod and a facial spasm I think is intended to be a smile. “The thing is, Genevieve hasn’t been in a very good place for a while now. And if being with you is going to make her happy, great. But I’d really hate to see her get hurt and end up worse off than she was.”