Family Business

8.

"So James, what is it you do for fun on this planet?" James and Torunn were walking downtown together just talking, trying to find something to do. James was busy trying to calm his racing heart. As soon as he left school his mind did fall on his mother, Miles might be right. She might quite literally kill him. 

"I um I guess if you are asking me, I'd say playing mini-golf," he answered. 

"Mini Golf? Why is it mini-golf? I have always wondered." James looked at her raising an eyebrow. "You see my father was quiet intent on me learning the cultural aspect of humans, however as you can tell I just can't seem to understand it. For example, the dating app with the name Tinder. You are basically putting yourself up for auction for a potential mate. It is almost like slavery." 

"Online dating is way different from slavery." He said. "With this, you have a choice and if you didn't like how the date went, well you don't have to stay with them." 

"See on Asgard it is tradition to keep your first love. Well, not a lot of people do that. My father is, unfortunately, one of the exceptions to the tradition. He was always in love with my mother,  until some human girl took him away from her. He ignored her, so she left to do her own world-saving, she ended up back here on Earth and that is where she reunited with my father. He was shamed, the human dumped him, she was not anything too exciting though. From the stories my uncle tells me, she was quite annoying a bit of a handful. Not worth the time of a king." 

"But it had a happy ending," James said. "Your parents found their way back to each other." 

"I think they have always been in love with one another." She said. "They never truly stopped caring for one another." 

"But you believe you will marry your first love?" 

"Even if your paths are diverted, you always find a way back to your first love. I plan on marrying the first man I fall for." She said with utter confidence. "Do you not believe in the power of your first love James?" 

"Well I have never been in love, so I can't say I have experience on the subject. I do know, however, that my parents weren't each other's first love." He said.

"They aren't? Their bond is so strong. They must be each other first loves." 

"My father was from a different time, frozen in ice." Torunn nodded, she knew the story, her father loved to talk about Jame's father a lot, it became a bit obsessive. "My father used to love another." 

"I can't see that." She said, she only knew the love of your first love. 

"When he got trapped in the ice, she moved on, she fell in love and she lived her life. My dad never blamed her, it was about 70 years, she had no reason to mourn him forever. He thought he'd never love again, never feel alive again, but as he likes to tell me all the time when he met my mom it's like he could see color again. She gave him a reason to want to keep moving forward. While it didn't start out as love, he knew he was going to fall for her, the way she made him feel was almost life-changing." 

"Your parents have quite the love story, James." She said. "Although I don't agree with their terms of marriage, they had different levels of circumstance, I am sure he was your mother's, first love." 

"As far as she likes to say," James confirmed. 

"See first love." She gestured. 

"I guess you are right. But like I too said, I'll know when I know and it might be the first person I fell in love with." 

"Fell? That's past tense. James, have you already fallen for someone?" Her face was of pure shock and disbelief, almost jealous. 

"What? Oh no, I uh... I meant to fall." He said. "When I am not in school I guess I lose grammar skills." He said. She could only nod her head and purse her lips.