I decided to fuck it all up by asking, “Do you want to have kids? Someday? You know, since Gennie brought it up tonight.”
Her hands stilled on my shoulders. For a second I thought we were finished, massage foreplay was over, and I’d have to hobble out of here with my aching cock. But then she said, “There was a time when I thought I wanted kids. I thought I wanted the whole picture-perfect family and everything that came with it.”
“What changed that?”
She moved her hands down my shoulders, squeezing as she went. “A relationship ended and I had to—to reevaluate.”
“And kids didn’t make the cut?”
She gave a wry laugh. “I don’t know. I’m still figuring out what it is I want and what I’ve convinced myself to want.” She squirted more lotion into her palm. “What about you?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, one niece is more than enough for me.”
“You never thought about marrying someone nice for reasons unrelated to expanding your empire or faking it for an estate?”
I chuckled into the duvet. “Not really, no.”
Because I only thought about marrying you.
“You don’t imagine yourself giving Gennie a cousin or two?”
Some version of that question came my way frequently. Everyone wanted to know if I wantedkids of my own. As if contributing sperm was superior and I should prefer that over a simple blood relation to Gennie. But I knew that wasn’t the question Shay was asking. She wanted to know where the future would take me and whether I saw more small people who’d scream at me about baby carrots there. “I don’t think so, no. I’m not going to tell you that I have an iron-clad plan because god knows all of my plans fall apart on me, but when I look five years down the road I don’t see more kids there. It’s hard enough caring for Gennie. She needs all of my attention.”
“And she’d raise hell if you tried to bathe a baby in the kitchen sink.”
“Oh my god. I know.”
She drove her knuckle into the slope of my shoulder and it hurt like hell but it was a good hurt. “I’m not sure I’ll believe you if you try to tell me that you weren’t looking to wife someone up in Manhattan. Or Brooklyn. I bet you couldn’t walk down the street without getting up close and personal with some yoga pants.”
“I wasn’t looking to wife anyone up,” I said. “And I can’t say I paid much attention to the yoga pants.”
“Noah. Do not lie to me and pretend you were a monk. I’ve seen you in a suit and I know a thing or two about New York girlies. You had to beat them off with a lead pipe and you know it.”
If there was one thing I did not want to discuss with my wife it was the sex I had before marrying her. Not because it was mind-blowing or even that great in volume but because I didn’t want to think aboutherhaving sex before our marriage. I knew she did—and I’d known it back when we were teenagers too—but she was mine for this moment and I didn’t want to make eye contact with the moments she’d belonged to someone else.
“I worked too damn much,” I said. “Anything beyond that was…incidental.”
“Except for all those so-called business meetings in the Hamptons where you definitely did not have any fun whatsoever because you were a good little lawyer.”
“Don’t forget the yachts,” I said. “I was a very good lawyer on yachts too.”
“You were going to live the big law bachelor life indefinitely?”
“I didn’t hate the big law bachelor life,” I said carefully. “It had its advantages. Not a single discussion of the size of tapioca balls, for one.”
“When she’s all grown up, we’ll have to embarrass the shit out of her with that story. That’s the kind of thing we trot out when she brings home the person she’s dating for the first time or when we give a toast at the rehearsal dinner before her wedding.”
It wasn’t lost on me that Shay was speaking of a future where my niece brought dates home tousandwegave toasts at her wedding. Rather than fucking that up, I simply said, “You’re damn right.”
“Just tell me if this is too personal,” she said, her thumbs working my lower back. “I was wondering if Eva is allowed visitors. Does she get to see Gennie at all?”
“Not too personal. Eva is allowed visitors. Gennie and I went to see her a couple of times. Those were—” I shook my head. “They were difficult visits.”
Shay murmured. “What happened?”
“Aside from the obvious issues, we had to travel. Eva’s trial was conducted in Michigan and she remained there as she awaited sentencing. It didn’t occur to me until it was time to board the flight that Gennie might have trouble flying. She panicked. Complete and total meltdown. Screamed for an hour straight before falling asleep on the floor under her seat.”
“Oh, shit.”
