I pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Yeah. Of course."
I closed the bathroom door behind me and went to work gathering the clothes we'd left scattered around the room. When I came across her robe, I turned it right side out and set it on the bed. My girl was not about to stroll out here naked. She'd come looking for that robe soon enough.
I heard the toilet flush and the faucet run, but another minute or two passed in silence. I couldn't decide how to interpret that. I didn't know what I wanted all of this to mean. And I had no idea where we went from here. If she wanted it to go anywhere.
A few more minutes drifted by before Audrey peeked out from behind the door. "Would you—" I crossed to her in two strides, handed her the robe. "Oh. Thank you."
"Just know you're ditching that thing before you get in bed."
"You were a lot less bossy in the back seat," she said.
"Do you want me to call down to the valet? I'm sure we can find a Chili's. Applebee's in a pinch."
She rounded the bed, a far-off gleam in her eyes as she wove her hair into a braid. Had I ever watched her braid her hair?Probably, yes. But not like this. With a bed between us, the night waiting for what we made of it. With her lips kiss-bitten and that robe hanging open. She hadn't bothered with the ties.
"Too many of our parking lot places have closed," she said. "Remember Bertucci's? We got into a lot of trouble in those parking lots."
I slipped between the sheets and smoothed out her pillows. "All I remember is that you're not nearly as well-behaved as you'd like people to think."
She shrugged out of the robe and crawled in beside me. "Excuse me but I'm a very good girl."
I stroked a hand over the crown of her head, down her braid. Caught the tail between two fingers. "I wouldn't have it any other way."
Audrey curled into me and closed her eyes, a full, warm smile on her lips. I dragged my fingers over her shoulders, her collarbones. Down the line of her chest and over her breasts. I let myself stare at her without caring that she'd notice. That she'd see everything I'd tried to ignore this week. Or longer. So much longer.
Then I spotted a dark line riding low on her hip. "What's this?" I asked, swiping my thumb over the words inked in a thin, swooping script. I couldn't believe I'd missed that. "When did you get a tattoo?"
I expected her to laugh. Or cringe away from the question. To turn into a rosy, blushing mess and tell me a story about claiming some rebellion for herself. But she didn't do that.
A cold, steady quiet settled over her. The life seemed to bleed from her eyes. Then I was cold too.
She swallowed. "After I moved to Boston."
I traced the words again. The script was fine and thin. "What does it say?"
"'I carry your heart with me. I carry it in my heart.'"
"From the poem? E. E. Cummings?" A single bob of her head. "Can I get a closer look?"
Another nod, her gaze still frozen and empty. I didn't know much but I'd bet my life that quote wasn't about her asshole ex.
I shifted down the bed and cocked my head to get a better look. The lasttinheartswept out with a long swash that curled into a heart around a pair of finger-wide silvery scars. And then there was another scar, longer and craggy where it ran across her pelvis.
I dropped my palm to the scars and met her gaze. "What happened?"
She turned her head and stared out at the inky night, and it occurred to me that she might not answer. I stayed there just the same, my head resting on her thighs while I smoothed small circles low on her belly. Nowhere else in the world I wanted to be.
Then, "When I found out I was pregnant, my first thought was that I had to leave Chris. Probably the first clear, decisive thought I'd had in years. I'd been so…ambivalent for so long. Just floating. Existing. I hadn't really cared about anything but then it was real and I had to care. It didn't matter if all I could do was float but I wouldn't let that be my child's life."
You're wrong, I wanted to say.It did matter.But I knew when to keep quiet.
"He had a big boys' trip planned. Yachts, helicopters, private islands. All his favorite things. He'd been gone nearly a month. That was when I'd planned to leave." Her voice cracked and that sound scraped against my soft tissue. "I didn't feel well but I never felt well. I'd been sick for years at that point. I couldn't digest anything. I was always having one kind of flare-up or another. Everything hurt every day so I didn't realize something was wrong."
She brushed a tear from her cheek but when she dropped that hand, she dropped it on my shoulder.
"I collapsed after filing for divorce. Right there in the lawyer's office," she said, a slightly hysterical laugh ringing in her words. "Ectopic pregnancy. The egg had implanted in one of my tubes. It ruptured and blew up the tube. It felt just like my regular pain level. But my belly was full of blood all the way up to here." She tapped a spot above her navel and then edged my fingers away from where they covered the heart tattoo. "That was the first surgery."
"The first," I echoed.
