She flushes slightly at that, and my stomach dips. “I … have an IUD, yeah.”
My head is fuzzy. I clear my throat. “Should I … write that down?”
She snorts. “You gonna forget?”
Now my face is flushing. I grab my wine glass and take a big gulp. Fuck, man. Ignoring her question, I continue. “If they ask when we last had sex, I think ‘a week’ is an easy enough answer to remember.”
“If we were together, you’d only want to do me once a week?”
I feel like my head is about to explode. Cora is giggling again, and I’m contemplating downing my wine and getting another glass.
Because no, if Cora and I were really together, we’d spend an entire week straight in my bedroom while I memorized every inch of her body. And then I’d make sure I never forgot any of it.
A strangled laugh leaves my lips, partly because it’s the only sound I think I can come up with right now.
“I’m sorry, Theo,” Cora gasps between giggles. “Your face … it’s so …”
I’d be annoyed if she didn’t look so cute right now. Actually, scratch that. I don’t think Cora could do anything to annoy me, ever.
“Do you want kids?” I ask in a vain attempt to get the topic off sex.
She sighs, her laughter subsiding. “Probably. Someday.”
I smile. “Same.” Suddenly the image of a small child—half Cora, half me—pops into my mind, and my heart aches. I shake it away. “I think we’ve covered the semi-sexual questions.”
“Fine,” she says, grinning. “No more sex talk.”
Thank God.
“But,” she goes on, “if we were really married—”
“Wearereally married.”
It comes out too fast, too defensive, too true.
She freezes, her lips parting the tiniest bit.
I force myself to add, “Legally. I mean legally. On paper.”
“Right,” she murmurs. “Of course.”
I want to yank the words back out of the air and say them differently, say the version that’s been burning a hole in me for years. But then I remember what she said last night, and suddenly my throat is too tight.
We keep going, but the air between us shifts. Thickens.
“We still need a honeymoon story,” she says.
“Travel records must be easy enough to obtain, so we probably shouldn’t lie too much about that,” I manage.
“So a staycation honeymoon,” she says.
A muscle in my jaw ticks. “If we were really married …” I stop myself.
She tilts her head. “If …?”
I breathe out through my nose, eyes on my laptop so I don’t look at her mouth. “I’d take you somewhere better than that.”
Silence.
