“And a boyfriend in the basement.”
“That too.”
“And a career to resurrect and a cover story to maintain and a neighbor who thinks I’m a saint and a life that is held together by lies and prayer beads and the sheer force of my unwillingness to admit I’ve made a catastrophic mistake.”
“All true.”
“So this—” I gesture between us.Whatever this is.“This can’t happen again.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“It was a one-time thing.Stress.Adrenaline.Bad judgment.”
“Makes sense.”
“Stop agreeing with me.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to argue.I want you to say something.I want you to not just stand there being calm and reasonable and?—”
“Marin.”
“What?”
He doesn’t say anything.He just looks at me.The way he looked at me in the truck on the side road with his thumb on my forehead.The way he looked at me from the floor of the kitchen with the wrench in his hand.The way he’s been looking at me since the first day I opened the door and handed him a mug and he drank from it like he belonged here.
I cross the kitchen.Stop in front of him.“This is a terrible idea,” I say.
“The worst,” he says.
“I’m going to regret this.”
“Probably.”
“I’m not over Charles.I don’t know if I’ll ever be.”
He nods.“I know.”
“I’m saying it so we’re clear.”
“We’re clear.”
We are not clear.We’ve never been clear.We will never be clear.
I kiss him.Slower this time.Not like the rage kiss.Not the table kiss.His hands find my waist and he lifts me onto the counter—might as well, the table’s already been checked off—and I wrap my arms around his neck and let myself have one more stupid, reckless, doomed thing.
“Three hours,” I whisper.
“Three hours,” he says.
We don’t use all three.
We use enough.
