"She is asleep." He smiled.
"She is faking. She fakes for the first ten minutes."
"She is asleep, Sabrina. She tried to fake. It didn't survive contact with the mattress."
"Mmm…"
He held me.
His chin was on the top of my head. His breath was at my hairline. He smelled like the garlic from the dinner I'd made. The cologne was on the soft part of his shirt collar.
I poured two glasses of red wine.
He took his, leaning against the counter. He had on jeans and one of the soft shirts that I'd been sleeping in three nights ago and had returned to him reluctantly.
"How was your day?"
"Long. Three regulars insisted on telling me about their dating lives. Kit caught me staring at my phone twice. The second time, in fairness, I'd been reading a text from you, which Kit wasn't going to let go."
"Reading what?"
"You told me Bonnie sounded out the wordcephalopodthis morning unprompted."
"She did."
"I hadn't known that Kit was capable of making a heart with his hands."
He laughed, and he kissed the top of my head. "I went to the office today."
"The foundation?"
"No. The other one. The real estate one. I've been spending an hour, a few times a week, with the man my father had running the day-to-day. He is teaching me. He is also, not at all subtly, planning his retirement."
"Mmm…"
"I'm stepping into a pair of shoes I didn't plan on stepping into."
I tipped my chin at him. "You can make them your own now."
He looked at me for a beat that lasted longer than the beat the line had earned.
"Yeah."
He set his glass down, came across the kitchen, took the glass out of my hand, and set it on the counter beside his.
He kissed me.
We didn't make it to the bedroom or past the kitchen island. He had me up against the side of the island with his hand at the back of my head and his mouth at my neck and his other hand at the hem of my shirt, and I was — I was — I was the woman who had told this man that we wouldn't be calling this anything.
We made it to the floor.
The floor was cold, and we made it happen there. I gave him what he was asking for by the way he was kissing me.
After — on the kitchen floor, half-dressed, with my head on his shoulder and my hand on his chest and his arm around my back — he said my name.
He said it as if it were the answer to a question he hadn't asked.
Neither of us saidI love you.
