“Look at us, being responsible adults.” Then I laughed. “Only you could make this sound like a quarterly review.”
“Would you prefer I be less thorough?”
“No.” I settled against his chest. “I prefer you exactly like this. Weirdly formal safety discussions and all.”
“For what it’s worth, this isn’t just about the physical.”
“No?”
“I trust you. Completely.”
“I trust you too,” I said softly.
“Good. Because once we make this change, I plan to thoroughly explore the benefits.”
“That sounds like a threat, Julian.”
“A promise. Definitely a promise.”
I kissed him. “Thank you. For making this a discussion. For caring about what I want.”
“Always,” he said simply.
Julian had been gonefive days, traveling for business. I’d felt every one of them. So when he texted that he’d landed, it was nothing to saycome by for dinner, Micah’s been asking,which was true, and also not the whole truth.
Micahhadbeen asking, and the second Julian came through the door Micah was on him about a play he’d learned at practice, dragging him to the living room to demonstrate it with a couch cushion standing in for a defender, and Julian crouched down, letting himself be coached by an eight-year-old.
We ate while Micah talked the whole meal, briefing Julian on five days of his life like a soldier returning home. At eight-thirty I called his bedtime. Micah looped his arms around my neck, kissed my cheek.Night, Mom.Then he turned to Julian, and the two of them ran through the handshake they’d built between them over months. Some sequence of grips and a snap at the end. Micah grinned and said goodnight and padded off down the hall.
Then it was just us on the couch, with some movie neither of us was watching, and my feet in his lap.
“I should let you sleep,” he said, around ten, but didn’t move.
“You could.” I didn’t move either.
He looked at me with five long days in the look.
“I missed you,” I said. “Come finish the movie in my room. I don’t want you to go yet.”
We had a rule, for how we were when Micah was in the house and we’d held to it carefully for months. I took Julian’s hand wanting to break it, because I’d missed him and I was tired of being careful.
In my room he took my face in both hands the moment I locked the door, and just looked at me. “I missed you too,” he said and kissed me.
He walked me backward until I hit the bed and we sank onto it. He came down over me, kissing me with no hurry at all. I reached over and clicked the TV on, a little noise to hide under, then turned back into him.
We kissed quietly, both of us aware of the sleeping kid down the hall. Every sound swallowed. Every laugh muffled against skin. I pushed at his shoulder until he rolled and I came up over him, straddling his lap, pulling his shirt over his head, while his hands settled on my hips and slid under my shirt up my back.
His mouth left mine and found my neck, and I had to bite down on the sound it pulled out of me. He felt me try not to laugh and grinned against my skin. It was tender and a little ridiculous, the closest thing to giddy I’d felt in years, two grown people trying to be soundless and losing. Soon our giddy playfulness got hungrier and more serious, and I forgot for a while that there was a single thing in the world to be careful about.
A knock came at the worst possible second.
“Mom?”
We froze, mid-kiss. I have never seen a man go that still that fast. We stared at each other, eyes wide in the dark, both of us caught somewhere between panic and the absurd urge to laugh, and I pressed my lips together hard.
“Mr.Julian?” Micah’s small voice tried, when I didn’t answer fast enough. “Are you here?”
Julian’s eyebrows went up.He knows,he mouthed. I lost the fight with my laugh, had to bury it in his shoulder.
