“Every minute. I sat right here with my wine and my phone, listening to every single call.”
I tighten my grip on her thigh. She watches me over the rim of her glass.
“You told that woman to hold her sister when it falls apart,” she says. “I almost called in to tell you I love you.”
I pull her closer by the leg. She comes, sliding across the couch cushion until her hip is pressed against mine, her knees draped over my lap, her shoulder tucked into the crook of my arm.
“I would’ve taken that call, Jojo.”
She sets her wine down. Her fingers find the collar of my shirt. She traces the edge of it, her fingertip running along my collarbone, light enough to make my skin prick.
“You were good, Liam. You were really good.”
“I told a twenty-something to ask his girlfriend what she’s afraid of. I’m not sure that qualifies as good.”
“You told a man to figure out what he’s protecting. You told a woman to hold her sister.” Her finger stops at the hollow of my throat. “You meant every word. People can hear that.”
I turn my head and press my mouth to her hair. She smells like gardenias, the wine on her breath, and the hand lotion she puts on before bed, the one that comes in the white tube with no label because she buys it from some woman at the farmers’ market.
“Bex said ‘good.’ That was the whole review. ‘Good. We can work with that.’”
“Bex sounds like a woman who knows what she’s doing.”
“She’s terrifying.”
Josie laughs. The sound moves through her body and into mine where we’re pressed together.
“Paige already clipped the anniversary answer. Told me before she left, she’s putting it up tonight.”
“I know. She texted me the clip twenty seconds after she made it.”
I picture the two of them, Josie on this couch and Paige in the corner of the studio, connected by a phone screen and a shared belief in something I haven’t fully committed to yet. My wife and my daughter building a bridge I didn’t ask for, laying the planks before I’ve decided to cross.
Josie shifts in my lap. She pulls one leg free, tucks it beneath her, and turns so she’s facing me. Her blue eyes are dark in the lamplight. She puts her hand on my jaw, tilts my face toward hers. “You found something tonight,” she says.
I cover her hand with mine. Press it harder against my jaw. Feel the small bones of her fingers under my palm.
“Maybe.”
“Not maybe.”
She kisses me. Slow. Her mouth tastes like the wine, dark and warm. Her thumb traces the edge of my ear. I pull her in by the waist until there’s no space left between us, until her heartbeat is thumping against my chest through two layers of cotton, until the trembling in my hands finally stops because they’re full of her.
She pulls back just far enough to look at me. Her lips are stained from the wine.
“When’s the next one?” she asks.
“Couple of nights from now. Same time.”
She picks up her wine, leans her head against my shoulder, and folds back into me. I keep my hand on her thigh. The lamp throws warm light across the room. Outside, the night windmoves through the trees in the yard, and I can hear the dry rattle of leaves against the porch railing.
I sat in a room for three hours and talked to strangers about love. My hands shook through every minute of it. My wife listened to every word.
I think I liked it.
SEVEN
The noise reaches me before I’m off the last stair. Laughter from a couple of directions, baby babble, a ball game turned up loud.
