Page 59 of Duty Preserved

I said nothing, which was its own confession, and she knew it.

“You’re doing the clipped thing,” she said. “The one where you go all short and clinical to keep me out. Which means it was absolutely a whole production.” She tightened her grip. “Did you sleep with him?”

The gray hour came back before I could stop it.

Waking in the dark to his mouth inching its way up the inside of my thigh. Hands gliding up my rib cage. Thumbs lightly brushing the undersides of my breasts. The unhurried patience of a man who was willing to draw out each moment in order to better savor it.

I turned toward the acacia. It didn’t help.

“See, now you’re doing the other thing.” Her eyes went wide and delighted. “You’ve gone the color of a stop sign, Sarah. That is not the face of a woman who kissed a man a little.”

“It’s hot back here.”

“It is not hot, it is the exact temperature it’s been all week, and you have never in your life blushed at a temperature.” She was nearly vibrating. “How many times? Give me the number. You don’t have to say anything else. Hold up fingers.”

“I’m not holding up fingers.”

“So there’s a number worth hiding?”

“I’m not confirming there’s a number.”

“You just confirmed there’s a number!”

I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes, and behind them, the first time came back whole.

Both of us still catching our breath. Me on top of him, his chest rising and falling under my palms. I’d thought that was it. That the night was winding down. Then his hands found my waist, and he rolled me onto my back and settled over me. “I’m not done with you,” he’d said, his face inches from mine, and suddenly I felt the girth of him fill me once more.

“Fine,” I said. “Yes. It happened. I’m not giving you a play-by-play, so put the interrogation lamp away.”

Alyson let out a sound that startled a go-away-bird straight out of the acacia behind us.

“I knew it.” She had both my arms now. “I knew the second you stopped answering my texts. Two rooms. You booked two rooms, you liar. You are the most adorable liar God ever made.”

“I did book two rooms.”

“And how’d that shake out?”

I didn’t answer. She read the answer off my face anyway and made a second, louder sound.

“One room.” She pressed both hands over her mouth, then dropped them. “They gave you one room. Was it one bed? Sarah. Tell me it was one bed.”

“There was a tour group. The town was full.”

“That is a yes. That is the biggest yes you have ever handed me while trying to say no.” She caught my sleeve. “Okay, last thing, then I’ll stop, I swear. Was it good?”

The question snuck under everything else and hit the honest part before I could get a wall up in front of it. She wasn’t asking how it had happened or for a number again. She was asking whether it had been good.

His hand cradling my face in the dark. Stay with me. Here and now. Making it clear to me that this was exactly what he wanted too.

“Alyson.”

“That’s a yes too.” Her voice had gone soft for exactly one second. “That’s a different kind of yes.”

I looked away, and she let me, which was how I knew she knew enough.

“Okay. Okay.” She pulled herself together, mostly. “So what happens now? Is this a thing? Are you two doing this again?”

There it was. The question I’d already been asking myself since about four that morning. Lying awake with his arm wrapped around me and his body curved around mine.