Page 69
“I made us those appointments for this afternoon,” Henry says, his voice low as he raises a suggestive eyebrow at me.
I nod at his efficiency.
“Oh, and can you send me your flight details?”
I open my phone to forward him my confirmation email, and the realization hits me.
“I don’t…have your info,” I say awkwardly.
He laughs, taking my phone. He types his email address in to forward the email. “My number’s the same as it’s always been.”
I feel my fingers tense at my side.
His eyes sweep over my body. “You don’t have it anymore?”
“I blocked it after we got back from New York,” I admit, feeling my cheeks go red. “Then deleted it once we went off to college.”
Something I can’t discern flashes across Henry’s face, but a moment later it’s gone as he puts his info into my phone.
“That’s fair,” he says. “Yours still the same?”
I nod.
He hands me back my phone, and I look down at the contact card. He’s put in his number, email, address, everything. And he’s added a red heart next to his name in my contacts.
I give him a dumb smile. “You better have a stupid heart next to my name too.”
“Text me and see,” he says, putting his phone on the counter.
I quickly type out You’re cheesy but I like it.
The message pops up on his screen. Multiple hearts.
“I was trying to play it cool,” he explains.
“That was you playing it cool?” I laugh.
He gives me a sheepish smile.
“I latke you,” I tell him as he swoops down to kiss me.
* * *
Despite it being my idea in the first place, once we’re sitting in the Planned Parenthood waiting room, it all starts to feel very real. We fill out our intake docs while sitting on a small bench, thighs pressed together, and it suddenly feels so…domestic. I’m secretly very pleased with myself for being moderately responsible, since the times I’ve had unprotected sex in my early twenties all stemmed from me being careless and too horny. I did get tested whenever any questionable situations arose, and nothing had ever happened, but here, I was thinking ahead! Or mostly, anyway. Our mouths had already been less responsible when I proposed this field trip, but I was sure it would all be okay.
I’m called back first, and go through the familiar questions, paper gown, speculum opening my already sore parts. It’s the first real moment that we’ve been apart since we both admitted our feelings and I expect the usual relief, a break from suffocation, but instead, I can’t wait to get back to him.
Somehow, even though I went back before him, Henry is already out in the waiting room when I emerge. He stands to leave, and I cannot help but scoop some of the condoms on the check-in desk into my bag. Henry laughs at me, and once we’re back in the brisk December air, his warm breath brushes my ear.
“What, you don’t think I can afford condoms, Gold?”
I shrug. “They were right there.”
Henry unlocks the CR-V and I get back into the passenger seat. “Sara texted the grocery list,” he says, holding up his phone. That had been our excuse, our way of slipping out of the house without having to explain that we were going to make sure we could safely have unprotected sex in the near future. We would do the grocery shopping.
He drives us through our town, briefly pausing in the right-turn lane, and then cutting someone off to keep going straight. The car behind us lays on their horn, and I’m about to ask what the fuck that was about, when I look to my right. He had almost taken us to the same store where my dad died. To be fair, it is the closest supermarket to our houses, but he’d realized and stopped himself. We don’t talk about it. I’m not sure if he realizes that I noticed. But it’s those small, simple acts of being known that keep hitting me right in the chest.
Henry continues on until we reach the Whole Foods, which my family never shopped at, but Kristine always had organic snacks and food without hydrogenated oils when we were kids, so this all tracks.
