June rolled in and she and Vic had what almost seemed like an easy routine. Her job became less intense while his grew more consuming, but they fit each other into the space they had.
“Are you okay with stopping by mine? I need to switch out my battery packs.”
She handed him the last equipment case to load into his admittedly pristine cargo space and smiled. “Sure, no problem. I've got my bag so we can sleep there if you like.”
She’d packed a change of clothes for the day’s festivities, in case she needed to get tidy after they’d all been paddling. Rachel and Theo had rented a bunch of single and double kayaks at Buffalo Bayou Park, where they’d has their first date. Everyone hung out on the water for an hour, racing each other, splashing, and showing off, before heading to the restaurant above the rental shop for a charming meal on the patio overlooking the bayou. As pre-wedding parties went, it wasn't exactly wild, but they’d been surrounded by trees and sun and water. Also a few egrets and cranes and ducks delighting the kids from where they hung out on the banks with Theo’s ex-wife and her husband. And the restaurant was beguiling mixture of relaxed and elegant that personified Theo and Rachel's relationship.
At lunch, people huddled around Vic while he previewed the pics he'd taken from the water. He scrolled past an embarrassing number of shots of her turning to look at him over her shoulder in their double kayak. Since he'd been working, she'd done most of the paddling, meaning they'd not traveled quite as effortlessly as some of the other duos on the water. And she'd glared at him every time he teased her about it. Now she suspected he'd mostly done it to get her to turn around so he could catch her with his camera. It was perverse of her to be charmed by that, but apparently endorphins had as much of an effect on her as they did on all of her friends when they'd been getting into their relationships.
And if that didn't give her pause, here on the brink of her third wedding in seven months. She was not going to turn into a besotted princess just because she and Vic had great sex.
He hopped in the SUV beside her and gave her a look. “You okay?”
She pulled her cloak of coolness around herself. “Of course. Got everything?”
“Yep.” And they set off.
As he took the exit towards his house she noticed the apartment complex and large grocery store on the feeder road. “Those are new.”
He glanced. “About three or four years, I guess.”
Had it been that long since she was in their old neighborhood? He navigated streets that were at once familiar and disorienting, with the occasional large brick house filling every foot of lots that used to hold small ranch homes. Signs of prosperity and modernity that didn't quite fit with her remembrance of a solidly middle class neighborhood. “I don't know why I expected nothing around here would change.”
He glanced at her. “Hope you're not too disappointed by my house.”
“Why, what did you do do it, turn it into a four story glass and brick behemoth?”
He huffed. “No. Nothing so ambitious. Just aimed to make it mine.”
She'd been to his house before. Back when she could first drive and the boys couldn’t, there must have been a thousand trips to drop off or pick up Anton, to fetch them from theatre rehearsal and deliver Vic home, to run Anton back to Vic's house because he'd forgotten something there. She'd pulled into the same driveway, stood at the same front door. She'd never hung out the way Anton had, but Vic's parents would invite her in if it was taking a while to rouse the boys from whatever world they’d disappeared into. So she recognized some differences right away. How he'd opened up the entry into the living room. How everything was now blues and silvers instead of browns and greens.
She said nice things as he let her back and poured them drinks.
He gestured her into one the chairs around his kitchen table, and joined her. “This is weird.”
“What's weird? That you still live in your parents’ house? Lots of people do that.”
He waved that aside. “I bought it ten years ago.”
That long ago? “You were still a teenager.”
“Well, they wanted to go. We made a deal with my college fund.”
Her brow furrowed. “What did you do to pay for college then?”
He shrugged. “Scholarships. Gigs. Took photos for half the senior class.”
Right. Far be it from her to pass judgment on the way his family worked. “So what's weird then?”
He eyed her over the rim of his glass. Seemed like he was waiting for her to wade through her own mystification and answer her own question. Finally, he said, “It's been weeks now with you and me, right? Months. And this is the first time you've come here.”
Well, fuck. Was that weird? It was weird, right? But he always saw her at her place. Because he was always coming over to hang with Anton. So it just made sense that when it turned into them having sex they'd keep doing it at hers. He’d never asked her over, and she wouldn’t have objected. They’d just gotten into a rhythm she was only now learning might not work for him.
She eyed him. “Am I supposed to have asked to come over?”
“No.” He sighed, and repeated more gently, “No, that's not what I mean. But I was struck when you talked about the way the neighborhood changed. All these things are background to me now. I don't even notice them. And you haven't been here in so long that it took you by surprise.”
“Sorry,” she tried, not sure if that was the right response. Not sure what he was looking for from her.
“No, that's not what I mean. I just think it's not something we've talked about.”
“What isn’t?”
“That I'm always the one to come to you.”
“Hang on.” She nudged her glass aside. “It sounds like you're mad. Are you mad?”
“I’m not, I swear.”
“So, what then?”
He ran his hand over his smooth-shaved scalp. “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong, exactly. I don't know. Maybe this doesn't make any sense. It's just somehow a little weird to see you in my place. And it's a little weird to realize that this is the first time it's ever happened.”
Her mind was leapfrogging around to put his questions in a context she could understand. Something that made sense of his unease but didn’t force her into a mea culpa she didn’t feel.
“I … admit it’s strange to realize we haven’t been here together. And I’m glad you spoke up about it bothering you. We’ll make a point of being more equitable about our locations from now on, yeah?”
He waited her out a bit longer than she expected, but smiled when she said, “So now we get to break in your bed, right?”
Because maybe they were on shaky ground, maybe not. But she figured there was one tried and true way to put him in accord with her. She grabbed her bag and lured him to his bedroom. It was obviously once his parents’ room, but everything about it now seemed like Vic: bookcase full of photography manuals and equipment, gorgeously framed nature images, modern king-sized bed with a dappled teal and gray spread.
It was all perfectly nice and entirely comfortable. No reason at all for her to feel like a porcupine far from the confines of her den.
He felt like he was giving in, but without ever defining what concessions he was granting. What had he wanted? Her to know she’d taken his going to her place for granted. What had she said? That she heard him and would course-correct.
So there was no problem with drawing her onto his mattress and letting their hands carry them both away. And it eased an ache inside him, to see her in this space he’d created. To prop her on his pillows as they kissed. To reach into his own bedside table for the condom.
It was reflexive now, the way his body reacted to her nearness. The ratcheting of tension down his spine when they kissed. The rush of his blood at the scent of her arousal. They didn’t always have to talk during sex. They could communicate with touches and eye contact and their sighs when he entered her.
And maybe not every time had to elevate them to the clouds. Sometimes sex was a great release without also being a stitch in the pattern drawing them closer.
So there was no problem with that, either. He’d wanted her in his home, and in his bed. All that had happened. He hadn’t conceded anything, and neither had she, and that was … fine.