After dinner, with dusk falling, the boys join a group of neighborhood kids in a tag game, and race around until they’re completely spent. They don’t even protest when we tell them it’s bedtime, and their lids are already sagging by the time they slip into their sleeping bags. We kneel beside them for “tuck-ins.”
I ruffle Jonah’s dark hair—noting that he’s overdue for a trim (Lucy wouldn’t have let it go this long)—kiss his forehead, and say good night. As I’m getting up to go, he tugs my sleeve. “Daddy,” he says. “If you and Elle got married, would Madden and I be brothers?”
Across the expanse of nylon sleeping bag, I feel Elle freeze.
I’m frozen, too. I’m not sure how to answer. Is Jonah asking if marriage would, factually, create brothers of the two of them? Or is he asking, obliquely, if such a thing might come to pass?
Trust a nine-year-old to make you have to answer a question you haven’t even let yourself ask.
I wish it had occurred to me before this to consult with Elle about how we’d deal with questions like this. I realize, kneeling there, that we’ve made one of those dumb adult mistakes. In our heads, if the boys weren’t aware that we were romantically involved, they wouldn’t develop any expectations. But they’re not old enough to really understand romance anyway. They just see their friendship and our friendship developing in parallel—and that’s enough to make them ask questions.
I need to nip those raised expectations in the bud, to make sure that the boys don’t get hurt if things don’t work out between Elle and me.
“Yes,” I say carefully. “If two single parents get married, their kids become step-siblings.”
“That’s what you guys should do,” Jonah says. “Madden would be a good brother.”
“I have no doubt at all that Madden would be a good brother,” I say. “But please don’t get your hopes up that that is going to happen to you and Madden. Elle and I have both been married before, and neither of us is in a hurry to do it again.”
I let myself peek at Elle, but she is bent over Madden, kissing his cheek, and when she lifts her head, if she has an opinion about the answer I’ve given, it doesn’t show on her face.
I push myself to my feet. Elle gives Madden another quick kiss and rises behind me, following me out of the room and up the stairs. When we get into the kitchen, I close the door behind us and turn to her.
“Hoo boy,” she says, not meeting my eyes. “Wasn’t ready for that one.
I touch her arm. “What I said—I hope you know why I said that—we don’t want them asking us every five minutes if we’re going to get married.”
“Oh, Jesus, Sawyer, of course, that was exactly the right thing to say to them,” she says, flashing me a smile. “You were a superstar. I was totally blank, but you said exactly the right thing.”
Her smile, though, is fading, and there’s an expression on her face that reminds me of how she looked the first night I met her, at Maeve’s. Unsure. Well, fuck yeah she’s unsure. There are still a lot of unaddressed questions in the room.
“It has nothing to do with you,” I tell her. “I mean, it’s not anything about you that makes me feel like it would be a long time before I’d ever want to marry anyone again.”
“No, I know.” She nods. “It’s Lucy. And I respect that. A hundred percent.”
“And it’s not like you want to jump into anything. After what happened with Trevor.”
“No. No.”
“And I respect that.” I reach for her hands and hold them. “But I do care about you so much, Elle. This weekend was amazing. And not just because of the sex. I had such a good time with you.”
A smile crosses her face then, and warmth fills her eyes. “Me, too. Thank you for, you know, rescuing me during the toast.”
“You didn’t need any rescuing.”
“Yeah, well, it felt good anyway.”
She looks like she wants to say something else, but she doesn’t. Instead she squeezes my hands and asks, “Do you want to play a quick game of Scrabble or something, until the boys fall asleep?” She gives me a sassy smile.
“Absolutely.”
She beats me soundly, and then she checks on the boys.
“Out cold. Snoring. Beached like whales.”
“Wanna come upstairs?”
“Yeah.”
I grab the bag containing the two books I picked up at Powell’s in Portland so I can toss them on top of the already precarious pile on my night table and follow her up the stairs. We lock the bedroom door behind us and turn to each other at the same time. She rises onto tiptoes and I lean down, and our mouths meet, and just like that, so fast, it’s like the first time—okay, the first two first times—all over again, like we can’t slow down, can’t get enough. Like it’s been a year instead of just a handful of hours. The hungry way she kisses, the noises she makes, and the press of her body against mine make me so hot. She plucks at my clothes, ineffectually trying to get them out of her way, then her own, struggling to get herself naked, and I help her strip us both. She leans her head against my chest and I play between her wet folds, my fingers toying and circling and caressing, slipping and sliding in her liquid heat. When she’s panting and trying to fuck my hand, I pull her down on the bed with me. I draw her on top of me and start in on her breasts—I am positive that if I am patient I will be able to make her come just by teasing her nipples, and I’ve gotten her most of the way there when she jerks back and says, “Now, Sawyer, now,” and lunges toward the night table to retrieve a condom.
She topples the whole pile of books onto the floor, but neither of us can stop to pick them up. I grab for the condom, because all I can think about is getting it on and getting inside her.
Once I’m sheathed she climbs over me, and as soon as I penetrate her, she comes, crying out, a flush washing up her chest, like she’d been teetering on the edge and that extra pressure and stimulation was all she needed. Well, that and the fact that my mouth is full of her breast. I roll us over so I’m on top and begin fucking her as gently and slowly as I can—as slowly as I can stand to, really, because what I want to do is push and pound and thrust and—but it’s good, it’s so good, because this way I can watch the effects of each thrust, each inch, on her. The little sounds, the color changes, the closed eyes, the open, startled eyes, the bitten lip, her hands clutching the sheets. There’s a wild confusion in my chest again—lust and something fiercer and needier and way more complicated. Our gazes lock, and there’s no way I can look away. She’s asking me something with her eyes, and I try to answer. Yes. Yes, I’m here with you. I’ve got you.
You’re mine.
I’m not sure where the thought comes from, but almost as if she heard me she wraps her arms tight around me, pulling me closer, pressing her soft cheek against mine. “Sawyer,” she whispers, her breath against my ear. My chest constricts, but it’s not a bad feeling—it’s a sweet, half-forgotten sensation that makes me feel like we’re connected everywhere, not just where our bodies join. Like we’re one person, not two. “Oh, God, Sawyer—” She tips her hips, changes the angle on me, her breath warm in my ear, and damn it, I can’t hold back—we both come, clutching each other.
Dimly through the spasms of pleasure wracking me, I know I can’t let go of her.
I’m holding on in the vain hope of somehow not getting lost in the tumult inside.