"You could stay," I said, my lips on Erin's back. She had a tattoo there, that stray bit of Latin I couldn't stop kissing. Her body was a map written in scars. The splice in her eyebrow, hidden by a platinum ring. The uneven gashes on her legs and back. The fine crinkle on her cheek. The lines on her inner thighs, the ones on her wrist. I kissed every scar I could, and then I kissed them again. "You could come back to Boston, and we could—"
"I can't, Nick," she said, her voice heavy with remorse. She wasn't running because this was edging past her comfort zone. It was our reality. "You could come to Iceland. I'm sure Iceland needs doctors."
The theory was great but the practice wasn't an option. Getting into this fellowship had been impossible, and staying in it was brutal, but walking away with five months to go was ludicrous. I was nearly finished with the requirements for gaining another board certification, and all of this was nine thousand percent more complicated than the vows we exchanged only twenty-four hours ago. But I didn't feel an ounce of regret. Maybe I should've, or maybe that was a reminder the vows were easy and everything we did after could be as easy—or difficult—as we made it.
"The hospital owns my ass right now. My schedule opens up in late November," I said. "I can treat kids in Iceland then, or at least spend some time with you."
Her head bobbed. "I didn't think I'd like you this much when I married you."
"That's not true," I replied. I squeezed her ass for emphasis. "You knew everything that needed knowing."
"Maybe," she conceded. "I mean, Matt has been telling me your secrets for years."
"That's good of him," I said through a yawn.
We'd been up all night. Nothing could stop me from wanting to kiss, talk, lose myself in her, and she was right there with me. I knew exactly what it looked like when Erin wasn't ready or didn't want something, but I hadn't seen those expressions in a good twenty-four hours. She was just as hungry as I was, and equally aware that we didn't have a comfortable solution to the distance between our lives.
Those solutions only existed in the idyllic world where all families were capable of dissolving years-long grudges with a quick heart-to-heart, and pesky issues like board certification requirements and Icelandic research posts were waved away with a magic wand. Our hands were tied, and nothing that transpired here could change any of that.
And I hated it. I wasn't prepared to see her go, and I couldn't get my head around what would come after that. Erin was facing months of intensive study at Oxford and fieldwork in Iceland, and I powering through the final hurdles of my training. Nothing about that was primed for a healthy, happy long distance relationship.
"You know what we should do this morning? Get your whole family around the table for a talk, pour some champagne or maybe something stronger, I don't know."
"Stronger," she said, laughing. "Much stronger."
"See? We can do this, we can solve problems," I said. "So we go straight for the Irish whiskey, announce that we got married—"
"On a lobster boat," she interrupted.
A noise rumbled in my throat, a sound that expressed my disinterest without forming the words. "Details," I chided. "Like I was saying, wife, we tell them that we got married, you and Shannon apologize to each other and decide to join ball-busting forces, and then I keep you forever. Good plan, right?"
Her body rocked with quiet laughter, and all of those vibrations went straight to my cock. Conventional wisdom would suggest that I'd be spent by now. I was expecting my testicles to call me in for a chat and explain that I was using semen more quickly than my body could produce it, but I was also expecting my penis to barge into that meeting and say, "That's just too fucking bad, guys. You're gonna need to work some overtime."
"It's an awesome plan, husband," she said, reaching back to pat my bare ass. "But it's not right to make this about us when it's Matt and Lauren's weekend."
"Maybe it's Nick and Erin's weekend," I muttered, a little grouchy now.
"It's that too," she said, earning me another pat. "I'm not saying no because I don't want to, Nick. I'm saying no because what I want and what makes sense are two different things."
I thought about this while I kissed the words inked on her shoulder. She flew with her own wings, and I had to let her. She'd come back to me in due time, and she'd come home, too.
"My grandmother liked to say that instincts were the soul's road map, and that if you followed them, you'd find your way."
That earned me a skeptical glance over her shoulder. "Oh, we're gonna need to embroider that on a pillow."
I barked out a laugh but I was dead serious. "Spare the pillow and promise me it's not going to be another seven years before you get back here."
Erin twisted in my arms and brought one hand to the nape of my neck, the other to my chest. "It won't be seven years," she said. "Not even close."
That gave me a drowsy sort of peace, and I held her close as I dropped off to sleep. She was gone when I woke up hours later. Even before opening my eyes, I sensed her absence. I reached over, grasping for some trace of her in the bed, and found a piece of hotel stationery on the pillow.
There, in simple, straightforward print was her phone number and email address, and a brief note that had me laughing out loud.
Husband –
When seventeenth and eighteenth century sailors returned home from a voyage, they often brought pineapples with them. They'd spear it onto a fence, or hang it from the front porch as a method of announcing that they were in town and ready to mingle. That's why it's known as the symbol of hospitality, but it was also proof that they'd lived to tell about their time at sea.
I'm not a sailor, I'm not especially hospitable, and despite how things turned out with us, I had no intention of mingling. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm happy you liked my, ahem, pineapple.
Email me, and I'll respond.
- e