Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
HAPPILY EVER DURING
Arden
There's something electric about wanting someone you already have. It should be impossibly mundane, the way his fingers curl around a wine glass, how his collar sits slightly askew, the familiar curve of his smile when he catches me looking. I've seen it all thousands of times before. But tonight, in the glow of the restaurant, surrounded by conversation and clinking glasses, the laughter of our friends, I'm struck by the same lightning that hit me years ago.
Our friends are deep in conversation about their latest home renovation disaster, but all I can focus on is the way he's looking at me across the table. His attention is a compass, always pointing to me, to the way his eyes hold me with a darkness that isn't about color, but about depth. About wanting and desire, the kind that makes my skin prickle with anticipation. He takes a deliberately slow sip of his wine, and I watch his throat work. The scruff that once defined his twenties has softened, grown more intentional, and I remember how it feels against the contours of my body.
We've gotten good at this. The subtle signals, the practiced timing. I excuse myself from the table with a casual mention of touching up my lipstick. Our friends barely pause their story about catastrophic wallpaper choices. As I walk away, I can feel his eyes following me, knowing without looking that he's already planning his exit strategy, probably an important call he ‘has to take.’ We've always known how to run away to our own world.
The bathroom door barely closes before we collide. His lips pepper kisses up my skin in a frenetic way. The I-couldn’t-survive-another-second kind of way. I get it. His lips are a fevered language against my skin, speaking desperate translations that require no words and my body responds in its own dialect, urgent, knowing that only he understands.
I frantically reach for his belt as his hands sink into my thighs. Pulling down my underwear and tucking them into his pocket. There was a time that might have been to satisfy a kink, now, after years together, I think it’s more the courtesy of not leaving clean panties on the public bathroom floor.
He walks us backwards, and with his hands never leaving my waist, spins me toward the mirror.
"Is this what you wanted?" he whispers, and the words are both a question and a statement. His lips brush my ear, and I can hear the smile.
The mmm-hmm that slips from my lips as much a plea as it is involuntary. But this is who we are. We can be sitting at a table of a half dozen people, with numerous conversations, and yet no one hears the unspoken thing between us. No one sees the pulsing desperation between us. And we just sneak off to find ourselves a pocket of passion amidst the banality of the rest of life. Though I often wonder if our friends know the truth. That sometimes, we are exactly who we were that first night. And we chose not to deny ourselves anything. At least not from each other in moments of outright pleasure
We move together with the practiced ease of two people who have spent years learning each other's rhythms. The mirror reflects us, not just our bodies, but the way we see each other when no one else is watching.
And that’s exactly how we got here. Where he has me braced forward over the sink as my hands leave their grip on the porcelain sides.
My head hangs down, unable to bear the weight of itself on my neck, instead rolling from side to side with the sensation of him. His body bent over mine. His body in mine. He drags his teeth across my shoulder, up to my ear as he pulls out and thrusts deep within me again.
Our friends are outside. There is an entire restaurant outside. But when he looked at me tonight, there was no world where I could have waited to have him. And the look on his face told me he agreed, as he always does. His hand wraps around my neck, not as a domination, but as stability.
"Let's make a baby," he says, and suddenly the entire world narrows to this moment.
My response is half laugh, half gasp.
"Now?" We’re perpetually on the edge of propriety, on the edge of orgasm, chasing life changing decisions in a bathroom.
But that's always been us.
He drapes his body over me, and wraps his arms around me tightly. Not disconnecting us where it matters, us both teetering on the edge as he holds me, and whispers, "Whenever you're ready."
"We can’t make a baby in this bathroom, so tonight you’ll have to settle for just making me come."
I say as his hand slips between my legs, increasing the pleasure only I can feel as his body drives home the rest of it.
"Darling," he says, his other hand gripping on my jaw, straightening it forward to capture our shared gaze in the reflection, "there is nothing about you that could ever be settling," his breath is labored, meaning he is ready to dive head first into orgasm with me. He picks up his pace, and I tighten in his arms. His moans heighten, and I slap my hand behind me to capture the sounds ready to escape him.
I keep him tightly inside of me as we both finish. Knowing we have limited time before we have to return to the casual conversation of dinner and everyone can pretend that we aren’t both glistening in a new layer of sweat.
But before we sneak back into the version of our life for public consumption, I am curious how serious he is. The probability I conceived a child on this day, in this bathroom, isn’t likely. Considering I’ve been on the pill since I was eighteen. But the thrill of knowing what primal intention he had in that moment, was surprising. Some psychological wiring circuited in my brain when he said it. Not because I am or have ever been baby crazed, never one of those people who had baby fever, but somehow, I have always seen a family with him .
I'm fixing my hair in the mirror when he wraps his arms around my waist from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder.
"You really want to start our family in a public bathroom?" I tease, watching his reflection smile back at me.
"We started our family in a public bathroom years ago," he says softly, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. "I want to grow it."
Maybe I’ve seen a family with him, because for longer than I ever realized, he has been my family.
"You know," I muse, reaching back to straighten his collar, our bodies swaying slightly together, "most people have these conversations somewhere a little more sensible."
He laughs, the sound rumbling through both our bodies as he presses a kiss to my temple. "When have we ever been sensible?"
"Fair point." I smooth my dress, checking my reflection one final time. "Think they know?"
"That we just had a life changing conversation in a bathroom?” he whispers conspiratorially. “Probably not." He opens the door, gesturing for me to go first. "That we snuck away for a quickie?” He opens the door with a flourish, gesturing for me to go first. “Almost definitely."
We make our way back to the table, where our friends are now debating the merits of various countertop materials. They barely acknowledge our return, though I catch Amanda hiding a knowing smile behind her wine glass.
I settle back into my seat, the weight of our conversation sitting warm in my chest. His hand finds mine under the table, thumb running across my knuckles. It's strange how a single moment can shift everything and nothing at all. The world keeps spinning, our friends keep talking, the wine keeps flowing. But somewhere along the way, we made a decision far bigger than what we would order for dessert.