Safety Protocols
alyssa
Saturdays had evolved and settled into a rhythm of their own.
Julian still ran five days a week at five a.m., but on Saturdays he ran in the evenings.
We started from his place on Belmead, took the long loop through the neighborhood, and usually ended the run at Simone and Raschad’s.
Where we’d scoop up Micah, the three of us walking the last half mile back to Julian’s, our cool-down, or sometimes a light jog if Micah felt like pushing it.
That became our routine. Run. Pick up Micah. End the day at Julian’s place. Micah had commandeered one of his spare bedrooms, with a PlayStation hooked up like it had been his room for years. We could hear him, down the hall, shouting at the game.
Meanwhile, Julian and I ended up stretched across his couch, with Law & Order: SVU droning on in the background.
He sat at one end, half-watching the screen while his thumb worked over his phone, replying to whoever refused to leave him alone for a weekend.
My head rested on his thigh, one leg dangling.
His free hand brushed absently along my shoulder.
Suddenly, Julian set his phone down, sat forward, and gave me a look that meant business.
“There’s a matter between us I’d like to discuss.”
“That doesn’t sound good. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
I looked at him. “Okay...”
“We’ve been doing this for a while now,” he paused, searching for the right words. “This…what we have… works. You agree?”
I arched a brow at him, half-watching Olivia Benson interrogate a suspect. “Yes.”
“The sex… is exceptional.”
I choked on air. “Julian!”
“It’s a relevant point,” his tone was maddeningly calm. “You’d agree?”
I sat all the way up. “You’re really going to make me say it?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. It’s incredible. Happy?”
“Very,” his mouth twitched, but his eyes stayed serious. “We’re exclusive. Neither of us is seeing anyone else.”
“Right.”
“And we trust each other.”
I gave him a side-eye. “Where is this going?”
He exhaled. “I want to discuss adjusting our safety protocols.”
I blinked. “Did you just call condoms ‘safety protocols’?”
Of course he had. Only Julian would call a meeting about sex. Any other man might’ve sprung it in the heat of the moment, pressuring and pushing for what he wanted. Julian set his phone down, looked me in the eyes, and made it a conversation.
“Would you prefer another term?”
“I’d prefer you sound less like you’re negotiating a merger.” My tone was dry, but the smile at my lips gave me away.
A smile tugged at his too, brief, then gone. “Are you… open to other options. If we both get tested, and you’re comfortable with birth control.”
“Oh.” The word slipped out, breathier than I meant. “You’re asking if I want to—”
“Only if you’re comfortable. If not, we can continue the way we are.”
“I... yes. I want that.”
His shoulders relaxed, like he hadn’t been sure if I’d be upset at the question. “Good. Then we’ll both get tested again. Together. So everything’s current.”
The clinical way he said it should’ve been awkward. Instead, it felt... considerate.
I paused. “Though I’m not on birth control yet. Haven’t been since... Hadn’t needed to be.”
“Are you comfortable with it? Because if not, this conversation ends here. I won’t put the burden on you.”
“I’m comfortable. I actually have an appointment next week anyway. Took a minute to get it. I planned to discuss options with my doctor then.”
He nodded. “Then we’re agreed.”
“Look at us, being responsible adults.” Then I laughed. “Only you could make this sound like a quarterly review.”
“Would you prefer I be less thorough?”
“No.” I settled against his chest. “I prefer you exactly like this. Weirdly formal safety discussions and all.”
“For what it’s worth, this isn’t just about the physical.”
“No?”
“I trust you. Completely.”
“I trust you too,” I said softly.
“Good. Because once we make this change, I plan to thoroughly explore the benefits.”
“That sounds like a threat, Julian.”
“A promise. Definitely a promise.”
I kissed him. “Thank you. For making this a discussion. For caring about what I want.”
“Always,” he said simply.
Julian had been gone five days, traveling for business. I’d felt every one of them. So when he texted that he’d landed, it was nothing to say come by for dinner, Micah’s been asking, which was true, and also not the whole truth.
Micah had been asking, and the second Julian came through the door Micah was on him about a play he’d learned at practice, dragging him to the living room to demonstrate it with a couch cushion standing in for a defender, and Julian crouched down, letting himself be coached by an eight-year-old.
We ate while Micah talked the whole meal, briefing Julian on five days of his life like a soldier returning home.
At eight-thirty I called his bedtime. Micah looped his arms around my neck, kissed my cheek.
Night, Mom. Then he turned to Julian, and the two of them ran through the handshake they’d built between them over months.
Some sequence of grips and a snap at the end.
Micah grinned and said goodnight and padded off down the hall.
Then it was just us on the couch, with some movie neither of us was watching, and my feet in his lap.
“I should let you sleep,” he said, around ten, but didn’t move.
“You could.” I didn’t move either.
He looked at me with five long days in the look.
“I missed you,” I said. “Come finish the movie in my room. I don’t want you to go yet.”
We had a rule, for how we were when Micah was in the house and we’d held to it carefully for months. I took Julian’s hand wanting to break it, because I’d missed him and I was tired of being careful.
In my room he took my face in both hands the moment I locked the door, and just looked at me. “I missed you too,” he said and kissed me.
He walked me backward until I hit the bed and we sank onto it. He came down over me, kissing me with no hurry at all. I reached over and clicked the TV on, a little noise to hide under, then turned back into him.
We kissed quietly, both of us aware of the sleeping kid down the hall.
Every sound swallowed. Every laugh muffled against skin.
I pushed at his shoulder until he rolled and I came up over him, straddling his lap, pulling his shirt over his head, while his hands settled on my hips and slid under my shirt up my back.
His mouth left mine and found my neck, and I had to bite down on the sound it pulled out of me.
He felt me try not to laugh and grinned against my skin.
It was tender and a little ridiculous, the closest thing to giddy I’d felt in years, two grown people trying to be soundless and losing.
Soon our giddy playfulness got hungrier and more serious, and I forgot for a while that there was a single thing in the world to be careful about.
A knock came at the worst possible second.
“Mom?”
We froze, mid-kiss. I have never seen a man go that still that fast. We stared at each other, eyes wide in the dark, both of us caught somewhere between panic and the absurd urge to laugh, and I pressed my lips together hard.
“Mr. Julian?” Micah’s small voice tried, when I didn’t answer fast enough. “Are you here?”
Julian’s eyebrows went up. He knows, he mouthed. I lost the fight with my laugh, had to bury it in his shoulder.
“One second, Micah!” I called, scrambling to get up while Julian located his shirt, and we did the entire frantic whispered ballet of two adults who’d been caught.
I opened my door to Micah standing there in his pajamas looking up at me. “I had a bad dream,” he said. “There was a—a thing, in the closet.” He scrubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand.
“There’s nothing in your closet, Micah, it was just a dream.”
“Can you check?”
“Yes, I’ll check.”
“Can Mr. Julian check it?” he added looking past me with hope, even though he could not see Julian was there. He knew.
“Um… well…” then I felt Julian behind me, and Micah looked up with relief and a smile.
“Mr. Julian! There’s something in my room. It’s stupid. I know I’m too big to be scared… but… can you check?”
I stepped back. Julian crouched to Micah’s level. “First thing.” His voice serious, like they were the only two people in the house. “You’re not too big, and it’s not stupid. Everybody gets scared at night sometimes. The darkness makes the brain invent things. That’s normal.”
Micah’s shoulders relaxed a bit. “Do you get scared?”
“Of course. I just learned what to do with it. What you did was right. You went and got backup. That’s the smart play, not a baby play. You understand?”
“…Yeah.”
“Ok let’s go check it out.”
Micah took his hand and they walked to his room with me following behind. Julian opened his closet slowly and let Micah be the one to look to see there was nothing there, and Micah laughed, relieved. Then Julian said something too low for me to hear and Micah laughed again.
I leaned in the doorway and watched, all of it coming up in me at once.
I’d come in here to do this. The reassuring, the talking him down, that was my job and I’d just handed it to Julian and stepped back.
And Micah took his hand without a hesitation, like the answer to a bad dream was obviously this man.
Something was happening in my home that I had no word ready for. I stood there and watched the two of them at that closet and let myself feel it come all the way up.
He got Micah tucked back in and checked the closet one more time on request. When he stepped back into the hall and found me watching him with whatever was on my face, he stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing. You just— you’re really good with him. You didn’t make him feel small about it.”
“He wasn’t being small. He was being eight.” He said it like it was obvious. “He’s a good kid, Lyss.”
What got me wasn’t that he’d done it. It was how easy it had been for him. No hesitation, or performance. He’d just stepped in and been exactly what Micah needed and thought nothing of it.
I didn’t tell him any of that. I took his hand and led him back to my room.
I didn’t tell him he should go before morning.
I turned the movie off and pulled him down with me, and he gathered me in against him, and for the first time since I’d made the rules I let it stay broken and lay there in Julian’s arms, letting myself feel, without flinching and without guilt, exactly how much further in I was.