Chapter 26 #2
Later that night, I leaned against the doorway into Shay’s room. “Hi.”
She looked up from her work at the desk with a smile. “Hey.”
She’d changed into a small pair of shorts and a slouchy sweater that always bared at least one shoulder in offering. No bra. I loved when she ditched the bra. Earrings too. The at-home version of Shay was one of my favorites. “Can I come in?”
We were still sorting out the rules of cohabitating while fake-married.
We had no problem sneaking around and having sex in every semiprivate space we could find—pantry, barn, bathroom—but we hadn’t slept together since that night after the Harvest Festival.
Though no one said it out loud, sharing a bed for the purposes of sleep was one step too far.
It was too far for Shay because she had her eyes on a clean exit from this town and our marriage at the end of her year here.
It was too far for me because I already knew I wouldn’t recover when she left.
I didn’t need to add memories of holding her every night to that horror show.
So, we kept to our separate rooms and treated each other to a certain amount of polite distance.
She checked in with me each morning to confirm whether Gennie was getting a ride home with her or taking the bus to hang out with Gail.
I checked in each afternoon to ask if she wanted to eat dinner with me and Gennie. We were so fucking polite.
I knocked on her door every night to tell her Gennie was asleep.
She knocked on my door in the morning to tell me when she was getting into the shower.
I knew she did this so we didn’t end up competing with each other for hot water but I liked to torture myself and pretend she did it so I’d know exactly when she’d be naked.
There were moments when I thought this information served as an invitation to join her in there.
Part of me loved the idea of barging into the bathroom, throwing back the shower curtain, climbing in there with her, and twisting her wet hair around my palm while I fucked her against the tile wall.
No questions, no conversation. The other part of me knew I’d never pull off a stunt like that.
I’d talk myself out of it before opening the door.
Unless Shay made it very clear that she wanted my companionship in the shower. Especially companionship of the barging-in, hair-pulling variety.
“Of course you can come in,” Shay said, waving me forward.
Thank god she didn’t know I was half hard and fully obsessed with her.
“Thanks.” I shut the door behind me and flopped onto her bed, burying my face in the duvet. It smelled like her and now I was more than half hard. “Gen had a million things to talk about tonight. Question after question. So much to talk about. Her head is like a beehive.”
“What’s on her mind?”
I dug a thumb into the back of my neck to loosen the tension there. “Nothing. Everything.”
“What is this about?” Shay pushed to her feet and moved toward the bed. “You’re always grabbing at your neck. What’s going on?”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s obviously not.” She batted my hand away and ran the backs of her fingers over my shoulders and along my neck. “You are wound tight enough to form your own diamonds, Noah.”
“It’s not that bad,” I grumbled.
“Ha.” She opened a few drawers before saying, “Take your shirt off.”
I did not have to be asked twice.
“Okay, tough guy,” she said, dropping her phone on the bed beside me. “I’m going to work on your knots. Is that all right?”
“You’re welcome to them.”
She climbed up and settled low on my back, her calves tight against my flanks.
“I’m going to use some lotion. It smells a little bit like honey and almond though it’s not an overpowering scent.
No one is going to think you fell in a bucket of perfume.
Does that work? I’m sure I can find something more neutral if you really hate it. ”
Honey and almond. Fucking finally. I’d only driven myself crazy trying to place those scents. “I don’t mind,” I said. “It’ll wash off in the shower tomorrow morning.”
Murmuring in agreement, Shay worked the lotion into my upper back, shoulders, and neck. It felt otherworldly. Her hands were strong and relentless, and I loved the way she touched me. Even better, the tension seemed a little looser.
I decided to fuck it all up by asking, “Do you want to have kids? Someday? You know, since Gennie brought it up tonight.”
Her hands stilled on my shoulders. For a second I thought we were finished, massage foreplay was over, and I’d have to hobble out of here with my aching cock.
But then she said, “There was a time when I thought I wanted kids. I thought I wanted the whole picture-perfect family and everything that came with it.”
“What changed that?”
She moved her hands down my shoulders, squeezing as she went. “A relationship ended and I had to—to reevaluate.”
“And kids didn’t make the cut?”
She gave a wry laugh. “I don’t know. I’m still figuring out what it is I want and what I’ve convinced myself to want.” She squirted more lotion into her palm. “What about you?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, one niece is more than enough for me.”
“You never thought about marrying someone nice for reasons unrelated to expanding your empire or faking it for an estate?”
I chuckled into the duvet. “Not really, no.”
Because I only thought about marrying you.
“You don’t imagine yourself giving Gennie a cousin or two?”
Some version of that question came my way frequently.
Everyone wanted to know if I wanted kids of my own .
As if contributing sperm was superior and I should prefer that over a simple blood relation to Gennie.
But I knew that wasn’t the question Shay was asking.
She wanted to know where the future would take me and whether I saw more small people who’d scream at me about baby carrots there.
“I don’t think so, no. I’m not going to tell you that I have an iron-clad plan because god knows all of my plans fall apart on me, but when I look five years down the road I don’t see more kids there.
It’s hard enough caring for Gennie. She needs all of my attention. ”
“And she’d raise hell if you tried to bathe a baby in the kitchen sink.”
“Oh my god. I know.”
She drove her knuckle into the slope of my shoulder and it hurt like hell but it was a good hurt.
“I’m not sure I’ll believe you if you try to tell me that you weren’t looking to wife someone up in Manhattan.
Or Brooklyn. I bet you couldn’t walk down the street without getting up close and personal with some yoga pants. ”
“I wasn’t looking to wife anyone up,” I said. “And I can’t say I paid much attention to the yoga pants.”
“Noah. Do not lie to me and pretend you were a monk. I’ve seen you in a suit and I know a thing or two about New York girlies. You had to beat them off with a lead pipe and you know it.”
If there was one thing I did not want to discuss with my wife it was the sex I had before marrying her.
Not because it was mind-blowing or even that great in volume but because I didn’t want to think about her having sex before our marriage.
I knew she did—and I’d known it back when we were teenagers too—but she was mine for this moment and I didn’t want to make eye contact with the moments she’d belonged to someone else.
“I worked too damn much,” I said. “Anything beyond that was…incidental.”
“Except for all those so-called business meetings in the Hamptons where you definitely did not have any fun whatsoever because you were a good little lawyer.”
“Don’t forget the yachts,” I said. “I was a very good lawyer on yachts too.”
“You were going to live the big law bachelor life indefinitely?”
“I didn’t hate the big law bachelor life,” I said carefully. “It had its advantages. Not a single discussion of the size of tapioca balls, for one.”
“When she’s all grown up, we’ll have to embarrass the shit out of her with that story. That’s the kind of thing we trot out when she brings home the person she’s dating for the first time or when we give a toast at the rehearsal dinner before her wedding.”
It wasn’t lost on me that Shay was speaking of a future where my niece brought dates home to us and we gave toasts at her wedding. Rather than fucking that up, I simply said, “You’re damn right.”
“Just tell me if this is too personal,” she said, her thumbs working my lower back. “I was wondering if Eva is allowed visitors. Does she get to see Gennie at all?”
“Not too personal. Eva is allowed visitors. Gennie and I went to see her a couple of times. Those were—” I shook my head. “They were difficult visits.”
Shay murmured. “What happened?”
“Aside from the obvious issues, we had to travel. Eva’s trial was conducted in Michigan and she remained there as she awaited sentencing.
It didn’t occur to me until it was time to board the flight that Gennie might have trouble flying.
She panicked. Complete and total meltdown.
Screamed for an hour straight before falling asleep on the floor under her seat. ”
“Oh, shit.”