30. Keeley
KEELEY
O n Sunday morning, Lola and I play while Graham is very Graham: making himself a healthy breakfast, going for a run, checking on work, telling me to stop holding Lola.
When he’s finally exasperated by my inability to follow directions, he suggests we take her for a walk. We head toward downtown Santa Monica, and since Graham refuses to let me carry her, Lola spends the walk begging every person we pass for attention—and getting it.
“You should get a tattoo,” I say, glancing back at the tats on the guy who just finished cooing over her.
“Tattoos are ridiculous,” he replies. “I can’t imagine caring about something enough to permanently disfigure my body over it.”
“Well, I think that’s sad.”
“Yeah, so sad. What are the deeply meaningful things Six Bailey has written on his body?”
I reach for my phone and look up Six Bailey and tattoos because I’m certain Graham’s wrong. He takes my phone, flinty-eyed, and expands the picture.
“A marijuana leaf. How touching. Then there’s a bird, I suppose to signify his desire for freedom? A shark. I’m not sure what the fuck that’s for. Oh, and it looks like McGruff the Crime Dog.”
“You don’t know that,” I mutter, rising onto my toes to see the picture again. “I’m sure there are loads of St. Bernards who wear a trench coat with the collar popped.”
He laughs to himself. “Well, you’ve definitely proven your point. It’s deeply sad that I don’t care about freedom, drugs, sharks, and McGruff the Crime Dog enough to permanently disfigure myself.”
“Well, I think—”
Graham’s hand wraps around my hip as he presses my back to a storefront, his body shielding mine as a kid on a skateboard blows past us seconds later.
I blink up at him, at first in surprise, and become aware—not for the first time—of his lovely sharp jaw, already in need of a shave, and his lovely mouth, slightly ajar, and his bright blue eyes, which are currently focused on my lips.
For a half second, I can’t imagine wanting to look at anything else.
For a half second, I’m certain I know why I married him, I definitely know why I slept with him...and I think he might want the same thing I do.
“I’m gonna—” I ramble, breathlessly. “I’m gonna pop in this store.”
“No shoes, Keeley,” he warns.
I give him the finger, but once inside I’m not looking at the shoes at all. I’m wandering blindly, trying to sort my shit out.
I want him. I have never wanted to sleep with anyone in my entire life the way I do him. The pregnancy hormones are out of control, clearly, and they’re making this situation fucking untenable.
Maybe we could just sleep together once , to take the edge off.
Keeley, you know that’s a terrible idea.
Yes, I know. But still…
I turn to glance at him out the window. Two women are there now, pretending to gush over Lola when they’re really hitting on him.
I know that trick. I fucking invented that trick.
One of them places her hand on his bicep and I see red.
I burst out the door. “Hi!” I say, my voice overly bright.
They look me over, assessing how expendable I am. I lean against Graham and place my hand on my belly. Not expendable, bitches. They move along quickly after that.
Graham looks down at me with a brow raised. “What was that?”
“You can do a lot better than those two. The brunette looked like your friend Anna, by the way.”
He glances back at them and shrugs before he starts walking. It’s an insufficient response. I wanted him to say, “ I barely remember what she looked like” or “Anna is a monster who hates animals, children, and the poor.” Instead, he’s given me nothing.
“So what happened with you guys anyway?” I ask.
He shoots me that look. The one that says, “what are you really asking me, Keeley?” I seem to be getting it from him on a daily basis, of late. “I told you this. It was just a relationship of convenience and it ended. That’s it.”
“ When did it end, though?” I ask. “I mean, the girl sent your mom a Christmas gift.”
I wait for him to deny it. Instead, he scratches the back of his neck, stalling. “It ended in January,” he admits.
I come to a stop, something sinking in my stomach. “ Before we got married, or after?”
He winces. “Look, we weren’t serious. She met my mom and Walter when they came out to New York last fall, and she struck up this friendship with my mom because…I think because she wanted it to be more. And I ended it the second I met you because I realized she and I were never going anywhere.”
He seems cranky now, and I’m not sure if it’s because I asked the question or because I ruined something for him.
Maybe he ended things with this girl because, for a few hours, I was Drunk Keeley , the version of me who is endlessly fun and makes big promises she can’t fulfill.
Except…I wasn’t endlessly fun with him. Not at first anyway.
“It was over before I ever slept with you, if that’s what you’re about to ask.”
“I don’t understand,” I whisper. “I remember being pretty awful to you.”
“I guess you weren’t awful enough.” A half-smile tugs at his lips. “And later that night you weren’t awful at all.”
A sharp spike of lust hits me. “But I was always calling you boring, and cheap, and not fun.”
He steps closer, his eyes resting on my face.
“There’s something in the way you lob an insult, Keeley, that makes it sound an awful lot like foreplay.
Every single time you call me boring ”—his gaze falls to my mouth for one long moment—“it feels like you’re hoping I’ll pin you down and fuck you, simply to prove you wrong. ”
Fuck. My core clenches hard at those words. Even if he has wildly misunderstood me.
I do think he’s boring. Well, somewhat boring.
But I also like the way his nostrils flare when I say it. I might like the way it leads to that slow perusal of his and the cord it tugs inside me.
I might think he’s boring, but that there’s an opposite side to him, too, something fierce and overwhelming, and I want to set it free.
He walks away, so I straggle after him, wanting to tell him how wrong he was and wondering, increasingly, if he had it right on the nose.
Every single time you call me boring, it feels like you’re hoping I’ll pin you down and fuck you, simply to prove you wrong.
We’re back at my apartment and I’m disconsolately flipping through channels on the TV.
I no longer have Lola to distract me, so all I can think about is him and those words falling from his pretty mouth.
And then I picture him acting on it, with someone other than me, and I’m turned on and angry all at the same time.
“You’re in a bad mood tonight,” he says, sitting beside me. “Do I need to agree to watch Bridgerton ?”
“I don’t feel like watching Daphne get laid right now,” I mutter. “Fucking Daphne.”
“Is this about the duke again?”
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
I know I’ll be ridiculed for my answer but I’m beyond caring at this point. “I haven’t had sex in six months, Graham. That’s the problem. Even when I’m not pregnant I…I want it more than other people do. And now that I am pregnant…”
He winces and leans forward, burying his face in his hands. “More than other people,” he repeats flatly.
“I knew you were going to make me feel bad about this.”
“I’m not.” His jaw locks. “I’m just trying to understand.” He raises his head to look at me. “What do you mean by more ? How much?”
I hitch a shoulder. “Ideally, uh…several times a day.”
“Jesus,” he whispers.
“I knew—”
“I’m not complaining,” he hisses. “You have no idea how hot I find it that you… fuck . Never mind.”
“How hot you find it that I what ?”
He glares at me. “What do you think, Keeley? The idea of you, spending your entire day wanting to get laid…what sane man isn’t going to hear that and be tortured by it?”
I freeze, wondering if he’s joking. Based on how pissed he is, he’s probably not. “ Lots of men aren’t into that,” I reply. “And with the way I look now, I think the odds of me ever attracting anyone again are painfully slim anyway.”
He laughs, but the sound is rueful and unhappy. “With the way you look now? What’s wrong with the way you look?”
I stand and flip my shirt up. “Look at my stomach, Graham! Look at my stretch marks!” I let my shirt fall. “I’ve got veins .”
“Any man would give up a year of his life to fuck you, Keeley. Supposed veins or not.”
My breath stills. I’m good at equations, and this is a simple one:
Any man would with sleep me + Graham is a man = Graham would sleep with me .
“You could ,” I suggest.
He blinks. “What?”
“You heard me.”
His eyes fall closed. “Keeley…I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
It’s not like I thought he’d be thrilled with the offer, but I wasn’t prepared for outright rejection either.
“Of course you don’t want to,” I reply. My voice grows quiet. “I can’t even blame you. I wouldn’t want to fuck me either.”
He laughs—the sound low and menacing—as his hand wraps around my wrist. “You can’t be serious,” he says, and then he rises, too, stepping close to me—the heat of him along my chest, his breath against my forehead.
I swallow. Pull it together, Keeley. “Yes, I’m serious. I—”
He presses my hand to his cock. “Does it feel like I don’t want to?”
Beneath my hand he is thick and long, and very, very hard.
And I remember this: standing close to him, just the way I am now, and feeling the sharp edges of his hunger, and being simultaneously terrified and compelled by the depth of it.
He seemed safe from a distance, but now I realize how wrong I was; there’s nothing safe about him.
He’s been like a feral animal kept on a leash, and I just suggested removing it.
He lets my hand go, but it remains anyway, instinct urging me to try to wrap my palm around him through his shorts.
“Keeley, stop,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to—”
I keep my hand right where it is. “You don’t want my hand here?”
“Of course I fucking want your hand there. I just meant…I wasn’t putting it there for that reason.”
“Graham,” I say quietly, “what else do you want from me?” And then I grasp him again, harder, and air hisses through his teeth.
“Everything,” he grunts, moving away. “But not when you’re offering it as a one-off.”
He walks into his room and I remain behind, breathless.
He just turned me down, but it’s not because he doesn’t want me. It’s because he knows he will want more than I will. He’s probably right.
I’ve never hated his practicality as much as I do right now.