Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Brayden
Savannah wobbles slightly as she walks back into the restaurant dining room. Her head must be bad. I get up, intercepting her before she reaches the table, offering her my arm. She looks flushed, hair slightly askew. Was she throwing up? I know that happens sometimes.
In the elevator, she moves away from me onto the opposite wall, turning toward the mirror and checking herself over for something—I’m not sure what.
“When I was a kid, I thought elevators like this showed other dimensions.” She gestures to the two mirrored walls of the elevator, the reflection of a reflection, an infinite number of each of us.
“In a different universe, do you think you would have played baseball?” She asks it like she’s really asking something else, but I can’t tell what.
“I don’t think Brad would give me a choice.” The way I wasn’t given a choice in a lot of things: I was taught there was one narrow path and any deviation from it made you a deviant.
“But you’re choosing baseball now,” Savannah says.
I don’t know how to do anything else. Other than maybe be your husband. “I guess I am. How about you? If you had the option, would you have done something else?”
She blows a strand of hair out of her face. “I would do a lot of things differently.” And then doesn’t say anything for the rest of the ride.
Back at our hotel, Savannah drops her things, grabs stuff from her suitcase, and goes into the bathroom like she can’t wait to get out of her dress. The shower runs, briefly.
A few minutes later, she emerges with her hair in a messy bun, her face bare of makeup.
That’s not what I’m looking at, though. She's wearing those little sleep shorts, the cotton ones that stop right below the curve of her ass.
Her legs are long and bare and dimpled in various places I want to put my mouth.
I distract myself by changing into joggers then realize I didn’t bring enough shirts to wear one to sleep in.
Shirtless, I head into the bathroom. Brush my teeth.
Savannah has put her toothbrush in an upright hotel glass so it doesn’t drip on the countertop.
I put mine right next to hers, the handle of each brush crossing, her bright pink one next to my plain white.
I don’t know why I like looking at them together.
Or I do know why, and I don’t know what to do about it.
I think I’m falling in love with my wife.
In another universe, tonight would have been a date, a real date. She’d be in the other room, waiting for me. There would be no pretending, not to anyone else and most especially not to ourselves.
But we’re in this universe, so I go back out to the room and climb into bed.
Savannah moves around the room, picking up and putting down various things, looking for something, but it’s not clear what.
Still, I watch the shift of muscles in her thighs and the soft dip of her belly right above the waistband of her shorts.
The darkness of her nipples against her thin cotton sleep shirt.
“Sorry,” she says after a while.
I pull my gaze away from her. “Sorry, what?”
“If I’d known about the whole bed situation, I would’ve brought something else to wear.”
It doesn’t matter what you have on. You could be wearing anything and the only thing I’d be thinking about is ripping it off you. “I didn’t exactly bring pajamas.”
She comes over to the bed, raising the covers on her side of it. The bed is king-sized. I can be a gentleman. I scoot over to give her space until I’m practically hanging over the edge.
She takes a minute getting settled, turning this way and that before tucking her knees and curling on her side, facing toward me.
After a minute, I turn onto my side. We’re both under the covers and her foot is very near my leg, close enough that it wouldn’t take much to reach out and touch her.
Her bun falls softly against the pillow. Her skin smells like rose perfume.
“I had a good time at dinner,” she says.
“Yeah?”
Her cheeks go slightly pink. “It’s been a while since I’ve been on a date. A real date, I mean. Or close enough.”
“Me too.” Especially one that didn’t end with blurry photos on Instagram and a team talking-to. “Too bad about the third wheel.”
Savannah looks toward the wall adjoining the next room. The one where Adler is, if he’s back at the hotel and not wherever he disappeared off to. “If you and Asher didn’t hate each other so much, you might even be friends.”
Adler wants you. She has to know that. It radiates off him, an energy I can’t ignore. I should know. I’m doing the same thing. “Yeah, I don’t see that happening.”
She reaches over to her nightstand and clicks off the light. After a second, I do the same and we’re plunged into darkness. A few minutes later, Savannah’s breath evens out and she falls asleep.
I lay there for a long time after, thinking about how we’re lying to everyone we know by saying we’re together. But maybe, just maybe, we’re lying to ourselves by pretending that we’re not.