25. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five
Trent
W e spend the Fourth of July together at the parade and fireworks, then we come home, and I make fireworks go off for Emily in a different way after Amir is asleep.
I don’t know what made Emily relax the rules between us, but I’m not questioning it. For however long this arrangement lasts, I’m savoring every moment.
But the length of this arrangement is weighing heavily on my mind when I make an appointment to see Doctor Rigilotto.
“Trent! It’s wonderful to see you again,” Doctor Rigilotto says as he enters the examination room. “What can I help you with today?”
I checked the internet before making this appointment, but my reading is slow and laborious, and I wasn’t completely sure I understood what was being said in all those blog posts and medical journals.
Beyond that, I probably could have asked Emily, but I didn’t want to make it seem like I was putting pressure on her or to imply in any way that I wanted our arrangement to have an expiry date.
“How long does it normally take couples to get pregnant?” I ask.
“You and your partner are trying to get pregnant?” he asks, tapping the keys to get into his computer.
I wince at the partner comment, but there’s no way to correct him without making it awkward. He’ll already see and remember the tests I asked for months ago once he’s in there.
“We’ve been trying since April,” I say, “and we haven’t had any luck.”
“Your sperm count was good,” he says, scanning the results on the computer.
He leans back in the chair and steeples his fingers.
“We tell teenagers that the chance of getting pregnant is a hundred percent every month to prevent risky behavior. But the truth is that the chance is more like twenty percent. Even once a pregnancy has occurred, there’s roughly a twenty percent chance of miscarriage. ”
“At what point do doctors step in if a couple has been trying for a while and is not getting pregnant?”
“We usually suggest a year,” he says.
“A year!” I sit forward in my chair, and I don’t know why I’m so shocked, but I never considered this deal with Emily going on for that long.
I thought a month or two, maybe. Now that we’re well beyond that, and we’re becoming more and more comfortable in ways I’m not sure we should be comfortable with each other, I was hoping he’d tell me it would happen any day now.
Instead, he’s told me we’re not even at the halfway point yet.
“A year,” he confirms with a chuckle. “At that point, I’d suggest that your partner has some tests run to see whether there are any problems on her end.”
“She’s had a baby before,” I say.
“Well,” the doctor says, his brow furrowed. “That doesn’t always mean there are no problems, but it should give you hope that you’ll be pregnant within the year.”
“Okay,” I say, taking a deep breath and standing up.
“That’s all you came in for?” he asks.
“I wasn’t sure if there was something we were doing wrong.”
“Assuming you’re tracking her cycle, using ovulation kits, and so forth, that’s the best you can do. When you get close to the egg’s release, having sex every other day or even every day can give you better odds.”
“Right, yeah,” I say, thinking of Emily’s calendar that she hasn’t filled in for July yet. “We’re doing all that.”
Having enough sex isn’t the problem—at least not since mid-June. We’re all over each other any chance we get. I’ve never physically needed anyone, ached for them, the way I do with Em.
“Then it’s just patience and persistence. You’ll get there.” He rises and escorts me out of the room. “Tell Emily she can come in to have some tests ordered, if she’s worried.”
“Thanks,” I say, lost in my own thoughts.
It’s not until I get into my truck and am staring at the steering wheel, wondering whether I can handle another seven or eight months of casual fucking without it feeling not so casual, that I realize the doctor mentioned Emily.
My heart sinks. If the doctor said her name as though it was no big deal, without me having confirmed in any way that “my partner” was Emily, it means the town must be rife with gossip about us.
That should bother me, and it does, but not nearly enough to consider putting a stop to whatever is happening.
In the end, I want Emily to have the baby she longs for, and she and I can deal with any fallout in Little Falls or with each other, if it comes to that.
I still believe we’re good enough friends that we can figure out what “after” looks like without it becoming painful for either of us.
We had a deal, and neither of us is the type of person to go back on our word.
Tyler sends me a text while I’m at work, telling me he just had a reminder on his phone that today is the anniversary of Omar’s death.
Emily might be off today, Tyler writes. Today has been a tough day every year so far.
For the rest of the day, Tyler’s warning is at the back of my mind, and I can’t seem to let it go. Rather than working late like I normally would, I ask Brett if he’ll take some overtime to finish everything and then close up. He agrees.
When I get to my truck, though, I still haven’t made a plan. Emily seems like someone who’d want the day acknowledged in some way, so I drive to Amir’s day camp, and I pick him up rather than leaving him there for the after-care hours.
He climbs into the truck, bubbling with stories about his day. Once he’s strapped in, I decide on a course of action.
“We’re going to buy some flowers, bud,” I say, starting the truck. “One set is for your dad, and the other is for your mom. Think you can help me with that?”
“For my dad?” Amir says.
“For his grave,” I say.
“Mom and I used to do that,” Amir says. “We used to take flowers to dad’s grave and to Grandpa’s, but we haven’t done that in a long time.”
“No?” I ask, and I make a mental note to get three bundles of flowers. While we’re there, we might as well honor Jim too.
“No,” Amir says, and then he seems lost in thought. “I think Christmas was the last time.”
I want to ask him if he thinks doing this will upset Emily, if maybe she hasn’t done it in so long because she decided it wasn’t the best thing to do. But he’s a five-year-old kid, and I don’t want to put him in a weird position.
I’ll stick to my plan, and I’ll brace myself for Emily telling me I’ve done it all wrong, if it comes to that.
At the flower shop, Amir looks around, picking up bundles of flowers and then putting them back.
“Having trouble deciding?” I ask.
“Well,” Amir says, gesturing to the premade bundles, “I want red for my dad. Just red. And I want purple for Grandpa. But they’re all mixed up.”
“Ah,” I say. “How about we tell Mrs. Maynard what we’re after and see if she can get us what we want?”
“So we’re not buying one of these?”
“We don’t have to. She’ll make special bundles for us if there are certain things we want.”
“Yes,” he says with finality. “Let’s do that.”
Sometimes his decisive personality makes me laugh a little on the inside. I try not to let it out in case he thinks I’m laughing at him. His personality quirks entertain me, and I’d never want him to take who he is to be a bad thing.
Amir points at the flowers he wants, and he’s very specific about how they should look within the bundles. His dad gets red carnations and red roses. His grandfather gets lavender and some other flowers I don’t recognize. When it’s time to get his mom flowers, he turns to me.
“What do you think?” he asks.
“Maybe we use some of the flowers from your dad’s and grandpa’s arrangements and then add in some white with them?”
“Yes!” Amir says, his enthusiasm returning. “Just like Trent sent.”
Mrs. Maynard sends me an amused look as she makes up the third bundle and then rings up the total. I take out my card and pay for them.
“Now we just need to get your mom,” I say as I carry out two of the bundles and Amir carries the third.
“Maybe you can tell her to meet us there,” Amir says.
In the truck, I take out my phone and text Em to ask if she’s busy.
Just finished showing. Going to get Amir. You at work still?
Nope. I have Amir already, actually. Sorry. Should have told you. We’re going to the cemetery. Want to meet us there?
There’s a long pause before I receive another message, and then when I do, it’s just one word.
Okay.
My heart hammers in my chest as I drive to the cemetery. I’m really not sure I’ve done the right thing here, but it was the best I could come up with.
When we get there, Emily is already parked near Omar’s grave, which is helpful, because I didn’t actually know which one it was. I put my vehicle in park, and Amir scrambles out, the two bundles in his arms. I leave Emily’s on the passenger seat, suddenly self-conscious about the choice.
“Who told you?” Emily asks when I get close enough. Amir is already deep into trying to “plant” the flowers around Omar’s grave in the dirt. Not exactly what I was expecting, but he’s five.
“Tyler,” I admit, staring at the dates on the headstone, how close together they are. Seeing them, it drives home how young he was, how surprising the whole thing must have been for Emily.
“We brought flowers for Grandpa too,” Amir says, gesturing to the other bundle he’s left on the ground.
Emily’s soft gaze meets mine, and I know I did the right thing. My chest swells at the proof on her face, at that tender expression she normally has when she looks at Amir. To think that I inspired that kind of emotion is pretty amazing.
“Thank you,” she says. “You didn’t have to.”
“I like taking care of you,” I say, and it’s true, in all the ways she’s now letting me do it.
She draws me into a tight hug, and I hear her shaky intake of breath near my ear. Her peach scent swirls around me with the light breeze.
When she steps away, her hand seeks mine, and she threads our fingers together. We’ve never held hands before, and I try not to read anything into it. If she needs some of my strength today, she’s got it.
Instead of cooking, I ask if Omar’s favorite restaurant is still open in town and if I can take them both there. She tells me that Bontaine Burgers is his favorite—him and three-quarters of the town. I’ve never tasted a burger like it anywhere else.
After we eat, we head home, and we play board games with Amir at the kitchen table until it’s time for bed. He asks me to put him to sleep, and so I trod up the stairs with him.
When I come back down, Emily has the game cleared off the table and she’s rearranged her flowers in the vase at the center. I gave them to her when we got back here, and she got a little teary over it and tried to hide her reaction from me and Amir.
I haven’t quite been able to pinpoint her mood tonight, just as Tyler predicted. A little rocky, but maybe it would have been that way no matter what I’d done.
“You okay?” I ask.
“I am,” she says, tearing her gaze away from the flowers.
She searches my face for a beat, and I can almost see the wheels turning, her deciding what she wants to say.
“This is the first year since his death where I haven’t died a little inside,” she says, her voice thick with tears. “There’s no way to thank—”
I close the gap between us, and I kiss her. I pour every ounce of my complex feelings into that kiss so that I don’t voice any of them out loud. To know I’ve taken even an ounce of her pain away with my presence is a gift I didn’t know I needed.
“I want you now,” she says against my lips.
“Tell me where,” I say, lifting her up. Her dress hitches up almost to her waist.
“Here,” she says.
“Here?”
“On the table,” she says.
I turn and shut the kitchen door, snapping the lock into place, Emily still in my arms. The benefits of an old house with smaller rooms and lots of doors.
“You’re sure?” I ask.
“You’re not really going to make me beg, are you?”
“I should,” I say, laying her down on the wooden surface. “Full-circle moment.” I push up her dress and tug down her panties. “But fuck me, I love the sight of you too much to wait.” I run my calloused hands along her thighs, and she visibly shivers.
“You’re taking too long.” She rises to tug on the button of my jeans.
“I had to take a moment to admire what’s mine.” I kiss her deeply as she shoves my jeans off my ass, and they pool on the floor at my feet. She makes short work of my boxer briefs next.
Then I’m sliding into her, and she’s clutching onto me.
As I move inside her, my thumb rotating on her bundle of nerves in a way that I know she loves, I can recognize that there’s something different about the vibe between us tonight.
Every time we make eye contact, I see that affection I saw earlier mixed with desire, and I’m sure I’m looking at her the same way.
“I don’t know why I love this so much, why I can’t get enough of you.” There’s a hint of awe in her voice, as though it really is puzzling.
Instead of saying it back, which is what I should do because it’s how I feel too, I kiss her. And I keep kissing her so that neither of us says anything we shouldn’t.
She’s never been just any woman to me, and sex with her has always meant something, but I can almost sense what we’re doing slipping past meaning something to meaning everything .
And for the first time, I’m worried we’ll never be the same when this is over.