17. Christine
— ? —
Christine
The tension is unbearable.
Of course I lie awake at night thinking about the way his jaw tightens when he’s trying not to say something. The way his eyes go dark when he looks at me too long. The way he used to look at me like that and then do something about it.
It’s chemistry. Biology. Nothing more.
I’m a liar.
Because it isn’t just his jaw. It isn’t just his eyes.
It’s the way my skin still knows the shape of his mouth.
It’s the way I catch myself staring at his hands - those hands - and my mind, unhelpful and filthy, fills in the rest. How they used to span my waist. How they used to slide up my thighs without asking.
How they used to find me already wet, like my body had been waiting all day for him to come home and ruin me.
The visits have become a new kind of torture.
Every accidental touch lingers longer than it should.
Every goodbye stretches into something that feels less like leaving and more like tearing.
He stands in my mother’s doorway with Isabella in his arms, pressing kisses to her forehead, and I watch the way his hands cradle her - so careful, so gentle, those same hands that used to trace patterns on my hip in the dark - and I have to look away before my face betrays me.
I’m not ready to forgive him. I’m not.
But my body apparently didn’t get that memo.
Today, I hear him on the stairs before I see him.
Heavy footsteps, faster than usual, and then a knock that sounds almost urgent.
I cross to the door with Isabella against my shoulder, already preparing my expression - neutral, friendly, nothing that suggests I spent half the night dreaming about his mouth.
I open the door.
He’s soaked.
Absolutely drenched, water streaming from his hair, his shirt plastered to his chest in a way that should be illegal, rain dripping from his jaw and his nose and the ends of his lashes. He looks like he just swam here. He looks like a disaster.
He looks-
Don’t. Don’t think about how he looks.
“You’re dripping on my mother’s floor.”
“I forgot my umbrella.”
“You drove a car here.”
“I parked four blocks away.” He pushes wet hair out of his eyes, a gesture so familiar it makes my throat tight. “It was the nearest legal space. I wasn’t going to circle the block and be late.”
“You walked four blocks in a monsoon rather than be five minutes late?”
He shrugs. Drips. A small lake is forming around his Italian leather shoes.
“I wasn’t going to be late.”
I feel something give way inside me. Just a little. Just enough to be terrifying. Because the old Benedict would have been late. Would have sent a text, would have rescheduled, would have assumed I’d understand because I always understood, always made room, always-
He walked four blocks through a monsoon to be on time.
“Stay here,” I manage. “I’ll get a towel.”
I settle Isabella into her bassinet on the way past. Then I don’t flee to the bathroom - I retreat strategically, grab a towel from the linen closet, the good one, the fluffy one Mom saves for guests, and try to remember how to breathe like a normal human person.
My reflection in the bathroom mirror looks flushed. Unhinged. Like a woman who’s about to make a terrible decision.
Get yourself together.
I return to find him standing exactly where I left him, still dripping, making no move to come further inside. Waiting for permission. Like he doesn’t assume anything anymore.
“Here.” I thrust the towel at him. “Dry off. And-” The word is out before my brain catches up. “Strip.”
His eyebrows shoot up.
My face goes nuclear.
“Just - shirt. Take off the shirt.” I’m looking at the ceiling now, at the water stain in the corner that Mom keeps saying she’ll fix. “You’re going to catch pneumonia and die and then I’ll have to explain to our daughter why her father drowned in a hallway.”
“I don’t think that’s how pneumonia works.”
“Benedict.”
“Taking off the shirt.”
I hear the wet sound of fabric hitting tile. Count to three. Make the mistake of looking.
Oh.
I’d forgotten. Or tried to forget. The way he’s built - all lean muscle and golden skin, water still trailing down his chest in paths I want to trace with my tongue.
The years have been good to him. Better than good.
There’s new definition in his arms, across his stomach, like he’s been doing something besides sitting in boardrooms.
I should look away.
I don’t.
His jeans are soaked through, clinging to his hips, to the V that disappears under the waistband, fabric plastered to the thick line of him in a way that is filthy.
My mouth goes dry. Then wet. Nothing to do with pneumonia.
Everything to do with knowing way too well exactly what’s under that denim - the weight of him on my tongue, the heat, the way he used to fill my mouth until my eyes watered and my throat worked around him.
The way he’d groan my name like he was angry at how much he needed it.
And then I see it.
The tattoo on his ribs. Small, elegant script in familiar handwriting.
Always yours.
My handwriting. From the letter I wrote him on our first anniversary, when I still believed in forever.
“You kept it.”
It comes out quieter than I meant. Almost angry. Almost something else.
He looks down at the ink, at the words I’d almost forgotten I wrote. His hand comes up to touch it, almost unconsciously. Fingers on my handwriting. On his own skin. I feel it like he touched me.
“I never thought about removing it.” His voice is quiet. “Not even when you filed.”
“Why did you keep it?”
He’s still looking at the tattoo, at the way the letters curve along his ribs.
A drop of water slides over the y in yours and I want, viciously, to catch it with my mouth.
I want to put my lips on that ink and find out if he still tastes like the man I married.
I want to bite him there. I want to shove him. I want both in the same breath.
When he finally meets my eyes, there’s something raw in his face. Unguarded in a way the old Benedict never was.
“Because even when I was terrible at showing it, you owned every part of me.” His gaze holds mine. “You still do. I’m always yours. I don’t know how to be anything else.”
Something in the air changes.
I can see his pulse in his throat. I can see the way his hands hang at his sides like he’s afraid of what they’ll do if he lets them. I can see that he knows I’m looking - at the tattoo, at the water, at the wet denim and the muscle and the man I used to wake up reaching for.
I should step back. Should put distance between us, remind myself of all the reasons this is a terrible idea.
He’s half-naked in my mother’s hallway, water still clinging to his skin, looking at me like I’m the only thing in the room - the only thing in the world - and I can’t breathe.
I can’t think. I can’t do anything except stand here and want him with a ferocity that terrifies me.
He steps closer.
Close enough that I can feel his warmth through the rain-chill. Close enough to see the drops of water still caught in his lashes, the way his pupils have gone dark and wide.
“Christine.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m not going to kiss you.”
My heart hammers against my ribs. “Then why are you-”
“Because I want you to know that I want to.” His voice drops, rough and honest. “Every second of every day. But I won’t. Not until you ask me to. Not until you’re ready.” His eyes burn into mine. “Even if it takes forever.”
He steps back.
The space where his body was feels cold. Empty. I don’t breathe until he’s across the room, until there’s half the hallway between us, until my lungs remember how to function.
“I should-” He clears his throat. “Let me find something dry to wear.”
“Mom might have something.”
“Right.” He doesn’t move. Neither do I. The tension hangs between us like something alive. “Christine, I-”
“Go.” My voice comes out strangled. “Before I - just go.”
He goes.
I stand in the hallway for a long time after, my hand pressed to my chest where my heart won’t stop racing.
***
That night I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, aching in places I had trained myself not to notice.
I think about his hands. His mouth. The tattoo on his ribs, my handwriting preserved in his skin like a promise he never broke even when he broke everything else. I think about the way he looked at me in the hallway - hungry and patient and utterly, devastatingly sincere.
Even if it takes forever.
I press my thighs together and pretend I’m not thinking about him.
It doesn’t work.
Somewhere across the city, I know - I know - neither does he.