Chapter 22
HASHING THINGS OUT
LIAM
Irearrange the wine glasses for the third time, the stems cold and slick beneath my fingers.
I’ve already polished them, but now I angle them on the coffee table so the curve of each one faces the sofa, not the fireplace.
It’s a futile, anxious symmetry—like straightening deck chairs on the Titanic, but the deck is my living room, and the iceberg is a twenty-year-old woman with a better mind than mine.
I fumble the last glass, nearly knocking it over, and catch my own reflection in the black sheen of the TV screen.
The face looking back is older than I remember, lips pressed flat and colorless, eyes electric with some animal worry I’d never allow in public.
There’s nothing left to do. The charcuterie board is a study in minimalism: sliced apples, a wedge of Manchego, prosciutto folded in origami triangles.
I debated adding olives, but the green always stains the teeth.
I move the bowl anyway, just to feel the weight in my hand.
I hover by the window, scan the street below.
The city glows, slick and gray, every car a question mark crawling into the night.
The clock ticks above the gas fireplace, each minute falling like a judge’s gavel.
The place is too clean. The absence of clutter is almost hostile.
I smooth a wrinkle in my shirt—white, tailored, stiffer than I like—and consider unbuttoning the collar.
I don’t. I sit, but the couch swallows me, so I stand again, wiping phantom dust from my palms.
At exactly 6:09 p.m., there’s a knock. How did I miss her coming up the drive?
I open the door, revealing the blonde beauty who always takes my breath away Her hair is back in a loose ponytail, hands jammed in the pockets of a thrifted trench coat.
She steps into the hallway and pauses, scanning the entrance for escape routes, then meets my eyes.
I see no makeup, no mask, just the same clear blue as before.
“Hey,” she says. The word lands like a snowflake on my shoulders.
I can’t trust my voice, so I nod and step aside, letting her pass. She peels off the coat, revealing a navy sweater, dark jeans, boots with salt stains still clinging to the toes. She hesitates, then drapes the coat over the arm of the chair, careful not to disturb the shape I’ve arranged it in.
“Thanks for having me,” she says, scanning the shelves, the neatness, the books lined up by theme and not by author. Her gaze lingers on the framed triptych above the mantel—an abstract of blue, gray, and a single thread of arterial red. “Your place always looks so elegant.”
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “I’m glad you’re here. I thought about ordering dinner, but I wasn’t sure if you’d be hungry,” I say, ridiculous even to myself.
She shrugs, half smile. “I’m fine. I ate with Andie.”
She crosses to the couch and sits, not quite at the center, legs tucked up, hands gripping the arm of the sofa just slightly. She looks at me, waiting.
The next moment hangs, knife-edged. I stay standing, hands in pockets, as if the room might tip over if I move wrong.
“Simone,” I start, and already I can hear the apology leaking into my tone. “Thank you for coming.”
She sips, lips leaving a pink crescent on the rim. “Why did you want to see me?” she asks, direct as always.
I cross to the coffee table, plant myself on the ottoman so I’m not looming over her. “I owed you a conversation. A real one. Not on email, not in a classroom, not—” I gesture at the past, “—through intermediaries.”
She leans back, a glass balanced in her lap. “So talk.”
I nod. The words have been rehearsed, sharpened, revised, but now they jumble out in no order at all.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about everything that happened.
About how I acted. About what I asked of you.
” I look at her, trying to read her face, but she’s impassive, eyes locked on mine like a jury waiting for a confession.
“I told myself it was about honesty, about being upfront. But it wasn’t.
It was about control.” I can’t help the way my hands flex on my knees.
“I thought if I could make everything contractual, clinical, then I could avoid the mess of conceiving a child. The risk. I could have what I wanted without—” I almost say ‘hurting you,’ but I stop.
She finishes the thought for me. “Without being vulnerable.”
I nod, ashamed at how easily she nails it.
She traces the stem of her glass with a thumbnail, the rhythm a slow metronome. “Why do you even want a kid, anyway?” There’s no accusation, just curiosity, like she’s finally gotten to the part of the story she cares about.
I stare at the pattern in the carpet, mouth dry. “I think about legacy. About not disappearing. I know that’s selfish. I know it’s fucked up.”
She shrugs. “Isn’t that what all parents want? To pass something on?”
“Maybe.” My voice is rough. “But I was so wrapped up in the idea of it being safe, planned, that I forgot people aren’t lab experiments.”
She considers this, eyes softening a degree. “So why did you pull back? After everything?”
I look at her, really look. The answer is simple, but so ugly it hurts to say. “Because I realized you deserved better than being a solution to my fears.”
She sets the glass down, hands now free, fingers steepled in front of her. “And if I wanted to be more than that?”
I shake my head. “I would ruin you. I almost did.” I see her flinch, the tremor in her jaw, and I want to take it back, but it’s too late.
We’re silent for a minute. The tick of the wall clock, the distant rumble of a truck outside.
She says, quietly: “You didn’t ruin me. You just made me doubt myself. For a while.”
I swallow, the taste of iron on my tongue. “You’re stronger than me.”
She half-smiles, all edges. “That’s not saying much.”
We sit, two islands in the blue of dusk. The air is so dense it’s almost liquid.
She breaks the surface first. “My doctor says I might actually be able to have kids. Eventually. If I want to.” She says it like she’s reading a weather report—surprising, but not urgent.
The words land and detonate. I stare at her, lips parted, not trusting myself to speak. The glass in my hand wobbles, sloshes a ring of red onto the coaster. For a second, the image of her swollen with my child, her mouth soft with sleep, is so vivid I can’t breathe.
She sees it, smiles small. “You look like you’re about to faint.”
“I’m not,” I say, but my voice is gone. I clear my throat. “That’s incredible. I’m happy for you. I mean it.”
She watches me, equal parts scientist and predator. “Are you?”
“Yes.” I mean to say more, but she raises a hand.
“I’m not offering. I’m not here to fix anything for you.”
I nod, chastened. “I know. I wouldn’t ask.”
We’re quiet again. I wonder if she can hear my pulse from across the table.
She sighs, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “So what now?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I wish I did.”
She looks at me, all the old Simone brightness back in her face, but darker at the edges. “You could ask me out like a normal person.”
I blink, not sure if she’s joking.
She waits, lips pressed together, then adds: “Just for coffee. Or a movie. Something boring. No contracts, no weird side bets. No power imbalance.”
The smile breaks across my face before I can stop it. “Are you sure? I’m not exactly prime boyfriend material.”
She grins. “Nobody is.”
I laugh, the tension uncoiling in my chest. “Okay. Coffee, then. Or a movie. Or whatever you want.”
She nods and then takes the lead, perching on the edge of the couch. Then, she turns to face me fully. “Come here,” she says, and I obey, shifting onto the cushion next to her.
We don’t touch. Not yet. The electricity is live, buzzing in the inch of space between her thigh and mine.
She turns, tucks one foot under herself, and studies my face. “You’re nervous,” she observes.
“So are you,” I reply.
She laughs, short and real. “Of course I am. It’s been a long fucking year.”
I can’t help it: I reach out, tuck a strand of golden hair behind her ear, linger on the lobe, tracing its shape. She closes her eyes, lashes fluttering, breath hitching just enough to register.
When she opens them again, she’s closer—lips parted, eyes wide and deep. The first kiss is almost nothing, a brush, a test of pressure. The second is more—her mouth opening for me, a welcome, a dare. She tastes like the memory of coffee, like rain, like hunger.
She climbs onto my lap, knees straddling my hips, and her hands fist in my shirt, crushing the careful crease.
Her tongue is quick, clever, the way she is on paper.
I pull her closer, hands sliding up the curve of her back, fingers spanning the ribs, counting them.
She feels different, thinner than before, all tensile strength and healed wounds.
She breaks the kiss to catch her breath. “Are you sure you want this?” she says, so quiet I almost miss it.
I answer with my mouth, tracing her jaw, her neck, the hollow behind her ear. Her hands slide under my shirt, cold fingers searching, mapping. She finds the small scar on my side—appendix, age twelve—and runs her thumb over it, slow and reverent.
She tugs at the buttons on my shirt, impatient. I help, peeling it off, letting it fall to the floor. I want to see her, all of her, but I wait. She’s in control, and I’m grateful for it.
She sits back, peels off her own sweater in one practiced motion. Underneath, a simple white bralette, nothing like the lace and underwire she once wore for me. It’s more honest, somehow, and I love her for it.
My hands find her waist, then the button of her jeans, and I pause, waiting for permission.
She nods, and I ease them down, baring her thighs, the new landscape of her body.
She kicks them off, then pulls my head to her chest, cradling me there.
I listen to the thump of her heart, steady and strong.