15. Chantal #2
“We should eat,” I mumble eventually, not moving.
“We absolutely should,” he agrees, also not moving.
***
Later, we end up on the back porch with the citronella candle doing nothing about the mosquitoes and everything about the mood.
His hands find my shoulders, working out the tension that’s been living there for weeks, and I groan in a way that is frankly embarrassing.
“That bad?”
“Lower. Left. If you stop I’m calling the police.”
“Noted.” His thumbs dig in and I see God briefly. Then his mouth finds the side of my neck - casual, like it wandered there by accident - and the massage turns into something else entirely. My head falls back against his chest. His breath goes uneven.
Both of us forgetting that we’re supposed to be taking this slow.
This is reckless. You’re on your own porch. The neighbors can see. Anyone can see.
His teeth find my ear and I stop caring who can see.
You’re supposed to be careful. You’re supposed to be the grieving almost-divorcée, not the woman climbing her husband’s best friend on a porch swing-
We shouldn’t. Not here, not on a swing your mother-in-law’s daughter could photograph from the street, not eleven days after you told him the wrong night would ruin it.
“Stop thinking,” Isaac murmurs against my throat.
“I’m not thinking.”
“Liar. I can hear it.”
We end up tangled together on the porch swing, my leg hooked over his, his shirt half unbuttoned, both of us breathless and wanting. His mouth finds the spot below my ear that makes me whimper, and I’m pulling him closer, needing more, his name halfway out of my mouth-
Headlights sweep the yard.
We freeze, mouths inches apart.
“Tell me that’s a delivery driver,” I whisper.
“It’s not a delivery driver.”
Caroline marches up the walk, fury radiating off her in waves. She takes in our disheveled appearance - my rumpled dress, Isaac’s open shirt, the obvious evidence of exactly what we’ve been doing - and her lip curls.
“Wow.” She stops at the bottom of the steps and crosses her arms. “You couldn’t even wait for the ink.”
“Get off my property, Caroline.”
“You think you can just move on? Parade around with his best friend while my brother falls apart?” Her voice climbs. She jabs a thumb back toward her car like Cedrick’s suffering is parked in it. “He cries, you know. Every night. My mother has to talk him off the phone at 2 AM-”
“Good.”
The word drops between us like a stone. Caroline actually rocks back a step.
“You heartless bitch.”
“Your brother spent eighteen months in my best friend’s bed while I picked out cribs.” I stand up slowly, one hand on the swing chain, and I watch her register the difference between angry-Chantal and calm-Chantal, and choose wrongly not to be afraid. “If I’m heartless, ask him where mine went.”
“You’re going to regret this. Both of you.” She jabs a finger toward my belly, and Isaac goes rigid beside me. “And when this goes to court - and it will - I’ll be there. I’ll say whatever it takes.”
Isaac steps down between us.
“You need to leave. Now.”
“Or what? You’ll hit me?” She laughs, high and wild, and spreads her arms. “Do it. Please. Add it to the list for the lawyers.”
“I’m not going to hit you.” He pulls out his phone, calm as Sunday, and holds it up where she can see the screen. “But I am going to call the police if you’re not off this property in thirty seconds, and unlike you, I don’t have to lie to make my report interesting. Your choice.”
Caroline’s eyes narrow. She’s calculating - I can see the math running behind them, weighing the headline against the police log.
Then she spins on her heel and stalks back to her car.
“This isn’t over!” she shouts through the open window. “My brother will get custody! You’ll see! You’ll both see!”
Her tires spit gravel, and then the taillights are gone.
Inside, I lock the door, and my hands won’t stop shaking.
“Hey.” Isaac reaches for me. “You okay?”
“No.”
“Chantal-”
“Don’t.” I turn around, and whatever’s on my face makes him go still. “Don’t be gentle with me right now. I can’t - if you’re gentle with me right now I’m going to come apart, and I am so tired of coming apart in front of you.”
“Okay.” He stays where he is, hands loose at his sides, watching me. “Then don’t come apart on the couch.”
“Where, then?”
“Here.” He opens his arms. Doesn’t step toward me. Just opens them, and waits, and lets it be my three steps to cross.
I cross them.
Three steps. That’s all it was, in the end - three steps across my own living room, and every one of them a line in somebody’s file. Caroline’s still close enough to see the porch light in her mirror.
Let her look. Let her write it down.
And I finally, finally come apart - not on the couch, standing up, held together by his arms in the middle of my living room. He doesn’t shush me. He doesn’t say it’s okay. He just stands there and holds the weight, like he’s been training for it, which I suppose he has.
“You’re doing it again,” I say into his shirt.
“Doing what?”
“Not asking.”
“Ask what?”
“For anything. Caroline just told the whole street I’m a whore who’s already moved on, and you drove here and stood in my yard and didn’t ask me for one single thing.”
“Wasn’t why I came.”
“I know.” That’s the part that undoes me. “That’s the whole problem, Isaac. Every man I’ve ever known wanted something. You just - show up and hold the door frame.”
“It’s not complicated.” His chin comes down on the top of my head. “You’ll tell me when.”
“And if it’s soon?”
A pause. His heartbeat picks up under my ear, and he doesn’t hide it.
“Then it’s soon.”
He stays that night - on top of the covers, my back against his chest, one hand splayed over the curve of my belly where the baby rolls and settles like she knows who’s on watch. His breathing goes deep and even long before mine does.
I lie awake in the dark, listening to it, and I think: some ordinary day.
His hand is warm over the baby. The house is quiet. Nothing is on fire.
Oh, I think, just before sleep takes me. Oh no. It might be soon.