Chapter 49
Coffee in the Aftermath
Morning did not arrive gently.
It came through the bedroom curtains in a flat white strip, landed across Nathan's face, and dragged him out of sleep with the cruelty of ordinary light. For a few seconds he did not know why his chest felt heavy.
Then he heard Marissa breathing beside him.
Then he remembered everything.
The cove. The kiss. The blue water. Dane's hand in her hair. Marissa saying she wanted no apology for wanting. Nathan saying he was still there and realizing, too late and exactly on time, that he meant it.
He lay still.
Beside him, Marissa did the same.
"Are you awake?" she asked.
"No."
She laughed softly into the pillow.
The laugh loosened something in him.
He turned onto his side. She was facing away from him, hair messy, shoulders bare above the sheet, every inch of her familiar and altered. He wanted to touch her, but daylight made him cautious in a way moonlight had not.
Marissa solved it by reaching back for his hand.
He took it.
"Coffee?" she asked.
"Probably."
"Coward."
"Absolutely."
They made coffee without speaking much. Nathan measured grounds.
Marissa filled the kettle. Their kitchen looked innocent.
Mail on the counter. A dish towel over the sink.
A magnet from a vacation they had almost forgotten.
Everything seemed to ask whether they intended to bring last night into this room or leave it floating offshore.
Marissa set two mugs on the table and sat across from him.
Nathan knew then that they were not going to escape the conversation.
Good, he thought.
Terrible, he thought.
Good.
"First truth?" Marissa asked.
He wrapped both hands around his mug.
"I woke up scared you would regret it."
She nodded slowly.
"I woke up scared you would punish me for not regretting it."
The sentence hit him harder than accusation would have.
"I don't want to punish you."
"I know. But some punishments are quiet."
Nathan looked down at the coffee.
He knew the quiet ones. Distance. Jokes. A stiff politeness that pretended to be maturity while freezing the room from the inside. He had used them before in smaller arguments, smaller wounds.
"No quiet punishment," he said.
Marissa's shoulders lowered.
"Second truth," she said. "I keep thinking about him."
Nathan closed his eyes for one second.
There it was. Daylight truth. No music beneath it. No water glowing around it. Just his wife at the kitchen table, saying the name without saying it.
He opened his eyes.
"Me too."
Marissa stared at him.
"Really?"
He gave a small, helpless laugh.
"Unfortunately for my self-image, yes."
Her smile appeared and vanished.
"What do you think about?" she asked.
Nathan answered carefully, but not dishonestly.
"The way he waited. The way you looked when you wanted him to kiss you. The way I felt when you looked back to make sure I was still there."
Marissa's eyes filled.
"I needed you there."
"I know."
"Not as permission."
"I know that too."
She reached across the table. He took her hand.
They sat that way while the coffee cooled.
After a while, Marissa said the third truth before he could ask for it.
"I don't want last night to become a secret we never touch again."
Nathan nodded.
"Neither do I."
"But I don't want it to eat us either."
"Then we make rules that protect us, not rules that hide us."
She looked surprised. "That sounds suspiciously wise."
"I may have stolen it from a boat captain."
Marissa laughed, and this time the laugh stayed in the kitchen.
Nathan stood, found a notebook in the drawer, and placed it between them. On the first page he wrote, No vanishing.
Marissa took the pen and added, No quiet punishment.
He wrote, No pretending jealousy is the enemy.
She wrote, No choices without both of us awake enough to make them.
They looked at the list.
It was absurd and serious and frighteningly marital.
Then Marissa added one more line.
If we call him, we call together.
Nathan read it twice.
His pulse changed.
"If," she said softly.
He looked at his wife, at the woman who had come home from the hidden cove and still reached for him across the table.
"If," he agreed.
But the word had already begun to glow.